This blog post is long I know, but wanted to record a good memory...and I'm actually not done...will finish it tomorrow.
The Renovation You Are About To See is Real...
We renovated our kitchen while taping an episode of the show "Renovation Realities" (on DIY channel). For one week we had a crew in our house filming us all day long as just me and Marc did this gigantic project.
This is what my kitchen looked like before:
And here's where we are at now:
The crew arrived on Dec. 3rd, Friday afternoon. I was nervous and excited...not knowing what to expect with filming the show and having these 3 men with us 24/7 for a week. As soon as they arrived though I was immediately comfortable. They filmed some "before" shots of the kitchen. I was told they'd film every room of the house, and so in the couple days before, I had spent SO much time and energy (on top of everything I was doing to get everything we needed for the kitchen) cleaning out and organizing every room in my house...which had been a disaster because of other renovation projects. So I was already exhausted before our kitchen project had begun. They didn't film any of the rest of the house for "before" shots but hey, at least it was clean right?:) That evening Marc and I did our debuts on camera:) We had to talk about our project plan, and how we work together, etc. We say all this while looking at the producer who is standing next to the camera man. But it was surreal having this big t.v. camera close to our faces while talking. Then the camera man got some stylistic shots of us...which, if you've seen the show, you know what these are. We knew exactly what they were and were cracking up that it was US doing this on camera. He had us stand in different areas of the kitchen with our arms crossed, looking like we're tough. We had to stare right into the center of the lens. I swear I kept feeling like I was going cross-eyed, and then laughing at the thought of me being totally cross-eyed in these shots on the show.
The next morning was Day 1 of our kitchen renovation. We got up at 7...and shockingly, I was so excited that I had no problem waking up! The producer had said they'd film us getting out of bed...but I guess he changed his mind when he got there. Maybe he saw how scary I look in the mornings and didn't want it to turn into a horror show. But the audio tech put on our mics and battery packs and they told Marc and I to just do whatever we'd normally do. So we started making out...j/k (AS IF at 7 in the a.m.:) We started eating breakfast...I sat down on the couch and turned on the t.v. (but I had to have it on DIY and on mute) and sat there eating my bowl of cereal. I kept thinking how bad I felt for the audio tech guy to be hearing me eating my cereal amplified in his headphones...it's gross listening to someone chewing when they don't have a mic hooked up to them. And it was really strange to have the camera man and producer standing right next to me, with the camera focused on me, while I pretended they weren't there and just zoned while eating my cereal...that's some exciting footage, huh? In my head I was just thinking, "wow...this is so funny to have this happening." And then we got Jake up, and he was really weirded out at first (even though I'd tried to prepare him a lot for it). He just kept staring at the camera like a deer caught in the headlights. By the time we got him ready, it was 8:30 ish and my Aunt Trina came and picked him up. I snuck in a quick shower and some makeup (even though that would totally not be "reality" if we were doing demolition on our own). And Marc did most of the emptying out all the cupboards. Before you knew it our bedroom was FULL of everything from our kitchen, and so much for all that cleaning I'd done. Oh well...I guess I made room for more mess to come in:) And then finally we got to start demolition!! We pulled out all the appliances...(the trash compactor took a while). And I started bashing at our cabinets with a crow bar. It was a lot of fun at first, but very physical too. We started to see the cycle of filming the show while working on the kitchen. The camera man followed us every where we went, and the producer stayed right by his side. The audio tech would always move to stay out of the shot...and after time it kind of felt like we had this dance we did around each other to make it work in the space we were in. Every so often the producer would say, "So Luisa, you seem like your frustrated with how that cabinet isn't coming out." And I would turn to him and say, "I'm really frustrated with how this cabinet isn't coming out." And then I could expand on it. And he'd keep directing the conversation a little for what he needed. And this would go this way back and forth with me and Marc all throughout while we worked. We also would have to freeze for when they needed to change tapes (every 45 min.) and change batteries. As soon as that would happen Marc and I would keep talking to each other about the project and we couldn't do that because they wanted anything we said to be recorded. So it became the joke to say "Donuts!" and talk about donuts during those breaks (because we had talked about donuts one time and they didn't care to catch that on film).
Here we are nearing the end of Day 1 Demolition day
Marc looking tough
Jake was brought back to us late that night. When he walked in he said, "Oh no! What happened to the kitchen? It's broken!" But then he got right to wanting to help with tools. Now, I want to give a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who watched Jake for me during that week: Trina, Britney, Whitney, and Shannon. We could have NEVER done this without you. And Jake had a blast getting to play with friends all week. It would have been boring and actually way too dangerous for him to be at home during all of this.
