Renovation – Phase II

 Welcome back my friends to Phase II of the great renovation at the Hotel Thompson.  Phase II was an ordeal – almost worse than Phase I in my book.  In Phase II we had an electrician out.  The one thing that the hub unit has always complained about in the living room is that there is *not* enough light.  The hub unit has limited vision and when things are dark, it wipes out what vision he does have which is not much but everything counts, right?

 So one of the first things I did was to have an electrician go up into the attic and install a ceiling fan.  First, it would be great to have some air circulation and second it would have LIGHT.  I have to admit, that this is one of my favorite things about the renovation.  It was a great addition and you will see the final results on Friday.

Also during this time, I kept going back to the floor we ordered.  Something just didn’t sit right with me.  I talked it over with the hub and he told me then that if I had doubts, I needed to call the contractor then and there to discuss it before they were installed.  We had the contractor come back out on 4/12/2015 to go over more flooring ideas.  I’m glad I did because I saw a flooring color that I absolutely fell in love with so we changed it.  While the contractor was out, we also asked him to look at our bathroom floor – it really needed to be changed as well.  After reviewing the prices with him on the bathroom floor, it was a no brainer to go ahead and have it completed as well.  After speaking with the contractor, I knew the right decision had been made and we were set for the flooring.

But then at 6:55PM on Sunday night 4/12/2015, we received a phone call from American Signature Furniture which set me in a turmoil.  The lady that called advised that the furniture we ordered was back ordered until JUNE 2, 2015. What?!  And better yet, the store called us at five minutes until closing to advise us of this information.  And better yet to that, we had upgraded our internet services to fiber optics and did not know that the company had installed a voice mail on our telephone.  The date we bought our furniture and expressing that it had to be in by April 16, 2015, they called us a couple of days after that on 4/2/2015 and said that the furniture was back ordered and would be delivered on April 28th.  Now talk about nerves and stress.  American Signature Furniture was given two telephone numbers to contact – our house number and my cell number.  Not one time did they try to call the cell and we just happened to be at home the evening of 4/12/2015 to speak with the lady about being back ordered until June 2.

Of course, I didn’t sleep well this night.  I was worried about our furniture!  I called the headquarters of American Signature Furniture the next morning 4/13/2015 and advised our situation.  They told me specifically that a manager from the store would call me between 10-10:30AM that day.  At noon, I had not received any calls.  I called the headquarters again and was advised they were still in the works in getting in touch with someone at the store.  Finally around 1PM, the same lady that called me the night before called (who was NOT the manager).  She advised that the only thing she could do was refund our delivery fee.  Shakes head.  How stressful huh?  I advised her that I wanted to speak to the STORE manager.  She told me that he didn’t come in until after 2PM and she would give him the message.

By 3:30PM, no one had called me.  The more I thought about the situation, the more I got ticked.  Just a heads up, don’t tick off a woman who has purged, cleaned and stuck to a schedule to get things done in three weeks.  I left work early, picked up the hub unit and we went to Ashley’s Furniture where I met the nicest manager ever – Angela.  I was up front with her on everything – we needed furniture by Friday 4/17/2015, what I wanted and what had happened.   Within 20 minutes, I found better furniture that I absolutely LOVED, better attitudes, bigger fireplace and friendlier staff.  I highly recommend this store.  AND it gave me great pleasure to go to American Signature Furniture and advise them that I wanted a refund of nearly $3,000.00 due to their service… which by the way a manager has yet to ever call me.  I call that piss poor customer service.

Phase II included all of the tribulations of furniture and then on 4/15/2015 the painting began.  Lord help me if I *ever* see another paint brush my entire life – LOL.  I asked the ‘kids’ to invite their fellow anipals over to the Hotel Thompson for a paint party that included food but unfortunately not one single person showed up.  Who would have thought that, right?  So much for the anipals and kids helping out.  Although, Houdini did try and was almost a Smurf when he attacked the blue paint.  That’s right.  Houdini attacked a blue paint roller.  I immediately picked him up and washed him off.  And I have to admit that there might be some snout marks on one of the lower walls in the living room.  And yes.  I left them there 🙂

 So you are asking what colors I chose?  Well this is one wall and one color.  With the hub unit’s vision impairment, he couldn’t help with the painting so it was in my hands – literally.  I painted for NINE hours straight.  Up/down/on the floor/standing up.  After NINE hours, I called a break.  We went to dinner, rested for a bit and then I came back and did TWO more hours of painting.

