Sunday Family Dinners

We are an Italian/Irish family so it goes without saying that Sunday consists of shopping, cooking, drinking and eating.  Since Chip and I have two little ones, our house seems to have become the Sunday Family Dinner place to be.  I'm great with this except that since the move to Regent St. we have no stove or dishwasher.  You read that correctly - no stove/no dishwasher.  To add insult to injury we also don't have countertops or a working sink.  Hubby easily corrected the "no countertops" issue with some heavy duty plywood and with our granite/sink installation right around the corner (next Wednesday to be exact) I'm coping.  And by coping I mean we are using mostly plastic/paper products and washing dishes in the UPSTAIRS bathroom.  It's amazing how much you actually miss the convenience of running water in a kitchen.  Even to make coffee in the morning we have to drag ass up the stairs just to get water.  You don't know what you miss until it's not there anymore!

SFD proved to be quite the culinary challenge.  While shopping at Price Chopper Sunday morning I decided at the last minute to grab a Rotisserie Chicken.  They are a godsend for busy families and usually a staple on a random Tuesday after dance class at our house.  But for SFD??  My Grandma Cel would be rolling in her grave.  Hell no - SFD is home cooked (usually Italian) comfort food.  Think ooey gooey lasagna or delish Chicken Parm with homemade sauce (never called it gravy in this family.)  Time for some improvisation.  Sunday's menu at Regent St.;  Rotisserie Chicken, Not-so-Roasted Red Potatoes, leftover Vodka Rigatoni with sausage and a green salad.  Here's how we did it.  Not-so-Roasted Red Potatoes; Mom and I quartered the potatoes and put them in two separate bowls (all my big bowls are still at the old house - more on that in another post.)  Oddly I had some basil and garlic powder - the only spices in the new spice rack cabinet.  I say oddly because I did not have salt and pepper.  No olive oil so we used butter, covered with a damp papertowel and did the Microwave Rotation dance.  Edible.  That is all they were.  Vodka Rigatoni; We were "gifted" with some delicious Vodka Rigatoni from our friends the Haskell's  We had been there the night before for a birthday party and they knew of our Kitchen Situation and sent us home packed with food!  Love them!  Green Salad; pre-packaged greens and cut up some veggies on a paper plate.  Dinner is served! 

And that's how we rolled out our first SFD at Regent St.  Down and dirty baby, down and dirty!!

Our first Holiday Season at Regent

Despite the fact that there was no snow this year (which I really don't mind) the Holiday Season came to our new abode on Regent St.  The girls were quite concerned that Santa wouldn't be able to find us since we had just moved in the previous weekend but I assured them that Blaze, our Elf on the Shelf, would inform Santa of our new address.
The Christmas weekend was joyous for many reasons.  First, Santa did find our new house with no problems, even without a chimney.  Second, Santa was VERY good to all of us.  Not only do we have a beautiful new (to us) home but the girls and I were totally surprised by Chip with a trip to the Bahamas and Florida this Spring.  I'm thinking that trip is going to be perfect timing for all of us to unwind a bit from the stress of the renovation/move.  Third, and most important, we were able to start showering at Regent.  It was quite hairy (no pun intended) getting up every morning, getting the girls ready, packing the car up and heading to Malta to take a shower in our deserted old house.  It was getting a little creepy too.
So, just to recap; when we moved in the weekend before Christmas we did have a working toilet and sink in the downstairs 1/2 bath but the upstairs full bath was not complete.  No shower/bath, no sink, no toilet - basically a whole lot of nothing!  It looked like this (and this pic was taken after some renovating - still looking for the original photo before we started gutting.  I need to read up on photo organizing from one of my fave bloggers, http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/):

Still original toilet and radiator in place

Vanity already removed - yes that is plaster and lath

 These are the earliest pictures I can find unfortunately.  The following pics of our progress:

pulling back old flooring and getting ready for new plumbing

new plumbing installed

Prepping for Vanity area

prepping tub for tile job

Chip starting the tub tile job and deciding at 7AM which beverage to begin drinking!

Floor without grout

Shower and floor finally grouted!

New Vanity being installed - by my amazing hubby who is doing ALL of this work!

Somehow this post took on a life of it's own and became all about the upstairs bathroom and nothing about the Holiday's.  Oh well - not sweating the small stuff.  BTW - the Holiday's were fantastic and bonus, we found out that we can see the fireworks from Congress Park in Saratoga Springs perfectly from our porch.  We were a little beyond excited about that.   Peace out!

Photo update

Chip and I are off to grout the upstair bathroom tonight so should have some pics to share soon but to get you through the lull here are a few ditties of the Dining Room.

