Sunday, March 30, 2008

floors...

It's amazing what new flooring can do to a room, especially compared to bare concrete floors!! ;o) The room went from looking like a construction zone to looking like part of a home. The new floor brings hope that the project will actually come to an end. It gives warmth in a place that looked cold and empty....even with the yellow walls. It's worth smiling about and we all know how important that is to me. So, I am a very happy momma right now. I wasn't quite so happy when it was going in, but that had nothing to do with the workers or the floor. No, the flu had us all down in the house. Kid #4 was still recovering, but Mike and I both had fevers and all the other crud that comes with influenza. We were pretty pathetic here for a while. So bad, that Kid #2 took off work to babysit us. He's a good kid!! :)

So, you want to see the floors?? You do? Well, you came at a good time, cuz I want to show you the floors!! See, I'm happy!



Here's a shot standing in the new doorway looking to the front corner of the family room.




This shot was taken standing in the laundry room door looking towards the kitchen. Don't those appliances look like they are ready to roll? No? Well, I am ready for them.

Tomorrow will be a busy day at this house. Our dining room, living room and hallway are going to get some real wood floors AND the cabinets are being delivered. Pictures to come. Tuesday will be an even busier day!!! Counting the days....

Monday, March 24, 2008

just a glimpse...

I just realized that I never posted any pictures of the room painted in yellow. Things are about to really start hopping around here. We are on the verge of putting it together and that will be so exciting! But for now, I'll give you just a glimpse of the color in the family room.



Now you have to imagine some here. Imagine trim around the door and windows and imagine that the room is clean! Yeah, I know that is a hard one to imagine after looking at all the piles of junk laying all over the place. However, if I look at the window below, close one eye and squint with the other and CONCENTRATE.....I can imagine the room all clean and the trim around the window. And that......makes me smile. :)

the dirt stops here....

Over the weekend I discovered a website with quotes for your walls. I was trying to think of what we could put on the space above my kitchen window. It's right above my sink and a place where I will see it quite a bit. I was thinking of something decorative. All of the sudden I recalled the rub on transfers that they make for walls. After an internet search, I found exactly what we are going to put above the window. :) It makes me smile!


Then I started thinking about the laundry room. I have a spot that I could put one that will be seen from the kitchen. There really wasn't the "one" that made me smile on the site, BUT they have a create your own page. The problem is that there are too many choices! I am thinking we will use the quote "the dirt stops here...", but now the decision as to what font to use is holding me up. I also have some room in there to put something decorative on top of the cabinet, but I haven't found the perfect thing. This renovating is hard work!!!


So, here is some of the laundry room progress. I wouldn't dream of leaving you without some pictures.


Here, Mike is hanging one of our old kitchen cabinets above the washer/drawer. He stripped the old one and painted it white. I am catching a vision for this room and I think I want it to be just a little more then a plain ol' laundry room. It has been that for years.


This picture shows you the new color in the room. It's a slate blue color and looks good when you are standing in the gold family room looking into the laundry room. We are going to put a base cabinet and counter top under the wall cabinet on side wall.


Above these cabinets is where I am looking for some decorative objects and where I plan to put "the dirt stops here..."


This is a special spot. It's where I decided that we could have a bar to hang wet clothes. I have never had that in my laundry room and I have always wanted one. It's not anything special....but it makes me smile and afterall it is about making me smile. Isn't it??

Saturday, March 22, 2008

outside progress...

Well, my week hasn't been quite as I planned it. Kid #4 has the flu...the real deal...the honest goodness flu bug....influenza! They tested her this morning to confirm it. Nothing like spending days locked up in a dust filled chaotic house with a sick kid. We are surviving though and things are progressing. :)


Let's take a look at some more outside progress.









Yea!! The door is now trimmed on the outside. It looks so pretty. As soon it warms up, we'll get the white siding painted to match the rest of the house and go pick up the patio furniture we want. I am ready to get the grill going and have some dinner outside on our new patio. Wanna join me?



Our new sidewalk was sealed this week. (which explains the yellow tape) Right here at the bottom of the picture we plan to put a large rock/boulder/???/whatever you want to call it. We will be visiting the garden stores soon to pick one out. Last summer I found a PERFECT one, but of course then we didn't need one! Hoping I can find something as perfect.



We are also going to dig up this grass and extend the garden over to the new path. It is hard to believe that this dreary garden looks like this in the summer....




I can hardly wait for summer!!!!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

a quiet day....

Today is actually a quiet day. I don't think anyone is coming over to do anything to the house. Sure, I still need to get the closet together and Mike is still going to paint some more when he gets home....but no one is coming to the house. :o) I slept in this morning and how nice did that feel?!

