Save Big Money at...

During our time remodeling, many a trip has been been to home improvement stores, mostly Menards because not only can you save big money there, but it is conveniently located 20 minutes from our house. While spending hundreds of dollars every trip (or thousands when buying cabinets, toilets, and vanities at Baileys) has become a norm, there is still a bit of sticker shock every time we check out and hear the cashier sing (because they are that excited to tell us how much we owe them), "That will be (a gajillion) dollars". However, more than the hours of time and hundreds of dollars spilled on every trip, the reactions of the cashiers are never less than priceless; we often ponder why they never see big purchases for big renovations at a home improvement store, but they always look at us like we are aliens.

Anyway, this last trip to Menards for foil faced foam and plumbing necessities -PVC and what not- landed us with the most amusing reactions. As Dad, Ryan, and I pulled our 3 carts up to the checkout, the cashier next door cheerily chirped "I can help someone on aisle 6." When I informed her that we were all together, her eyes got big and she asked what kind of big project this was for. She was satisfied with a reply of remodeling a house, however, our checkout boy in aisle 5 could not figure out what we might be working on, so while he was ringing up the cart full of PVC 90's, 45's, Y's, and other such connectors, he asked in a very confused tone, as if he had been pondering it for awhile and with much emphasis, "What are you building?" I don't know, maybe he thought we were constructing some sort of tunnel with PVC, but Ryan, with an amused grin on his face simply replied, "a house." The checkout boy seemed to except the answer, but I could tell he was cracking up inside at the ridiculousness of us and our project. Glad we could bring some excitement to what I can only imagine might have been a relatively boring Sunday afternoon- you are welcome Menards checkout boy.

Some other things we have learned is that Menards sales last longer than they say they will, and they are sometimes only 2 cents off the regular price, like foil faced foam board-normally $10.96 on sale for a limited time for... $10.94. Save big money folks! However, Rocky and Brett, our dear Menards friends from the roofing and siding section have been quite good to us and don't seem to be quite so shocked with our orders. On the other hand, our cashier at Lowe's was so shocked with our purchase of faucets and drains for 2 showers, 2 vanities, and a kitchen sink that she almost gave us $40 in cash after our exact credit card payment for the purchases. And I am pretty sure Elaine, of Bailey's Warehouse in North Judson won the competition between her colleagues for most sales after we ordered our complete custom kitchen cabinets complete with counter top and sink, and 2 vanities, 2 medicine cabinets, 2 vanity tops, and 2 toilets. You're welcome Elaine for allowing you to get off early on Monday.

Needless to say, we have spent our fair amount of time in hardware stores over the past few months, and quite frankly I can find my way around in there like a man.

From The Beginning...

So let me catch you up a bit...

On Friday, March 27, 2010, after searching for many and looking at two houses, my fiance Ryan and I sealed the deal on a real beauty! Let me tell you, she came fully loaded with wood paneling, puke green carpet, and a beautiful shade of teal in the kitchen-walls and ceiling. Here's a couple of photos so you can try to picture it yourself.



Note the paneling and ceiling tile.

And the beautiful paint in the kitchen.


So anyway, after closing on Friday, we tore into her on Sunday, ripping up floors and tearing off ceiling tile (which was located on the ceiling and the walls in the upstairs), pulling out billions of nails, and leaving nothing in there but the studs and the nasty carpet padding that was plastered to the floor of the living room. After a few weeks of dust masks and dirt, we were ready to start the roofing, and after a three hour trip to Menards (little did I know that it would be the first of many lengthy trips), the shingles were ordered and soon-to-be delivered to our work site. This is said nasty carpet padding.

The re-roofing was a bit depressing, as it took a bit longer than I expected, but after ripping off shingles, shake shingles, adding overhangs around the entire house, working around the charming but annoying-to-roof "A", and then beginning the re-roofing portion of the project, we found ourselves a bit discouraged and a bit further into the project than we expected. Did I mention we got engaged in January and have an August deadline (aka. the wedding)? But alas, we could work inside without the fear of rain...and so the project continued.
New roof! Notice the over hangs!

We moved on to putting up the frames for the new walls, which was completed at a much more encouraging speed than the roof. However, we did have to add more supports to the ceiling so that our future bedroom didn't fall through on us, and move a couple of walls. We also had to tear out the upstairs window to get the shower in so that we could build the walls around it (no worries though; we were going to replace that window anyway). Soon windows and doors were being framed in, and siding was being torn off (all million layers of siding mind you). In fact that became a couple Saturdays project for the women-folk (me, my future mother-in-law and one of my future sister-in-laws), and I truly wish we had been in the state of mind to take pictures of how disgusting we were after working in the hot sun all day being coated by bugs, dirt, more bugs, and more dirt. The amount of bugs underneath our siding (and I am sure your siding too-makes you feel really good, huh?) was incredible, and by that I mean disgusting! Those stupid little orange lady bugs that stink when you touch them- completely coating our house underneath our siding, and they weren't just underneath the vinyl, but also underneath the foam that came next, the shake siding that came after that, and the tar paper that came after that. Needless to say, millions of shakes and trillions of nails and bugs later, the siding was off, and the foil-faced foam insulation was ready to take its place on our house. Newly de-sided.


Just a few of our little friends.

What way does foil-faced foam go- foil side up or white side up- you might ask. As that is what we pondered as well, and a couple of phone calls to friends and family later, we were stuck at the same dilemma. So we called our dear friend Brett and Menards and ended up with foil out (hope you were right Brett- we placed our trust in him after he shaved off some dollars for us in the siding order, the next agonizingly long trip to our favorite store). So on went the insulation and the tyvek (although we did resort to the menards wrap which was a free gift, so to all of the tyvek snobs out there don't think I don't know the difference). A glimpse of Josiah's graphing skills put in place for our curved A roof.

TaDa!!

So while our house was being sealed up from the outside, Ryan's dad has been diligently working on heat, air, and electric, and after adding concrete block around our utility room whose wood formerly sat in direct contact with our forest of a yard, my dad was looking into the beginnings of plumbing.

Maybe tomorrow (or the next time I have time to write because I am not at the pool lifeguarding, working at the house, or staying up far later than I should be to blog) I will fill you in up to current and include some more fun anecdotes, but for now, I think this should be enough for your reading pleasure. Enjoy, look at the photo albums on Facebook, and take notes on what not to do, like buy a house in order to completely renovate it only five months before your wedding. After all, despite having confidence in the fact that we will have a wonderful home when this is all done, one of Ryan's new favorite quotes is "remind me never to do this again, ever."