Second New Home DIY Project - Making Dinning Room Table

After seeing how much a dinning room table set would have cost us ($1500 +) and that wasn't even what we wanted, we decided to make our own.  We couldn't find one we wanted/liked.  We are not very formal people and I don't like the look of formal dinning room sets.  After many failed attempts at finding tables and chairs at garage sales, I decided we could make a table ourselves.  It took a while for my husband to get on board, but being able to stop looking for one and having an opportunity to buy a new saw made him change his mind.

We researched table dimensions and widths and then set off to Lowes.  I knew I wanted the largest table that could fit in our dinning room comfortably and I wanted to be able to have two people at each head of the table, making more of a square table then rectangle.  I wanted a complete square 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 person table, but the way the wood came at the store made us go with a 2 x 4 x 4 x 2 person table.  So we bought five 8 ft by 12 inch pine plank boards for the top, four 2 x 3's for the underneath support, and two 4 x 4's for the legs.  Unfortunately the wood wasn't all exactly 8ft, so we had to cut those boards and they all weren't square so we had to sand them to get them to lay flat with one another.  After those difficulties, we made a square with the 2x3's and screwed the planks on the top.  Then we sanded, filled cracks with wood fill, and stained top, sides, and legs with minwax dark walnut stain and put poly on the top.  It only cost us $100 (plus a $125 saw, but we don't own any tools yet so we needed that).  We also used this Lowe's video for some help:

http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/kitchen-and-dining/diy-dining-set/project

I also bought 8 chairs from overstock.com that were on clearance (https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Cafe-Metal-Side-Chair-Set-of-2/8530402/product.html).  These chairs were cheap and just what I was looking for.  They also reminded me of our honeymoon in Paris and they are very pretty.  We have two benches from our dinette set that we can use at each head of the table to add more seating, that's why I only bought 8 chairs.  This table will seat 12 with these,  I'm so happy for the choice to build the table.  We got a whole dinning room set for 12 that I am in love with (and it fits with our informal life style) for around $400!  So awesome!

*UPDATE:  Table might be a little to big for the room lol whoops.  We're going to see how it fits, if it  looks too big we'll just have to cut it some.  At least it will fit in the room, just might not have enough space around the ends of it.

Chairs I bought to go with the DIY Table We Built

Pre-stain

After One Coat Of Stain (still needs poly)

All Finished!  (Two coats of poly)

Cabinets!!!

We got out cabinets in and they look so beautiful!!  We are so happy with the white cabinets we choose!  Can't wait to see how they look with the dark wood floors and the black granite!  They were so tall I can't reach half the shelves lol.  I guess I'll just put stuff I don't use much up there.   My husband couldn't even reach the top self, so I didn't feel as bad.  Guess we're both going to need to use the step stool I have.  They also looked very well made and there is draw sliders in each bottom cabinet, which is pretty cool.

PM Update 6/27/14

PM Update:

- Monday: Trim will be finished

- Tuesday/Wednesday: Trim will be painted

- Wednesday:  Cleaning floors, getting ready for final flooring

- Thursday: Hardwoods installing

- Next Monday: Hardwoods finished

- Next Tuesday: Carpet installing

- Following Week: Driveway and clean up

Side notes:

One of our outside lights is covering up our house number, so we asked him to move the number down a bit.  PM said no problem.  

Our cabinets look beautiful, will post pictures tonight!  We are so happy with the cabinets!  Can't wait to see the hardwoods with them!

Power and Lights

Today we had our SR show us around our house.  The outlets and lights were done and we could turn the lights on and off.  The lights were actually very pretty.  I thought they'd be ugly.  They also had kitchen cabinets in place in their boxes and our bathroom cabinets were in their respective bathrooms.  Also, the doors and trim were put in the locations they were supposed to go.  Seems like we might have cabinets hung by the end of week and doors and trim done.  We love seeing it all come together!  We are almost at 20 days , it's crazy!!

Paint, Tile, and Vinyl Done

Went to the house today and the paint was done and it's not too bad of a color.  The tile in the bathroom looked like it was almost finished and the vinyl floor in the two upstairs baths and laundry room were finished.  The vinyl floors were a bit darker then I remember, but not too bad.  The tile in the shower was not perfectly straight and the grout color looked more cream than the color we picked out.  All in all it looked okay, maybe we will just color the grout ourselves if we hate it.  Not sure if we should complain about the uneven tiles, it looks like one column is slightly off on each side.  There was also one corner self, which I thought was weird seeing how there is two shower heads.  Guess we'll have to fight over who gets that side lol.

PM Update 6/20/14

PM Update:

- Today: Finishing up paint

- Today: Burm is all filled and all set

- Today:  Tile and non-laminate floors going in

- Tuesday/Wednesday: Trim going in

Side notes:

Yesterday we noticed that there was no outlet on the small counter next to the fridge.  We told the PM and he said he'll check and if there isn't one they will definitely put one in for us.  We also asked him about when the appraisal happens and he said it's within one week from closing.

The only thing about next week he said was trim would be going in, but I hope other things besides trim will happen lol I guess we will see.  He did say we are on schedule for closing on 7/21, so all is good!:-)

We got a delivery today!

Today we got lots of presents in our garage!  We got our doors, trim, cabinets, and sinks.  The cabinets looked so pretty, we took a peak at one of them.  We also got a nice smelly present outside, it was top soil that was part manure.  As soon as we got out of the car we were like wow it stinks, lol hopefully the stink will go away.

Official Closing and Pre-Settlement Dates!

