The progress of our renovation
The new year starts with plastering the ceiling. With all the practice I have been getting, I’d say I am getting pretty good at it.
We pick the final colours and decide on a bold accent colour in the form of dark navy blue.
Meanwhile we find a nice spot light for the couch area of the room. Amazing how the right light can improve the atmosphere in the room so much.
The first part of the floor really stimulates to finish the rest. On one side of the stove there was a higher piece of concrete I didn’t see use for, so I took it out. This way the floor nicely formed around the stove. By the end of the day the floor was one and we moved in the sofa and one of the chairs. It looked great.
The next day we picked up some stuff from Mo’s mothers place. The other chair, the hocker and finally the amplifier and speakers. Finally decent sound in the house. We spend nice time listening to CDs and LPs. Mo took two big paintings she thought would fit nicely in the big wall. She sure has an eye for this.
I also tried to find a solution for the extractor hood that had a too short chimney. I contacted company specialized in stainless steel and ask one of the other Dutchies in town who’s father in law is in the business. Hopefully we can finish this part soon.
Finally Ikea send a message about the last fronts we where missing. So after picking them up, I could finally finish the kitchen. Well, almost finish as the cables for the counter lights are still missing. But it looks awesome! We also got new pots and pan as we now have an induction hub. I got them at the horeca wholesale store for a very nice price.
In the living room it finally time for the wooden floor and the painting of the stove with a special heat resistant paint (just in case we ever fire it up again). Mo does the painting and I am putting in the floor. A very productive day !
At work in the marketplace channel someone offered two glass tables which fit nicely with the sofa and chairs I inherited from my grandparents, after I picket them up I was happy to see this was very true, only the type of would is different, so they are a bit lighter, but the design is very fitting.
During the weekend I fixed up the tile stove and made a cove around the brick chimney, to make it a bit more attractive. This sure made a good difference.
Now the cabinets have gotten their final place the countertop can be measured. The guy from Granimar came with er very nice tool to do the measurements. It is a box with a pen on a wire. Because of the wire it knows how far away from the box the pen is and because of the pressure from the wire it also knows the direction relative to the box. Apart from that there is a touch screen with some CAD software and in no-time the design was made. It should take 1-2 weeks to be ready.
During the week we have visited Ikea to pick up some new kitchen parts and double check some stuff in the showroom. We also found a nice mirror for the bathroom, which is part of our temporary kitchen.
On Sunday put a thin layer of plaster on the walls in the living room to make sure the surface has the same structure as we decided not to put fiber glass wall paper on the walls here. As there was the first Formula 1 race in Zandvoort this century on, I connected my laptop to a TV screen so I could follow it while working.
The first thing to finish was the bathroom ceiling. The majority of the work was done already, only the main ceiling had to be put in, plastered and painted. This went pretty smooth.
In between we moved the temporary kitchen to the garage and made it into a pretty cozy kitchen. The only thing missing was running water and a sink, but this was fixed with a the vacation jerrycan and a bucket. It is temporary anyway. Soon we will be able to use a real kitchen.
Finally we could also put in the cabinet in the bathroom. At first I thought of building a cabinet, but when I found out it would fit a stock cabinet from Ikea with matching wooden doors, the choice was easy. Just in time for the arrival of my dad. It was good seeing him again in Tallinn. Looking forward to all the work we have planned.
The first thing we planned to do was take out the floor in the living room/kitchen and make it completely level. So taking out all the floor boards again. Minor detail was then we had build the insulation and walls over the floor, so we had to cut the floor. My old cheap jigsaw broke, so time to replace it for a real one. For some parts this was not the best solution either, so we also got a little circular saw blade for on an angle grinder. A scary tool that got the job done nicely.
With the floor out, we had to find out how big the difference was. After a lot of measuring we found out the difference between the highest and lowest point of the floor was almost 5,5 cm. No wonder the floor was wavy. We put in screws at the measuring points to visualize what we needed to fix and decided to screw some straight beams against the sacked beams.
With just one week to go until we have a house full of people, we are trying to get as far as possible. The walls in the kitchen is finished. Marc helps out with filling the screw holes.
Later in the week Jeff comes to help out with the ceiling. We start by putting metal stud up. Another great use for the laser.
Towards the end of the week we are just a day short to put the plaster plate on the ceiling, but it is already such a big difference from a month earlier. Time for a wedding party. We’ll be back somewhere after.
After some easier straight walls, this week the more fun parts came up. I had to make a cove around the sever pipe and cover the chimney. Which also made us plan the kitchen a bit more, as the size of the cove would be influenced by what we want to put against it. We decided to have an extra cabinet there, likely partly with either doors on either side or shelves that are reachable form either side. We’ll see in the future.
After a short visit to the Netherlands and our first Corona test, we had to stay at home till the next test or 10 days. Plenty of time to focus on the living room!
We started by taking out the closet and the beds from om temporary bedroom. Since next month we will have some extra people staying over, we created two guestrooms. One on the attic of the garage and one in the future studio.
Once the room was empty I could start putting the the last pieces on insulation material at the top of the wall. then I put in the first holes for the power plugs, put in the metal stud and the first plaster plates.
In the mean time Mo painted the window sills in Mattias his room.
Soon I found out we had to make some decisions on where we would like to the furniture in the living room, as that influences the location of the power plugs and network connections. Still a lot of work was done.
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