Let me add that usually painting doesn’t bother me.  It can be fun for a while.  After 11 hours though, it is a nightmare.  I have never gotten up/down so much from the ladder and chair working in trim.  Heaven forbid – I didn’t know you could hurt in some areas that I hurt.  Let alone when we finally crashed that night, I dreamed about painting and was moving my hands in my sleep with the brush.

 This is the same wall showing how the paint dried.  Pretty huh?  This is the darkest color I used.  It is on the entry way wall and one wall that goes from the living room into the kitchen.

By the time I finished the last wall, I had fallen off the ladder once.  No biggie just a big scratch on my leg.  My legs hurt from getting up and down.  My arms hurt from going up and down with the brush. I had multiple colors of paint all over me.  And who knew you could have bruises on top of bruises.  Was it worth it?  At the end of Phase II, I was definitely questioning myself if I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Remember to come back tomorrow for Phase III.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Renovation – Phase I

Hello all!  This is Bacon’s mom here.  I wanted to break down the entire renovation and share our experience of ups and downs throughout the process.  Today is Phase I which includes the start of everything.  Our house was cluttered.  Pure and simple it was.  We have been here 16 LONG years and throughout those years, we have had many surgeries, illnesses and taking care of family members that some things taken second – like the house unfortunately 😦

I was having a couple of weeks of feeling good physically. One never knows how long these days last when you have rheumatoid arthritis.  So when I told the hub unit I was ready to do it, he couldn’t believe me.  We made an appointment with the floor guy first.  We *had* to get rid of this awful carpet that had seen way better days.

The appointment was made 3/28/2015 with the flooring peeps.  They came out and we went over all of the measurements and looked at the different types of flooring that was available.  My husband gave me full reign over the remodeling so I picked a tan flooring.  We signed the paperwork and picked the date of 4/16/2015 for installation. This gave us a little under three weeks to de-clutter, purge and get the house in shape for the floor.  No small feat with what we had to work with as you can see from the pictures.

This same date, we went furniture shopping.  A joyful occasion to most… except me.  I despise shopping for anything.  The most important factor was that whatever we picked the hub had to LOVE his sofa.  I personally wanted something in the way of an oversized chair with an ottoman, etc – something that would be absolutely comfortable when I came home from work at the end of the day.  We went to a company called American Signature Furniture and picked out a sofa, an oversized chair, an ottoman and an electric fireplace mantle.  Sounds like heaven huh?  We expressed several times that the furniture had to be delivered on 4/17/2015, the day after the floor installation.

Now as you can see from these pictures of the living room, there was a LOT to clean.  I basically wanted to clear out everything and start fresh.  But in order to get to the bare basics, I had to de-clutter and separate items into (1) Keep; (2) Donate; and (3) Junk.  Just looking at the pictures you can tell that it was an overwhelming feat to start.  If anyone is in the same position as we were, two words – BABY STEPS.  I had a calendar and every night when I came home from work and on the weekends, we hit a different spot.  Slowly, things started going away.  AND, you know what we learned from all of this?  Letting go can be medicinal and therapeutic.  We made three trips alone to the Goodwill donation center down the street in the first couple of days.  I know that our garbage collection company probably thought what are they up to because we had loads of stuff we threw away.  Phase I took us the longest to get through – 9 days.

And then came the date that we asked Salvation Army to come to the house on 4/9/2015.  They actually had to make two trips because we gave it all away:  sofa, love seat, entertainment center, china cabinet, hutch, kitchen table, six chairs, rugs.

After they left, we cleaned more and started making a pile of trash.  On 4/11/2015, we had 1-800 Got Junk to come out to the house.  This junk company will come to your house and pick up your trash.  According to how much you have to fill their truck, is how much they charge you.  We had scheduled them to come out on this date between 3:30-5:30pm.  To our advantage, they were running late so (1) we got to pick up and clean more and (2) the later they were we got a discount – which is always a great thing in my book.

The company *finally* got at the Hotel Thompson around 8:30PM – which they had been calling throughout the day to keep us aware of their schedule.  I never got upset with them and it was a good thing.  Other people had in their schedule.  They came to our house and gave us a $125.00 discount for waiting.  So it cost only $100.00 for them to come in, lift and take out our final junk.  A bargain in my book because by this time we were so over lifting.

Now our neighbors had been watching all of the activity happening at our house in the pass 9 days.  Word got back to us that we were moving which we laughed off.  Nope – we were just doing some MAJOR spring cleaning.  All of this work was Phase I – come back tomorrow for Phase II my friends 🙂