We got a letter in the mail stating our pre-settlement and closing date and times!  It's getting to be so real and exciting!  We can't believe we'll be in our house in almost a month!  We are so excited!  Here's our dates:

Pre-settlement Demonstration:

July 18, 2014 at 9:00 AM

Closing:

July 21, 2014 11 AM

It kind of stinks we are closing on a Monday because we got to wait all week to move in until the following weekend.  I guess we will move a little more stuff each night and then have a big move the following weekend.  We will probably sleep there on an air mattress at least for the first night because we will be too excited not to be there once we officially close lol!  Now we should start getting stuff ready, switching over utilities, talking to NVR, and getting home owners insurance.  Can't believe it's going to be ours so soon!:-)

The Berm is Gone!

They finally grated the lots on our side today.  The famous berm is now level offed and appears to be almost completely gone.  This is great for us and our neighbors because it makes our lot bigger and flatter.  We will now be able to put up a fence and shed easier.  The only down side is now we can see the road, but that will be fixed once a fence and tress get put up.  We hope they give us nice trees to put back there.  We can't believe how much flatter our lot is, our pup Daisy is going to have so much room for activities back there lol.  The pictures on the left are the new berm and the ones on the right are the old berm.

Dry Wall is Complete!

Our dry wall finally looked done today when we went by the house.  The dry wall process felt like it took forever.  In reality it only took a week, but going there and seeing not much change was hard after seeing how fast the house was framed lol.  It also looks like they will be tiling our shower soon!

PM Update 6/13/14

PM Update:

- Monday/Tuesday: Dry wall will be completed

- Monday/Tuesday: Grading and berm will be complete

- Thursday:  First coat of paint will start

- Thursday/Friday: Non-laminate floors/tile will be put in

Side notes:

Not much happened this week, just the dry wall and I think we got gutters too.  It's been going slowly compared to the other steps of the house being built, which makes even harder on the wait until it's complete lol.  We can't wait to see the berm and grading complete and our PM said to call if we don't like it or if we think it should be changed after we see it complete.  It's nice that he is considering our input when completing this.

Also our PM said one of our neighbors doesn't want trees on the berm and they are still figuring out what to do about that, but we will be getting trees behind our house either way.  I'm not sure why they wouldn't want free trees, especially seeing how there is a 30 mph road behind the berm and the trees are for blocking the sound/site of the cars.  Really weird, but doesn't effect us just the neighborhood as a hole.  Hopefully they don't just stop the tree line for that house, but I'm not sure what else they are going to do.

Dry Wall Installed

Today we went by the house to measure the study to see about a desk fitting that we were going to buy.  To our surprise the dry wall was all up!!  Some time between yesterday around 11 AM when we left the house and today around 11 AM they put the entire houses dry wall up, even the ceilings and garage are done.  They even picked up the scraps and all the dry wall that was not used and removed it from the house.  Our PM said it would be started on Monday, we didn't expect this today.  It was a nice surprise and can't wait to see what happens next week!  Our PM didn't really tell us what was going to happen, so I guess we will see when we go by.  It's finally starting to look more like a house inside, it's so exciting!

Dry Wall Delivery

The outside is pretty, now it's time for the inside!  Dry wall was delivered yesterday!  We are getting so excited to finally see our house done!  We can't wait to move it, hope the next 45 days or so go by quickly!

Our House is All Dolled Up - Got our Siding on!

Our siding went on fast it took about 2 days!  We are so happy with our choice of siding!  It is so beautiful!  I will let the pictures speak for themselves:-)  The door will also be painted black to match the shutters later on in the process.

Pre-Dry Wall Meeting

Our pre-dry wall meeting was last Thursday morning.  It went really good.  Our PM showed us the house and explained all the energy star stuff for us.  He also explained any issues that came about, like the light over the sink could not be centered because of how the bays were and we had chosen the recessed lighting option.  That was probably the major one others were issues we already asked to be changed.  The only things we needed to change were:

- Change the light over the sink to a flush mount from a recessed can to make centered

- Center fridge cabinet

- Center master bedroom lights with short wall instead of long wall so fan is centered over bed

- Move thermostat over a little from corner of dinning room

- Have hot water tank under stairs and not in the place we want to finish

- Fix holes in rafters that were okay to be there, but most people ask them to be filled

The only thing that we were a little disappointed at is that we never really talked about the basement and how the furnace and hot water tank would be in our pre-construction meeting because we thought they'd be in the location on the diagrams.  Turns out they don't put them in those locations every time.  We wanted to finish one side of the basement, the side with the large egress window.  The furnace is a little into that side and they couldn't move it cause it was already in place.  He told us where the hot water was going to go and that was even further into the space we wanted to finish, but luckily that wasn't in place yet and he could move that.  Also the sump pump was in the front part of the area we wanted to finish.  All in all it is okay because the space we wanted to finish is still there is just got a little bit smaller.  Where they put these locations are based on where the utilities are coming to the house, just a thing for others to check and be aware of before you start building.

Side Notes:

- Our furnace is 40,000 btu
- We have portal frames over our back door, front door, and fireplace
- Insulation in ceiling is blown in and is R-38
- Mastic is put on HVAC pipes to seal them
- Large trees on empty lot were not for behind our house, but for the new phase of the neighbor

Siding Delivery

The siding we found on our lot last week was not ours, it was for our neighbors.  Our real siding got delivered today though!  It's just the color we were expecting.  Can't wait to see it go on the house.  Our neighbors house is almost fully sided and ours should be next!  Next up our pre-dry wall meeting tomorrow morning!