For today, I will share the floor plans for the kitchen. It's just a little glimpse of the vision for around here. You can click on any image and get a rather close up view.




Here is the bird's eye view of the new kitchen layout. The x's are where the lights are going. We picked these pendants for the 3 lights hanging over the counter.







Now here is a view of what the kitchen will look like....sort of. ;o) Our new range doesn't look like that and our sink will be a little different....but it gives you the idea.





This is a photo of some of the materials we will be using to put this room together. The top piece is our Blue Pearl Granite for the counter top. Under that is the slate tiles we will be using for a back splash. Next is the duraceramic tile that will be going on the kitchen/family room and laundry room floors. The yellow is the color of the kitchen/family room. You won't actually see much of it in the kitchen, though.

Ok, it's time for me to get working on that closet. Gotta earn my keep around here.....

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

spot the difference....

Ok, so what happened today around here?? Well, let's see if you can tell.





BEFORE:





AFTER:




When we moved into this house there was a fireplace in the corner of the family room. It was nice, but not really all that pretty. A few years ago we decided that we would like to reclaim that spot and that the pinkish fake brick wasn't really gonna fit into the color scheme that we wanted in there anyway. So, out the fireplace went. What we discovered though was that we wound up with a small leak around the chimney from all the banging around that it took to get the fireplace out.




So, today a roofer came by and took the chimney out for us, put in new plywood to cover the spot and shingled the roof. It was quick and fairly painless and now there is no tease of a fireplace inside that doesn't really exist.




In other news, our kitchen/family room is ready to paint. :) In a few days there will be color! YEA!! Today, most of the laundry is getting it's first coat of paint. I say most because there are two patches of drywall work that are not ready for paint, yet. I am also going to put my closet back together tonight and tomorrow. Mike painted it and put down wood laminate flooring(that he pulled up from the family room). The room is just about ready for carpet. We are getting that the end of the month.




Here are some "in progress" pictures of our bedroom.




Here you can see the wood laminate in the closet and the lovely concrete with some black stuff on it in our bedroom. The baseboards will be put in when the carpet is put in.




Here you see our nice, clean, white closet and a bit of our new color in our room. The doors are going back on tonight.




Here's a shot of the carpet sample against the room color. Again...baseboards will go in after the carpet install. They will be painted white. When it's all done I will post some pictures and probably hit everyone up for some opinions for bedding. Oh...and we picked out new bedroom furniture. The dresser, chest and end tables will be making their way here soon. (the end tables will match the dresser and chest)

That's it for now. Coming up this week.... a sneak peek in the laundry room, some outside updates and the new kitchen floorplan.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

catching up....

Well, it's time to catch this blog up to real time. I should have started two weeks ago, but I had no clue where, what or how. Still don't have much of a clue, but I'm moving along. Ready for some pictures?




Here are some pictures of the new drywall. I have to take new shots tomorrow to really catch you up. We are ready to start priming the walls.







The top shot is the tube that will supply our fridge. We will actually have an automatic ice maker for the first time. Oh, our last fridge had one, too. However, it was never hooked up!! The bottom shot is the gas line that will someday soon be hooked to our new range. This is also a first. For over 21 years we have only had electric cooking. I am excited about this, because we all know that the best cooks prefer gas. (yeah, I'm full of it, cuz I really have no clue...but we are looking forward to cooking with gas) We have been researching new cookware and I'll share that later.



Now, this shot is real recent. (just a few hours old) I forgot to take a shot of the old light, but it wasn't much. This is our new foyer light. Shadows bouncing off the wall make the paint look weird, but I don't think there is a line there in real life. Don't you love the blue painter's tape? yeah, me too. Thinking about keeping it as a decorator's accent touch. Right.... You can click on the picture to get a nice close up of the light.




Here is our new porch light. (and a picture of our old one on top) Do you like it? I love it. We ordered it without seeing it in person and I am very happy with it.

Back door....

We have had a large sliding glass door forever. It's been a pain forever, too. We have replaced the old one with a new one and it sure looked nicer. But the screen door never worked right and the tracks keep getting super dirty and nasty. We also went through several different sets of vertical blinds. They always wound up broken. So, we decided to put in a french door. Here are some pictures to show you the progress.




This is pretty self explanatory! This is our old door.







Now, here is our new door ready and waiting. Isn't it pretty? I love it!






Here is the new door in place. There was a problem with one of the handles, so we had another one shipped to us. The inside is white and we are trying to decide if we will paint it and what color we would use. I'll take a finished one at the end of the project. It's going to look beautiful. I can already picture the cookouts we are going to have.

things are movin' along

The very next Monday, things started moving along. All the walls were stripped down in both the kitchen area and the family room. I was happy to see all of it go, because it meant I didn't have to waste one second on stripping wallpaper!! It was determined that we really needed to put in new insulation, too.


