Moving Forward

I am very slowly gearing up for some serious work. Today we created our game-plan to have the house ready to be appraised in 1 month.

We are almost done a lot of things, but there are very few things that have been actually completed.

This evening we did some cleaning up in the yard, which felt good. We finally got rid of the gate to nowhere, but left the strangely located netless soccer goal for another day.

Here is the gate to nowhere when we first moved in:



And here is Michael examining the big muddy holes it left behind when we knocked it over today:




The outside of the house looks pretty much the same as it did when we moved in, I think it looks at least a little better though!



Our main projects to take care of in the next month are (1) finish the details in the bathrrom (hopefully by the end of the week); (2) finish mudding the living room, prime & paint it, and try to organize, clean up and reinstall the mouldings; (3) finish removing the wallpaper in the guest room, put a floor & walls in the closet, prime & pain.

There are a bunch of other things I would like to do, but that list already looks somewhat ridiculous considering we have plans this weekend and next weekend. After that we will have to dedicate the rest of our free time to getting as much done as possible. I feel somewhat optimistic though :)

Here are some photos of the nearly complete living room, it will be exciting to move in!

Exciting Discovery & Back in the House

So we are finally officially back in the house, and it feels really good to come home at the end of the day.

There is no longer a single piece of old plumbing in the house, everything is new and working great. Here are a few pictures of the now 95% complete bathroom:





The saddest thing about the whole redoing the bathroom for the second time was having to rip up half of the new tile floor which means we no longer have warm tiles :( But at least it's all back together.

On a happier note, while Michael was taking down some non-original paneling in the living room he discovered that the doors into our dining room (which is currently being used as a living room) were originally pocket doors! We were very excited, and Michael has already managed to get them working again and they look great.

Here is a photo of the living room before...




And after (this is where the mantel used to be! It's waiting to go back though, don't worry.):



And the dining room doors before:


And after:



And here are some general pics of the pocket doors.





Finally, here's our (future) dining room & kitchen, looking very messy but more like a real home at least :)

Bathroom is Almost Done!

Happy Halloween :)



We are planning on moving in this weekend! It doesn't seem real!

We have decided to put off redoing the kitchen and will instead use the rest of our reno loan on the rest of the house.

Here a pictures of the beautiful tile and fixtures (I really like the faucet). You may notice that there are several elements in the bathroom that are done, and then become undone. I have decided that finishing is really hard! We agonized over decisions, and change our mind too much. At least we are moving in in a few days and will be able to enjoy our hard work.








I will post a play by play of the toilet installation later this week, so you have that to look forward to :)

No Colors Anymore...

I want them to turn black.

Not really, but I'm really happy with how our black & white bathroom is turning out.

We put in a lot of work this weekend, and have been making miraculous progress - we might actually start moving in next week!!

I had a bit of a battle with a patch of drywall that looked awful once we started priming, but I managed to prevail and things are looking great.

I am posting several photos of the new black beadboard wainscoting and window trim. This picture was taken after one coat. It looks even better after the second coat, and we may even do a third. Michael is hoping to start working on the tile tomorrow, which is very exciting. Anyway, here are the new bathroom photos - we had to take out the ceiling light fixture to paint the ceiling, so the light is a little odd:

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

A Bathroom!!

Very exciting. Michael has taken an unexpected hiatus from work, and it's been good for our progress. I was very sick with possibly-the-flu last week and was not able to work on the house at all. So no progress last week. And then we had a early birthday celebration for Michael on the weekend, which was fun. We went to a totally terrifying haunted woods/house called Skeleton's Lair, if you're anywhere in the area I definitely recommend it!

Michael somehow magically got the new drywall up on the ceiling by himself, which is awesome! (It does worry me that the text on the drywall might show through the primer and paint though). And then he got the crown moulding done, and primed everything! Here are some lovely photos of our bathroom today (except the first pic which is a little older):


the cabinet with the stain on, just needs the polyurethane over everything now.


the primed bathroom, it looks like the inside of a real house!


this is where the sink will go, we have it wired for two sconces, and the mirror will go between it.

I LOVE this pottery barn mirror... I don't know why, I've really never felt like this about a mirror before. Here it is:

(http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p4985/toolbox.cfm?tool=vAlt&page=3) but $249 just sounds like so much - but it's the perfect size!!


Here is the wall behind the built-in. We decided not to do beadboard, just white paint. But it will have a light fixture, and a mirror too, so it should be fine.


look it's crown moulding! sweet :)

So now all that we need to do for the bathroom is: (1) paint; (2) do the last bit of staining & poly on the built-in and get the glass for the cabinet door; (3) install the lighting fixtures - we've already wired for them; (4) tile (hopefully this won't take forever); (5) choose a sink faucet & mirror; (6) finish sanding and painting the window and door trim; (7) paint the tub; (8) and install everything. Does that sound like a lot? I actually feel like we're really close now!

And once the bathroom is done, just a few finishing touches on our room & closet, and then we can move in!!

Well never mind about the built-in then!

After the overwhelming response, we have decided to leave the built-in as is, as far as the top part goes. I just really want to finish the bathroom and decided I was crazy for suggesting any extra work.

We are trying to pump ourselves up for a big weekend of work. I think we could make some awesome progress if we could put in 2 eight hour days. I would still like to move in in the next few weeks.

Most of the wainscoting is up, we haven't started the mouldings yet. But I really think this weekend we can finish the built-in, finish the wainscoting, and I can start priming and painting... that of course still leaves cleaning up the tub and laying the tile. I might be psychotically optimistic, but I'm hoping we can do that NEXT weekend. Then we could actually move in the weekend of the 12th (which is the same day the bar exam results come out, so now no one needs to ask about that).

Here are a few photos of our progress...

The bathroom window trim that is taking FOREVER to strip:



The sorry state of our back porch: (Neighbors I am truly sorry and I have been trying to clean it up.)



Our new wainscoting, it's beadboard paneling, and it's actually not bad. We went for the slightly better stuff that actually has some depth instead of those yucky flat panels with tiny ridges for the beads:


And the built-in yet again. It's a great thing to have, but I will be very glad when it's done:



Wish us luck this weekend, I will try to document our progress and hopefully be able to do a triumphant post on Monday :)

The Great Cabinet Debate

Work is continuing - just not very quickly.

My parents were out of town last week, so we had to rush home every day to check on the dogs.

I also managed to half-way dislocate my shoulder, so that really slowed me down. I'm okay though.

Anyway, we're still hoping to finish the bathroom in the next few weeks. But right now we're trying to decide on whether the two upper halves of the built-in cabinet in the bathroom should be the same height. Here are a few photos:





It was really hard to get a good shot of it - I need to get a wide-angle lens. But anyway, we can't agree whether it's fine as is, or whether it looks extremely off balance and the right side should be brought up to the same height as the left. Any opinions would be appreciated :)

Anyone feel like helping us make a decision?

I have started looking at lighting fixtures for the bathroom. If anyone recalls,
this is our light fixture (and exhaust fan) on the ceiling:

We are currently looking for a set of sconces to go on either side of the mirror over the sink (we haven't chosen the mirror yet) but the sink looks like this:




And our fixtures so far have all been in a polished nickel finish.

We are also looking for a light fixture to go on the wall above the built-in.

Here are a couple of my options so far:

SCONCES




Over built-in options:




The more I look at the first sconce the more I like it, but I'm worried that the matching two-light fixture will be too small to go over the built-in. I'm also open to any suggestions from anyone who has a feel for what we're looking for :)