Demo Delay.

Well, as with most construction projects, we have a small delay on our hands. Talks through the weekend determined that demolition would begin today, Tuesday. However, we received the official window delivery date yesterday and it is still two weeks out (Monday, March 14th). Because we really only need one week to completely demo this main level and have it all cleaned up and ready for window framing/install to begin, there's no sense uprooting us this week as planned. In some ways, I'm disappointed because after 5 months of planning and coordinating this project, I am more than ready to get this show on the road (and over with!) But...on the other hand, perhaps it's a blessing since Jeff works the next 11 days straight and it would have meant me being on my own with the girls through the most disastrous part of the project.

So...our new CONFIRMED demo date is next Monday, March 7th. This will give us a few more days to get all of the boxes of kitchen items covered with plastic and sealed with tape to the floor around the perimeter (a last ditch effort to keep that pesky drywall dust off every kitchen utensil we own). We are about halfway to having our life reorganized on our upper level. I'll get pictures posted of our new temporary, condensed living arrangements once I have it fine tuned.

In the meantime, the window treatments for the upper level will be installed on Wednesday of this week. We ended up ordering them through Aero Drapery & Blinds. I priced several places (JCP & Hirschfields) and found Aero to be the most competitively priced. For the majority of the upstairs windows, we chose faux wood blinds with coordinating fabric tapes (similar to the image shown here):

In the master bedroom, we chose shutters for the side windows and drapery for behind the bed (which I am yet to find).

I managed to get the door knobs ordered for the main level as well as pick up the replacement hinges for the interior doors (we changed everything from brass to oil rubbed bronze). Price wise, I have found the most competitive retailer to be Door Knob Discount Center (www.doorknobdiscountcenter.com). They also offer free shipping and no tax! Woo Hoo! I also ordered the front and back entry door handle sets being that those doors will be installed in just under two weeks and we are going to need to be able to lock up the house. For the back door, we did something really simple. Even though the door itself is an exact match to the front door, there's no need to put an elaborate handle on it. I want it to be the most functional and easy to maneuver lock when your hands are full of kids so we went with just a simple knob and deadbolt.

For the front entry, we did something a little more dressy, but not too overbearing. You can get pretty darn elaborate with your door hardware, but I thought this one had a vintage feel to it. This one is by Weiser:

The inside of the door is just a simple knob that matches the other knobs we have around the house (in oil-rubbed bronze vs brass as shown here):


This afternoon the girls and I are headed out to order the tile. We won't need it for about 5 weeks...but with a two week lead time, I'd rather get going on it than have it hold us up down the road. Aside from that, I really can't think of much else I have left to order (the trim, but being that it comes in 16' lengths and we really don't have anywhere to store it, we'll wait until we are further along to order it). Thursday we meet with the exterior contractor to select all the materials and fine tune the details. And by Monday, we'll have a 17' long x 8' wide x 6' high dumpster taking up our entire driveway. Let's hope there aren't anymore snow emergencies in Minneapolis!