Making progress on the house?

When we bought our house, we knew we wanted to do some work on the upstairs.  We even brought a contractor through on one of our walk throughs once we had the place under contract!  Once we moved in, though, it seemed like everything started conspiring against us and planning for the upstairs came to a screeching halt.

Instead, we turned out attention to the kitchen because our refrigerator was drying.  Unfortunately, the idiot who installed the kitchen had notched the granite so that it surrounded the fridge, thus making it impossible to get the fridge out without first removing a cabinet (or lifting the counter-top).  It took us a couple of weeks, but we managed to get that taken care of.

Then, the first floor toilet got clogged.  The plumber came out to fix, and we thought we were in the clear.  We should have known better…  The toilet clogged again a few days later, and this time it started backing up into the tub.  Oops!  The plumber came out again and took a look around, and quickly discovered that the piping for the bathroom was done wrong.  So, the next project is to redo the piping in the bathroom, which also involves tearing up the bathroom floor.  Good thing I didn’t really like this bathroom!  On top of that, the tub is cracked, so that needs to be replaced.  OK, let’s gut the bathroom and start over.

Now, back to the upstairs.  We own a 1926 Chicago Bungalow.  The attic space has been completed, and the former owners used part of it as a bedroom, and the other part is a “rec room”.  We decided that’s a huge waste of space, so we’re going to turn the upstairs into a master suite.  We met with a friend who’s also an architect, and he drew a couple of sketches for us.  But, he doesn’t have the time to work with us, and isn’t yet licensed in the city.  Thankfully, he recommended a former colleague who left the firm and started his own architecture company.  When we met with the new guy, John, we liked his ideas, and he seemed like a really nice guy (he had also clearly done his homework because he was thoroughly prepared!).

I’m hoping that we can keep this forward progress moving and get started on the bathroom and the upstairs project soon.  Let’s be real, I’m getting tired of going to the basement to use the bathroom.

Bathroom that needs to be redone

Upstairs – Eventually will be a master suite

Granite notched around fridge

Our house

2009 OktoberCross – Carpentersville

Main Street Bikes created a kick ass course that was interesting enough to keep my attention!  Normally, I kind of space out while riding.  To quote Mel, “I’m just doin’ my ride.”

Leading into the race yesterday, I was immensely scared of the “pump” section.  I knew it would be a spot for great pictures, but I had no idea that so many people would crash or nearly crash there.  When I saw one rider face plant on the pump section, landing on his cheek, that’s when my anxiety level increased.  The first two times that I went through that section, I took a big breath at the top of the hill and then just went for it.  By the last two times through,  I was actually enjoying that section the most and had fun going through there!

Photos are posted on picasa. I had trouble uploading them to dotphoto (kept getting stupid error messages), so I finally gave up and put them on picasa instead.  Enjoy!

2009 Dan Ryan Woods – BBVP Cross

When we lived in the condo, I hated Comcast because our internet constantly went out.  When we moved to the house, we switched to RCN.  The service is more reliable so far, but much much slower.  It took freaking forever for my photos to upload.  But, they are finally finished.  Check ’em out!

2009 Dekalb Cross

Photos are posted.  It’s homecoming week at school, so I don’t have time for much of anything this week.  But, hopefully I’ll find time to post a few pictures on my sorely neglected blog later this week.