more floors...

Yesterday was a good day. The men came and worked until 9pm, but they got it all done. We now have real wood in the dining room, living room and hallway. We had wood laminate, so it isn't all that strange or new looking. It does look different and I do like it a lot. It's also nice and clean and after weeks of dust and dirty, I am enjoying the nice and clean look. We even celebrated new flooring by buying a new vacuum cleaner. Isn't that how one celebrates such an event?? I checked consumer ratings and we went out and picked up their top rated upright, which happens to be a Kenmore. (over dyson and oreck...shocked me!)





Here is a shot in the living room with the old laminate. Notice the baseboards are missing. Mike pulled them up(I did put "we", but then realized there was no "We" involved in this task!!hehe) and he also pulled up the laminate after he took this shot. Oh...and there is the new vacuum. Ain't she purty?






Now...here is the real wood. You will notice that the planks are running the opposite way. The color varies greatly and I love that part. Also, notice the new baseboards. Please, ignore the mess on the couches. We are without shelves, cabinets and drawers so there is no place for anything important.

We have new carpet! It is so soft and fluffy. Our old carpet was from when we first got married almost 25 years ago. (so, I say it was time for some new stuff) There will be more pictures of the bedroom later, when I am ready to deal with bedding and stuff.

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??

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!!!!

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.

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.