The electrician also came on Monday with his helper. They kept busy all day and half the next day. New recessed lighting was installed in the kitchen and in the dining room. We really needed the extra light in the dining area and I am so glad we had him add that to his to-do list. We also had a back light installed to light up our patio area. That is another thing I have wanted for years, but we never got around to putting in the light.


Before we knew it new walls were going up. The plumber also came by and ran a new gas line and ran some copper tubing for our fridge. It's making the dust worth living with. :)



Here are some construction pictures...



















Sure doesn't look like much, yet. However, it's nice to have the hanging wires from the ceiling removed. Also, knowing that the insulation is new is reassuring. (makes me feel warmer)






Here is the old entrance into the kitchen. It's in the process of being walled up. Good-bye little doorway. Hello, grand entrance....








I'll leave you with one more looking into the kitchen/great room from the dining room table. Lots of dust and the walls aren't up in the picture. Oh and the dog looks dead, but he isn't. He's just catching some rays by the window.

Friday, March 14, 2008

the wall comes tumblin' down....

The big day finally arrived!! As if taking down the cabinets and pulling the appliances out to the curb wasn't enough, we were about to go that extra step. You know...the step where there really isn't any turning back and it would cost more to fix it back up then it would to proceed. Before the big day we were joking that we could just hang the new cabinets up and put in our new appliances and save a boatload of money. That certainly is NOT what we wanted...but we knew we could do that. By the end of this day, we were committed.

So, late Saturday morning our guy, Erich, shows up with a helper. We were just on our way out to pick up tile for the backsplash, so we left them to do their magic. They were gone before we got home! It is hard to explain what it was like walking into the kitchen area. It was a very strange feeling. You could see all of your stuff, but it didn't seem like it was your house. We had tried and tried to envision what it would look like, but nothing really came close to the real thing. Our big kids came by and they were also taken by surprise at how weird it felt. A good weird, but weird nonetheless.




Here are two shots from the kitchen. The top one is looking towards the back of the house. See the big sliding glass door? Well, that is coming out. (more on that later) You can also see into the laundry room in the top photo. There have been changes in that room since this was taken. The second photo is aiming towards the front of the house and you can see some of our new appliances just hanging out and waiting for their big debut.




Here are shots from the family room looking into our former kitchen area and eating area. Lovely wires hanging down, don't you think? You can also see that I still have my sink and my old fridge. They keep me sane.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

preparing for demolition time...



The ripping out process has begun. Mike started taking down the cabinets and pulling the appliances. It wasn't hard to say goodbye to that stove, because it wasn't working. It decided on Christmas Eve that it was too tired to heat up! (the nerve!!) The wall with the cord coming out of it is the one that is coming down. :)



Ahhh, my precious sink. I was sure that just having it in would make everything right and I wouldn't go insane from the chaos! I begged to keep the sink for as long as possible. So, for now it stays.




This is where Mike ripped out a decorative overhang. It visually boxed in our little kitchen area and we were surprised that it made a huge difference just having it down.



Here is one last picture of "the wall". This is from inside the family room looking toward the kitchen eating area. See the mess there. This is what happens when you decide to work on 5 rooms at once.

Next up...the wall comes tumblin' down.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The before...

Before you have a during or an after, you must have a before. So, right now we are going to look at some before shots. You need to check the floor plan that I posted yesterday to get acclimated a bit to what is actually happening here. Things look way different around here and they are rolling along. I am so excited. Still choking on dust, but excited nonetheless.



Here is a picture of kid #4 in our dining room. The room behind her is the kitchen and the room beyond that is our family room. It looks kind of like a bowling alley and is something we wanted to change.




Here is another look from the edge of the dining room. You may notice we bought a new dining room table and put in a new light. It's actually the light from the kitchen eating area. You'll see more of that later. Anyhow, the white paper on the wall is where we want to make the new doorway into the kitchen. The original doorway is being walled up giving us more wall space in the kitchen.




Here is our lovely one-butt kitchen. There isn't much counter space and that is just awful for a family that likes to cook. If two of us try to cook at once, well....it ain't purty. The whole wall behind the stove and the pantry(big cabinet) that you see here is being torn down. We will extend the kitchen into the family room.



Now this is directly across from our stove. It is where our new dual fuel Frigidaire range will go. The gas line was just installed yesterday. Now there is one more picture. (still awake??)



This is our eat in area of the kitchen. The windows face our backyard and the wall to the left is the one being torn down. It is actually history and I have PICTURES!! Want to see them? Stay tuned.