DRIVEWAY
The driveway repair is suspect at this point. And by suspect, I mean that two people have looked at it and basically said “Uhh, I wouldn’t do the epoxy. I would redo the entire driveway.” Luckily, one of those guys was the epoxy guy the builder sent, and hopefully he will tell the builder the exact thing. Basically, it would be so much time and work to do the epoxy coating that it would be better to do a new driveway. So we’ll see.
COUNTERTOPS
The counters won’t be installed until the end of the month. But, we’re really looking forward to it, since we’re also able to change the edge style from straight block to dripless (which means the edge had just a bit of a ridge on it so liquid won’t run off the edge). I never knew such a thing existed until we went looking at new countertops.
DISHWASHER
We will be replacing our dishwasher. We hate it that much. The good news is that the store where it was purchased will take it back and give us credit towards a unit of our choice, plus $100 to do the uninstall/install. Our other option is to buy the one we want from Lowe’s (yes, we’ve already found it) then sell ours on our own. In actuality, the cost of both are probably about the same (if the store price-matches Lowe’s), but if there ends up to be a huge price difference, we will do whatever is the cheapest. Tom is finding out today if there’s any way around the $100 install charges AND if the appliance store can get the unit we want.
SITTING ROOM / LIVING ROOM / FIREPLACE ROOM
We still don’t know what to call this room…it’s a living room, but our actual living room is upstairs with the TV. I like the idea of calling it a sitting room, but then what do we call the very front room with the chair and small TV? It’s the room with the fireplace, but fireplace room sounds stupid. So, whatever room it is, it’s painted. It took about 5-6 combined hours last weekend, but it’s done. Well, almost done. We planned ahead where we wanted to stop the paint (so we didn’t get into the 2-story foyer walls), but now that it’s painted, we see there’s one more regular wall we have to do. And…unfortunately…we will end up having to paint the 2-story walls. One wall goes up the staircase, which opens into a 2-story stairwell. We had tried to just go straight across…and it wouldn’t have looked TOO awful, except the tape we used pulled off part of the wall, so it has to be fixed. We just have to figure out how to paint it now…we have a ladder that should help, but it makes me nervous since it’s ON the stairwell. I told Tom I don’t want to do it and I don’t think I want to be there when HE does it!
FOYER
We decided to try and paint the 2-story foyer/entrance (not sure when, just that we are going to do it). We weren’t sure we could, but when Tom found out how much it would cost to have the painter guys do it ($150 or so), he decided we could try first. We had an easy time with the color, although I can’t describe it well (grayish tan? medium mocha? cocoa?) so you’ll just have to wait to see the pictures—or the paint chip if I scan it and post it. We didn’t want it to clash with the red dining room, so we picked the neutral color that appeared on the same “design” card. It will also go nicely with the smoky blue living room/sitting room/fireplace room!
KITCHEN ISLANDS
We have two new islands (as told in earlier posts). They aren’t perfect (the kitchen looks a tad cluttered with the big stainless commercial rack, but there’s no way around it) but they hold our stuff and gives me more counter space. The big commercial rack will hold our pots/pans, so we won’t have a pot rack. We’ll see how this works…we may end with a pot rack if we don’t like the pots/pans on shelves!
MASTER BATH
This is our project for this weekend…wish us luck!