Accent Wall

Over the years, I’ve watched Husband spend hours on Houzz, scoping out the latest trends. Every so often I look over his shoulder to see what he is so fascinated with. Once Ozzie was ready for internal finishes, Husband’s Houzz searches were on bathroom tiles for Twinkie’s bathroom, and I became much more interested in what he was look at.

We spent hours scrolling through pages upon pages of tile options on the internet. Our first priority was Twinkie’s bathroom, since we needed that bathroom complete to move on to Phase Two of the Ozzie project. Of course we could have gone with the classic white subway tile, but we really wanted something a bit more fun and lively in that bathroom.

Throughout all of our searching, we kept landing back on this tile:

Blue is my favorite color

It is an 8×8 cement tile from Artisan Tile Shop. There was something about the tile that kept us wanting to incorporate it into the design of Ozzie. Husband has used cement tiles in other projects before, and we really like how they look as a finished product. We couldn’t get over the unique nature of this particular cement tile.

Dreams of Finished Rooms

With the drywall and paint complete, we could really start dreaming about what the finished product of Ozzie would look like. We had two items on the immediate agenda that we wanted to check off the list. The first was a creative project, spurred on by Husband, and the second was a practical dream of mine that would change my weekly world completely.

Hey look, it’s a house

While Husband was busy outside getting our utilities hooked up, we forked over the dough to have professionals come in and drywall the place. Let me tell you, having a full team of people on your construction site is perhaps one of the greatest things.

More people = more progress.

And let me tell you, progress we made! In a span of 2 days, this crew had the entire back of the house drywalled. And a few days after that (we had to wait for the drywall mud to dry), the entire back of Ozzie was primed and ready for paint. It was glorious!

The upstairs hallway, complete with drywall.

Utility Hook Up

In the process of getting all of Ozzie’s plumbing and electrical hooked up inside and putting in our insulation, Husband spent some time on the exterior of the house getting our utility boxes and meters in place. While this wasn’t glamours work, it was a very necessary step in the process.

The newly installed gas meter

On the list was the gas meter, the electrical meter, the hot water heater, and hooking the sewer line to the main line in the street.

All Warm and Cozy

When Husband and I set out to remodel our one-bedroom house, we knew we were going to do most of the work ourselves. Well, let me re-phrase that: I knew that Husband was going to do most of the work himself since I have very limited manual labor or carpentry skills to contribute.

We always discussed that hiring out contractors for most of the steps along the way was too expensive, but we might run across a few steps that it is more efficient to just hire out the work. One of those steps we figured we would need to hire someone for was connecting our new sewer to the main. With all the new plumbing in and approved by the city, Husband called out a plumbing contractor to do a sewer scope and give us an estimate on connecting to the main.

Thanks to Ozzie’s outdated pipes, most of our pipes were concrete and, we feared, completely rusted out (see The Unexpected Project and our run-in with rusty pipes). However, after the sewer scope, the plumbing guy came back with relatively good news.

Rat-a-touille

One evening, relaxing in Ozzie’s main living space, Husband barks at me, ‘Shh! Do you hear that sound?’

I listen closely. I wait. And then I hear it. The faintest of sounds, but distinctively present: tiny scratches coming from the back of Ozzie.

Husband sneaks quietly to the back of the house to the door that separates the old Ozzie from the new. He waits. He jerks the door open, scrambles back in fright, and bellows…

Guts and Things

For anyone that has watch a new house go up, you know that once framing is complete, it feels like construction screeches to a halt. In reality, some of the most crucial steps of construction happen immediately following framing. That is when all of the guts of the house get put in.

For Ozzie and our one man construction crew, this meant, on the outside, construction looked like it had come to a complete standstill. However, Husband was hard at work installing plumbing, electrical, and gas while the outside world wondered if we were ever going to work on our house.

Since I did not feel the next several steps were all that glamorous, I failed to take too many pictures of the progress. But, I will try to share with you what I have.

The guts of Ozzie’s new living room

The Harry Potter Room

There comes a point in every baby’s life where they fly from the nest and venture out into this big, bright world on their own. That point is different for each baby, but is inevitable for all. For us and Twinkie, that point came sooner than we expected.

Twinkie gazing into the bright world beyond

All in a days work

Sweet relief! After months of a wet and soggy Seattle, the walls were built, and we were finally ready for a roof… just in time for Christmas!

Ozzie ready for a roof and Christmas