The Money Pit The Work is Progressing

Here's a few pics of the progress to having our hot water heater on one side of our #retrorenovation duplex break, flooding BOTH sides. The work was getting done pretty quickly, what with so many in our area having flooded homes from Feb.'s freeze and needing renovation services.

TOP TO BOTTOM: Yay, for brass/gold hardware side!
My little helper painting to cover some of the old green #leadpaint
Yay, farmhouse sink!

And then...nothing...and then, all heck broke loose. In just a matter of about four weeks, we got all the duplex flooring/baseboards and the cabinets replaced, and some flooded doors fixed, and had chosen/bought all sinks, faucets, its first-ever dishwasher, a new garbage disposal and tile backsplashes.

Then for 2 weeks nothing happened - we'd already paid for our quartz countertop slabs but just couldn't schedule them. Then, when they did show up, here's how they cut them (hot water heaters were supposed to have a butcher block on top of them).

We were in a race because we had 7 people coming to stay (in addition to us 4) on July 1. (Counters were getting installed June 29 or so? We were even still thinking we could also get the backsplashes done on June 30!)

So here is a list of all that went wrong between then and now: 1. Counters were cut wrong - they were able to re-cut the one cut too large, but just had to add on to the edge of the one cut too small, and put a small seam. I'm happy to get the $500 back we negotiated, but Mike is picky about the seam...

2. Had the electrician out b/c a new electric box we had installed to make the garbage disposal, you know, work (old box no longer worked), stopped working. Meanwhile, he was getting shocked by outlets in our Unit 2 kitchen. He said that whole Unit 2 kitchen needed rewiring because as the codes changed, the updates people made did not follow code.

3. The non-problematic (or so we thought) Unit 2 hot water heater seemed to go out while we had house of 11 people...and when Mike messed with it, smoke came out, plus he got shocked. We had tried not to have to replace this one too for obvious no-time/cash flow (at this point) reasons, plus it would have to be brought up to code - which was an ordeal that included drilling through our concrete walls to put in a drain (which is obviously a good thing to have - see the fact that our whole place got flooded b/c of the lack of one on Unit 1).

4. Mouse. I saw our first-ever mouse inside that house WHILE we had our guests sitting right outside the door. We quietly tried to put out enough traps to kill it after heading to store the next morning (we found a trap and put PB on it the first night...it enjoyed the PB but did not get caught). BUT it went over to the side where ONLY guests were, and were sleeping in the open area connected to the kitchen. So they saw it, and had to sleep terrified all night. However, the next night we caught it...and were even tinkering in the the room where it was...it was not scared of us! Not sure if the various construction made it able to get in easier.

5. Unit 1 kitchen had to be rewired (pic of its look/progress below).

6. Now we are getting shocked in Unit 2 bedroom...so the electricity problem just keeps migrating.

7. Home warranty just expired...we could have gotten the second hot water heater replaced at least, also! But they were kind of a pain to deal with. The first plumber they made us use (and only one they had in system) stopped calling us back and seems he went out of business!) Luckily our homeowners' insurance seems to cover a lot! If we hadn't gotten upgraded counters, sinks, etc. we probably would have come out ahead and maybe even covered these new, fun discoveries of having electric currents going through to the handles in the shower, our computers, lightswitch plates, etc!

NOW all that's left is getting old adhesive off walls in the kitchen on the non-tiled areas - barring other future "discoveries" (oh, and electricity)!!

PICS: Speaking of progress, space for #PearsonPointe's first dishwasher!
And...Picking up 850 lbs of tile from the ceramic warehouse - it doesn't look like much, does it!?

Sad Alert: Demolition is This Week :(

Thanks to THIS happening,

these kitchens are gonna be gone next week after 66 years.

Look how cute they are!

You do appreciate what you can no longer have.

To the relief of many, though, LOL, we will have basically brand-new kitchens AND all new floors. It's a duplex, so times two on all of it. New cabinets. New floors. New cabinet hardware. New counters (insurance did not want to cover, but come on, these old formica ones will break, and they are one thing I won't miss so much ;). New sinks. New faucets. New backsplash. A few new or refinished exterior and interior doors. Lots of decisions. Times two! (The duplexes are sisters, not twins.)

Bad things, man, bad things

When you pull up to your weekender/investment property, and see water coming out from under the front door, that's not a good sign.

After we had been busily trying to spruce up the 1950s place for 10 months, it was under at least an inch of water -- an entire side of the duplex, save maybe a few-foot corner of the bedroom. A quick 7 hours of running two shop-vacs and mopping, and most of the water (except what was squishing up near the baseboards when you walked over them) could no longer be seen.

Life-hack discovery break: Hershey's Kiss "Starbucks" Peppermint Mocha

What to do when you are away from your fancy coffee machine and want an indulgent, seasonal, latte eye-opener? (And what to do with those leftover holiday Hershey's kisses?!) If you are stuck 25 minutes away from the nearest Starbucks (definitely not complaining, though!) but growing tired of black coffee, and have those post-Christmas Hershey kisses, then you're in luck. (For a peppermint drink, the Hershey candy cane kisses taste closest to anything else out there anyway for that craving.) I made this from what I already had on-hand during the holidays, and without an espresso machine.

Since it's so simple, I'll not make you have to read a novel just to get to the instructions!:

You really only need 3 ingredients (INCLUDING the coffee):
1. 3 Hershey's candy cane kisses (the white ones with the red stripe around them)
2. Black coffee (I used our Keurig)
3. 1 or 2 regular, milk chocolate, Hershey's kisses (or higher-end chocolate sauce)
(Optional: half and half, whipped cream)

1. Brew your coffee. Gather your ingredients while your coffee is brewing (start unwrapping!).

2. Stir in the 3 candy cane kisses and 2 milk chocolate kisses OR the chocolate sauce (something like Ghirardelli's or Sanders, but the chocolate kind. The kind I had out at the lake where I created this out of necessity was good - Sanders). Yes, they will melt all the way! (as long as the coffee hasn't been sitting around).
- OR - Use the chocolate sauce in place of milk chocolate kisses. I used under 1 tbsp., and it made it nice and creamy, too. No extra sugar or sweeteners needed for either method!

3. You're kind of done! Taste it; you may want to add half and half/creamer (I do when making it with the milk choc. kisses, but find it's super creamy just using the choc. sauce method). And you may want to spray on a flourish of whipped cream!

Notes: I LOVE Starbucks peppermint mochas and find this to taste VERY similar. All the other coffee shop copycats I've paid $5 for over the years that were meticulously made don't even taste this similar.

You can use any kind of coffee...I found it a good chance to use up some of the coffees that aren't my favorite. I love dark coffees, so I would use my medium roasts, since they lend themselves to the mildness of a Starbucks mocha.