Loves to help Daddy with tools. I actually got way less pictures of the kitchen in it's different phases than I would have normally, just because we were doing everything on the cameras for the show.
The cycle that we started from our 1st day of working on the kitchen, was we worked solidly til 2 or 3 a.m. every single day. Then we'd get up about 7:30 the next morning to get going, get Jake out the door, and get back to work. The first day the crew was there until about 8 at night. Then they set up a still camera to record us for however long we kept working. So we were running on about 4-5 hrs. of sleep a night...and just working our butts off. By the end of the first night I was already sore from all the demolition. By the 3rd day, I was SO exhausted.
Day 2 turned out to be a lot more of demolition...it seemed like we'd gotten it mostly done on Saturday. But then on Sunday, it took time to remove the studs in the walls we removed. I officially looked completely retarded doing my 1st attempt with this...which turned into a trend with many 1st attempts. I was using the reciprocating saw to cut the studs in the middle and my entire body was violently vibrating because the stud was bending and had give. My cheeks were shaking so hard and the camera was right up in my face. I knew during the moment how utterly ridiculous I looked. And of course they broke for lunch right then, and then we went, "wait...why don't we cut the stud at the bottom so it doesn't bend and give?" And right then I cut all the studs quickly and easily like a pro...but of course, THAT part won't be on camera:)
And then there was the ceiling to deal with. We had a plan of Marc going in the attic and sweeping all the insulation through a hole into a trashbag I was holding below. So much for all the worrying we did about asbestos with scraping the ceilings, because it was like I took a shower in insulation for hours that day...and I just inhaled it all in. This took us hours to do, and we filled like 15 huge trash bags full of insulation. I also had an idiotic moment with this (surprise, surprise!) At first I was holding a trash bag above my head to the hole. But my arms were getting SO tired. Then we thought we got smart and I held a trash can to the hole. But then I realized I needed to transfer it to a trash bag. So I put a bag over it and tried to turn the trash can upside down to empty it. Some weird vaccuum thing happened because no matter how hard I shook it and jumped up and down, the insulation wouldn't fall into the trash bag. Yes, another retarded moment. Finally I got smart and put a trash bag IN the trash can to hold up to the hole. What were we thinking?? After that we knocked out the ceiling and had to remove all the beams. This was the day we got a little worried over whether we were destroying the structure of our house. This was the day we started saying "We are crazy. I mean absolutely crazy. Who does this? We're nuts." Marc started to get VERY worried. But we had to keep relying on the fact we'd had a contractor out who confirmed we weren't dealing with any load bearing beams. It also takes time to keep cleaning up all the debris that is everywhere. We threw it all on a tarp in our backyard to deal with later.
Here is the still camera they would set up when they'd leave...to watch our every move. One of the weirdest parts of the whole week was we couldn't listen to any music...because they needed clear recordings of everything we said. So there were many times we'd be working in silence for a little while...and I couldn't even sing anything because all songs are trademarked. This was hard for me. Although I do remember one moment we just busted out in "Hammer Time" for some reason...I guess that part won't air on the show. I'm sure you are sorry you won't be seeing that:) But the hardest part was when they'd leave and we'd be working late into the night...I would want to turn on the radio so bad...but the still camera recorded audio too so we still couldn't.
On Day 3 Monday I couldn't believe there really still was some demolition to do. We had to get more drywall off and break up the floor tile and scrape the linoleum up (which was not going easily). Marc discovered termite damage in the corner of the wall and wanted to fix it. But this was the day we began framing the new wall, which began with putting the pressure treated wood down for ground plates. We spent so much time struggling with these because apparently the concrete was just too hard to get a nail or screw in. This day was our first intense kind of fight with each other. Using a concrete bit on the driver wasn't working and Marc wanted to go borrow Gene's Ramset...and I wanted to keep trying with the driver. Marc got so frustrated with me, and I got so frustrated that he wouldn't just let me try. So there was definitely heat in the room while I kept trying to use the driver. But it really wasn't working. I think we got one partially in. That night we continued framing the wall and borrowed Gene's Ramset to use the next day.
