Nice and Tidy

Well, can you believe it?  We are all done with the work on our home! Here are some pictures to show you how it looks.

My husband added trim around all of the windows painted in Behr “Ultra White”.  He also put up dark gray shutters painted with Behr “Graphic Charcoal”.  We love it.

This is how the windows looked as he did them.  These are the front windows.

This is our nice shady space in the backyard.  We enjoy sitting out here on warm summer nights.

Then, after the windows were all finished, we had a screen company come out and put sunshade cloth on our west facing windows.  That means, the front of the house!  We, also, had them re-screen our Arizona room on the west facing side.  Also, with sunshade, but in a gray color.  That is my cute, little golf cart parked on the side.

The next project is remodeling my husband’s work shop.  Stay tuned for that.

 

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Model Homes

Do you like to tour model homes?  Being a licensed real estate agent in the State of Arizona, I regularly take classes to keep my license current. Recently, the classes have been in some beautiful model homes.

Let me say a little about the builder.  The company is Meritage Homes in Arizona.  Meritage also builds communities elsewhere, but I am familiar with only the homes built in the Phoenix area.

I know you are all aware that the Phoenix area can get warm…okay, HOT! These homes are the only homes in the area built with spray-on, insulating foam.  The rafters in the attic are all sprayed with foam which keeps the attic temperature within ten degrees of the home’s interior temperature. A 3000 square foot home has an electric bill commensurate with a 1500 square foot conventionally built home.  In other words, the utility bills are cut in half.  They have documentation that verifies this.

At each community that I have been to, one model home is usually built with a wall left open to view it’s interior.  Also, the ceiling is open so that you can see the attic and how it is insulated. This room also contains props showing how their homes are built.  They use Low E2 windows throughout, and some homes have solar panels.

Another plus of Meritage is that they partner with Operation Homefront, an organization that supports families of service members and wounded warriors.  If you are interested in knowing more about Meritage Homes, please click their name to visit their website.

However, that is not what this post is about.  What I want to show you, is some of the interior designing that I have enjoyed in a few of the homes.  Sorry for the photo quality – cell phone!

Isn’t this a fun idea for a boy’s room?  Chalk paint is on the wall behind the bed for artistic expression.

This is a boy’s nursery with a barn-like theme.  Those are red bandana squares sewn onto the curtains.

This is in the alcove to a master bedroom.  I really like the unique wall hanging and the mirrored chest.

I am looking for ideas for our master bedroom.  This design is very pleasing to me.  The side lights go well with the overall arrangement and keep a lamp off of the table, which could be nice if your side tables are small.

My last picture is of the master bathroom.  Garden tubs are not something that I desire, but I do like the arrangement of mirrors on the wall above this tub.  I have a thing for mirrored finishes!

Unless you contacted me to refer you as a buyer, I do not receive any compensation for touting Meritage Homes.  This is just for your personal information.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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Pocket Door

Currently, our kitchen looks like this!  I neglected to keep you updated with the progress.

My husband and son are preparing to install a pocket door.  The door will replace this section of removed wall.

The door will lead from the kitchen into my future studio.  This is how my studio looks today. It’s basically a storage area!

This morning, my husband ordered the counter tops. We can continue to work on the kitchen while we wait for the counter tops to be built.  Not all upper cabinets are installed, yet.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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Not My Husband’s Favorite

Plumbing is not my husband’s favorite thing to do.  It tends to lead to more work.  Pipes get corroded and sometimes break while you work on them.  Or other miscellaneous problems occur.  That was not the case this time as he moved our pipes from the floor to the wall.

As usual, when he took the drywall off of the wall, he discovered something.  We are always discovering ‘something’.  This time, it was a good thing!  We found that our exterior walls are built with 2×6’s.  Since we live in Phoenix, that is a good thing.

This means that our walls are R-19 for insulation.  You can never have too much insulation, right?

My husband cut a hole in the floor so he wouldn’t have to go under the house to do the plumbing change.  You can see where the pipes used to be and where they are now.  When he cut the hole in the floor he discovered gray pipes that went nowhere.  They are what is left of the original plumbing which has all been replaced with CPVC pipe.  Remember, this is a manufactured home built in 1985.

Our son showed up again, which made for some quick work. Yes, those windows are on a list to be replaced!

Doesn’t my husband do a nice, tidy job?  The kitchen is getting closer to the mud stage.  I hate that part.  Dust EVERYWHERE!

I am looking forward to the finished product.  Am I being patient?  Not really.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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South and West Walls

Now that we have caught up considerably, let me show you what we are currently doing.  A few days ago, my son came over and helped to demolish the south and west walls of our kitchen.