First day looking at house before we bid on it

such pretty walls! 

walls and ceiling patched/fixed, molding stained and polyed.  Floors still not refinished yet

Floors done, furniture moved in and began painting (my favorite color in the whole house so far!)

lighter coat of grey color going on the top above the molding

Living in two houses can be very confusing

We saw, we came, we conquered.  The big move that is.  We set a date and stuck to it and now we're currently living out of two houses which can be very confusing, frustrating...well, you get the picture.  Since our "grand plan" is to rent our old house in Malta there wasn't a sense of urgency to move everything.  But the hubby surprised even me by moving all the "big" contents of our house to the new Saratoga house last Friday.  Granted we have a ton of work still left to do but the house is pretty much livable as long as you don't need a a working shower and kitchen to live!!  As my mom would say, "god help us and save us Joe Davis." 
So here's the current situation - the girls rooms are done, less moulding and some painting touch ups.  That made me feel good about bringing them to the new house.  Our bedroom has a ways to go but the bed is comfy and we slept like babies our first night there (sure it had nothing to do with exhaustion!)  The upstairs full bath is still being renovated.  Shower is in the middle of a tile job, the floor is prepped for its tile job and the sink and toilet are picked out and ready to be placed.  Hopefully that all goes well and will be complete by Friday. 
The downstairs is in pretty good shape as of today.  Kitchen:  appliances were delivered on Saturday morning and the cabinet installers started yesterday (and made amazing progress.)  Hope to have a working kitchen by Friday minus the countertops which can't be fitted until the cabinets are in.  Dining room was painted by brother Mark over the weekend and we were all ecstatic over the color.  You just never know until you put it on the walls!  Living Room is painted and the couch fits perfectly - big YEAH!
Certainly the best part of the house has to be the original hardwood floors which were a mess when we bought in October.  HUGE shoutout to the Hardwood Floor Guy out of Ballston Spa, NY who did such an amazing job.  If you ever need your hardwoods renovated or want to install we would highly recommend this company.  Consummate professionals!  Wish I could link to their website but they don't have one so here is a link to their contact info.
Sooo, yes we are currently showering in Malta and "living" in Saratoga but shouldn't be too long before we're all in.  Below are some before and after shots.  We did good if I do say so myself :-)

KITCHEN

Kitchen the day we decided to bid on the house.

Original window and door

Kitchen Design

During renovation - old window gone new pretty window in :)

Old door gone - new French door to backyard installed

BIG TRANSFORMATION!!!

Began installation of cabinets yesterday

 

Will move onto other rooms in my next posts.  Need to get some good shots of the hardwood floors.  You can almost see a glimpse of their beauty in the above pics but they don't do them justice.  Until next time....Peace!

And the Beat goes on....

Somedays (ok, recently, most days) I would like to stop that ticking clock but there is something to be said about giving yourself a goal and trying, REALLY HARD, to reach it.  So here it is, two days before Thanksgiving and our goal of moving into Regent St. is looming like a dark cloud over our heads.  I'm honestly not trying to sound so ominous, it's just that there is SO much going on.  Thanksgiving, a family wedding (which i cannot wait for), packing up our entire house, working a full-time job, taking care of 2 kids and Christmas all during which Chip is working his butt off at Reg.  YIKES!  December 16th is sooo close.  Oh and did I mention that we have to get our house in Malta ready and rented for Jan 1st.  Do I sound stressed?  Valium anyone???! 

Well, with all that being said, the progress at Reg has been nothing less than astounding and I say that without having been there in probably 2 weeks.  Chip and I had the pleasure of designing our own kitchen.  A first for both of us.  Chip actually let me do most of the "designing" which was beyond cool after I took a deep breath and stopped being so overwhelmed by it all.  I mean, where the heck do you start???  We had little choice in stores in which to purchase so off to Home Depot in Latham we went.  And I'm so glad we did.  We met Kristen who couldn't have been more helpful.  She took her time, gave us many different options and when we finally decided on the color and cabinet look she went out of her way to make sure that we got every "deal" that was out there.  I would highly recommend her.  Here is a sketch of our new kitchen (Thomasville cabinets in cream with an Ameretto glaze)

I'm in love with the different heights of the upper cabinets and the little upgrades we added (garbage pull out, rolling shelves, pull out spice cabinet, toe-kick drawer for kiddie stuff, etc.)

Another reason for my infrequent posts is lack of a working computer at home.  So hopefully I'll get that remedied soon and then post some new pictures.  Till then......wish us luck!

It's Official!

We closed on 210 Regent St., Saratoga Springs on October 7th at 1PM (10/7/11/1 - future numbers to play in Vegas!)
The renovation has begun.  Chip is so gung-ho that he already has the kitchen ripped apart and I still haven't gotten up there to document the progress. (note to self:  must send Chip up with camera or leave camera at the house)
The man has a plan and after this weekend we should actually have a brand new french door for the back entrance into the kitchen and a new window in the kitchen as well.  That will certainly change things up quite a bit. 
Looking forward to decorating the porch with at least a couple of mums and a pumpkin or two.  It's the little things...right?!
Until next time!

It's September 6th with no closing date yet....anxiety is starting to set in.  Our inspection came back with no major defaults, all cosmetic, which we obviously knew going in.  Our Radon test came back today and passed with flying colors (thank the good lord!)  Now we are just waiting on the bank. 

I've been addicted to Pintrest, hoping to come across an entryway that looks exactly like ours so we can just copy the idea or a picture of a front porch that's similar to ours - only decorated and looking pretty.  I've come across some great pictures....future inspiration.  My pintrest page - click here.

Fingers crossed that the next and final stage goes smoothly and we can finally get our "sweat on!"  Holla!!