On Day 4 Tuesday we had extremely good t.v. (according to the crew) with the Ramset. We'd never used it before, and on our first go at it, the cartridge didn't work and got stuck in it. So we were looking down the barrell of this thing, jamming a hanger down the barrell, waving it all around trying to get the cartridge out...we were told that was some great footage. I have a feeling it could end up on the show:) This day we also put up the new beams for ceiling. This was the very first part of the project that actually went smoothly and quickly. I was so relieved to have something finally go easy! I think it was this day that we went to Lowe's too...we needed more wood and some metal plates for the gas line or something. So this was our first time going out into public with the crew. We got in our car with the audio still recording, and the crew followed behind us in their van. We stopped off and got some donuts first, and then headed to Lowe's. When we got there Emmett went to talk to the store manager. They asked to have the music turned off for trademark reasons. We were just hanging out for like 20-30 minutes while Emmett was doing all this. Finally we were good to go, and Marc and I headed over to lumber with the camera following us. We were right by Theresa's desk and I hadn't seen her or talked to her in forever so I asked if she was there. Apparently Theresa was in the back on break but the manager went running off to get her and escorted her to me. While Marc and I were getting wood on our cart, the other worker came over and wanted to help us. It was just so clear how all the workers were on their toes and rolling out the red carpet for us. Marc asked for this metal bracket part, and she runs to get the special order catalogue, and tells us she'll personally go pick it up right now and it is free of charge for us. It was really really funny and interesting to experience things this way...when I go to Lowe's every single day. Also, a small crowd was gathering behind the camera of people wondering what was going on...what show we were filming. And of course we still had to do our normal talking to the camera about what we're doing...so everyone was watching us do that. When we checked out we paid with our own gift card and the worker was like, "Oh! This is Lowe's special promotion! Thank you for shopping with us and have a great day." We were like...huh?! This is our own gift card. We were cracking up...these workers were turned "ON" for the camera...it was just such an interesting experience. I even noticed a few days later when I was back at Lowe's without the camera crew, all the workers were coming up to me and the manager came over to help us find what we wanted...I think we should have faked doing a t.v. show a long time ago to have this royal treatment!
Anyway, we also rented a circular saw this day and cut the concrete slab to run the electrical. I don't know what we were thinking, or why no one could have warned us...but we just cut it dry at first with no bag even on the output valve. So this fine concrete powder filled our entire house to the point that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face...I mean it was THAT BAD...just a thick cloud of dust hanging throughout the whole house. I felt doomed on the dusting I would have to do for the next several months. EVERY item in my house was coated in this dust. I worried about the camera and audio equipment, but they just kept filming. Finally we put the shopvac on the output valve which helped. And it wasn't til we were almost done we learned we could spray it all really wet as we were cutting...if only we'd known from the start, my house could have been saved...but too late! In the afternoon on this day the crew wrapped early because we had Tevye come to do our electrical, and Gene come to fix some plumbing issues we found we had. They weren't interested in filming that or filming us try to do electrical...but boy were we happy to have some professionals come in! Thank goodness Tevye had some jackhammer tool we used to chip out the concrete in the slab for the electrical...it went so fast. Tevye and Kiwi and Gene were here til pretty late that night doing those jobs. Kenneth came by too (because Marc had still been freaking out the night before about the structural integrity of our house) but he really couldn't help us with anything because the producer wouldn't let him. We wanted to have him help us drywall that night...but oh well, we signed up for this show to have it just be us two. So late that night Marc and I did begin drywalling. And I poured the mud into the concrete slab.
On Day 5 Wednesday we began in the morning by drywalling the ceiling...Emmett was excited for this. I was nervous...there were some freakin big sheets of heavy drywall and I wasn't sure how were were lifting it over our heads to put up. I think everyone knew this would be entertaining.
got used to it all
punchy
no brands on clothes
our stupid 1st attempts at things
lunches
the exhaustion
chandelier
Here's my friend Lindy (who did make the time to make a legit Woody and Jessie costume) and Shannon as an 80's girl
On Sunday we carved pumpkins. It started out so ambitious. I had bought a booklet of patterns from "Cars." Marc was going to do Doc and I was going to do Mater. We taped the patterns to our pumpkins and started punching the dots to draw the pattern. That part alone took so much time, we both just looked at each other and said...screw it...and ignored all of the dotted pattern and just cut out the quickest and most standard jack-o-lantern possible.
We asked Jake what kind of face he wanted on his, and he said "Scared face."
Here's our Toy Story family picture on Halloween
I don't know how well this picture shows it, but Jake was hunched over and doing this slow shuffle walk because he was "flying like Buzz" up to every door. It was really funny...we were getting a kick out of it.
Ahh, the best part of Halloween...
Little buddies
We also had Luke and Matt at our house on Saturday. Jake and Luke had so much fun playing together. I love seeing Jake coming out of the side by side play, and really starting to interact with a friend when they play. It is just so cute to watch. At one point I found them like this in Jake's room watching the train go around the track, and it just made me laugh so I had to take a picture. They certainly don't look like they're having the best time of their lives, but yet they stayed like this for a while...so they must have been enjoying themselves.
And then the roles reversed when Matt was having his bottle...Jake and Luke begged me for milk in a bottle like Matt. I figured, why not??