I emptied all of the cabinets and put the items who knows where?  Anywhere that I could find space, that’s where!  Then the cabinets came out.

My husband and son work well together and had the cabinets out in a very short time!

Our city has a wonderful free program.  Once every three months they have a bulk pick up of any large items that you want to get rid of.  We were able to get our kitchen broken up and at the street for the next day’s pick up. 

The trash is gone and we are on to the next project – moving the indoor plumbing from the floor to the wall.  Stay tuned, folks, MacGyver lives here.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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About the ads that follow: They are not placed by me  and are not associated with this post.  They are placed by WordPress on blogs that are free.  Thank you for your understanding.

What’s New?

What’s new?  Well, I finally added the curtain in the laundry room.  I made it to hide the ugly faucets and drain.  I picked a cheerful pattern of fabric from my local Hobby Lobby.  Don’t you LOVE that store?

Here is how it looks now.

I also hung the small bulletin board on the wall.  That’s where we keep our name tags and visitor tags.  It keeps them handy to grab on our way out the door.  We live in a gated community and they like us to wear them when in the community club house or other community areas. We have a lot of visitor tags, because we have a lot of grandchildren!  They feel special when they wear them over to play tennis with us.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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About the ads that follow: They are not placed by me  and are not associated with this post.  They are placed by WordPress on blogs that are free.  Thank you for your understanding.

 

Kitchen Demo

We had company come for a week and so we put things on hold while we enjoyed them.  After they left, we ripped out one side of the kitchen.  We’ve already been living without an oven (it didn’t work) and range (it had a gas leak).  We moved the microwave to a desk in the entry way.  All of our meals are raw or cooked by microwave.

I removed the contents of the cabinets.  My husband removed the microwave and oven.

Then we ripped it all off of the wall and made a trip to the refuse transfer station (dump).

The electrical was quite convoluted.  My husband had to discern what was what and straighten it all out.  He simplified and moved the outlets.  Also, repaired the drywall.

Manufactured homes are delivered and installed in sections.  Ours is two sections.  The floor was low between the dining room and kitchen right where the two halves meet.  My husband took up the floor to see if there was damage to the sub-floor.  Thankfully, there is not.  He has called a leveler to come and level our home for us.

We just bought the big screen TV to console ourselves.  😉  It’s almost embarrassing to show pictures like this.  But, it’s a process.  Things will change.  Won’t they?

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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About the ads that follow: They are not placed by me  and are not associated with this post.  They are placed by WordPress on blogs that are free.  Thank you for your understanding.

 

 

 

Peel and Stick Tiles

We have been using peel and stick vinyl tiles our entire 40 years of marriage.  We like them.  Our last home had ceramic tiles in the bathrooms and kitchen.  Guess what?  We tore them up and put down vinyl floors.

Vinyl flooring is warmer on your feet and I am the barefoot queen.  It’s also less likely that what you drop will break.  Ceramic and other hard surface tiles are just that…hard!  They are bad for your feet.  When I go barefooted on a cold, hard, tile floor, I get cramps in my feet.  I don’t experience that with vinyl flooring.

Enough of that.  Yesterday, we had a little time in the afternoon to actually lay the tile in the laundry room.  My husband likes to make things last as long as possible, so he began by applying a glue to the wood flooring before I laid the tiles.

You need only a small amount of the glue on the floor.  We just use it to add a little extra sticking power to the peel and stick tiles.  That is the same container of glue that we used at our last home to install  kitchen, three bathrooms, and laundry room floors.  It will last a lifetime, I think.

The glue we used is Premium Tile Adhesive for vinyl composition tile (VCT) by Armstrong.  The directions said to use a smooth edged trowel, but he used the smallest serrated edge.

Applying it to the floor took about 10-15 minutes.  Then we had to wait 30 minutes for it to dry to a tacky state.

Some people have ideas about what is the ‘correct’ place or way to begin the floor.  There are actually a lot of ways to decide where to start.  Our floor was 8’4″ from back door to the hallway door.  Since we didn’t want 2″ pieces of tile on each end, we opted to begin at the hallway door and tile across to the back door leaving 4″ cuts at that edge.  Crosswise didn’t matter since both sides will be underneath either the washer and dryer, or the cabinets.

We are happy with the look and color.  Next step, baseboards and corner moldings.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can also chat with me on Facebook or follow me on Pinterest.

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About the ads that follow: They are not placed by me  and are not associated with this post.  They are placed by WordPress on blogs that are free.  Thank you for your understanding.