Well 15 weeks in I’ve pretty much run out of analogies for “things moving forward,” so I’m just going to leave it as this: WE HAVE FINISHES!!!!
This week the guys ran around with paint brushes after the plasterers, and before the flooring-ers, working on getting things more or less painted before the flooring is installed.
Tile was also installed in all of the bathrooms. I am really happy with how it came out! In the 2nd and 3rd Floor bathrooms, the location was a tricky spot for the tub… I had wanted to use a fiberglass tub surround for ease of cleaning, (ok and budget too). But here’s the kicker: they don’t make corner tub surrounds… they are all made with 3 sides. According to some people, the solution to this was to build a wall in front of the window to frame out the tub. Uh, yeah… no way. So we figured out how to hack a 3 sided tub surround into working as a corner unit by just not installing the back wall. We then tied the tile into the seams where that wall should have been, and there you have it: a pretty spiffy looking tub surround. The guys also assembled all of the vanities I bought last week… you can see one of them here waiting to be installed.
The same guys who installed the tile floors are also installing all of the laminate flooring in the building… so they delivered all of the flooring for the entire project. I was pretty impressed with that pile… filling up an entire storage unit in the basement from floor to ceiling!
And then… because I guess they couldn’t help themselves, they put down the laminate in the whole 3rd floor!
-insert gasp here-
-oooooh-
-aaahhhh-
-clap clap clap-
The flooring is kind of dusty in these pictures- they had just finished installing. I am really happy with it even though it’s not the color range I was originally thinking (I had envisioned something in the wide plank pine family) The sub who was installing the floors had this really high quality stuff but the only problem was this is the only color they had I even remotely liked that had the wide plank. And so this is the result of quality + taste + budget= You don’t always get exactly what you want, sometimes you get what’s better. And these floors are pretty dreamy. Between the quality of the actual planks and the superawesome underlayment they put down under them, you feel like you’re walking on hardwood. Seriously.
You may have been so excited about the flooring that you didn’t notice in the above pictures that they also got a lot of the baseboard and door trim installed! And… the kitchen cabinets assembled. The lower ones that were actually delivered anyway…
And here (finally) are the formerly missing wall cabinets… picked up and delivered by yours truly. In case you ever wondered how many IKEA flat-pack boxes you can fit in a Honda Civic, it’s this many. Exactly.
And so that wraps up the saga of the kitchen cabinets. I’ll close the ordeal out by saying that Ikea’s prices and design are basically unmatched. Their lead time (at least here in Pittsburgh) is insane as well. Basically the day you order your cabinets is the day you drive away with them- compared to a 4-6 week wait from somewhere like Home Depot. Of course I ordered the cabinets 3-4 weeks ago and we still don’t have all of the proper parts and pieces… so it’s looking like in all reality we’ll be on the 4-6 week schedule anyway. It’s a good thing I was early!
It took them the first 2 weeks after delivery to figure out that my wall cabinets are gone. All of them, just gone. Disappeared from the face of the earth gone. Add to that, they are also discontinued! So I can’t just to back to Ikea and get more… they don’t even have more, and won’t have more again ever. I should be super mad, but honestly this was actually another tiny blessing from the good old design gods. You see, after I ordered the cabinets I totally changed my mind about which upper cabinets to use. But, I couldn’t return the old ones and still keep my hefty 20% discount so stuck I was. Until… they all got lost. Convenient huh? I swear I had no hand in this. So I was refunded for the lost cabinets, and bought the ones I had actually already changed my mind to wanting. Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?
That’s it for this week… pretty exciting seeing finishes go down, huh? Stay tuned next week for more painting, more trim, and some completely finished out bathrooms: sinks, fixtures, lights and all! There will also be an intermittent “then and now” post between now and then. Hang tight, I can’t wait for that one either.
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