Crazy Work Weekend

If working on the house was an olympic event, I think we would have at least won a silver this weekend :)

BEFORE:



Friday: My mom and I drove to Nashville to Lumber Liquidators to pick up bamboo flooring. Friday evening was taking apart the cabinets, and Michael creating his awesome paneling!



The beautiful view from our front porch.


The super scary light "fixture" in our kitchen. The third fixture we've found to be burnt and black inside.



Saturday: Michael finished his paneling, adjusted the cabinets to fit the fridge and the over-the-range microwave we bought LAST YEAR. We didn't think we would be able to get it in until we did a full reno of the kitchen, but our mini reno is turning out amazing! Mom spent the day priming the cabinets with the excellent multipurpose primer which didn't require stripping of the cabinets, yay! (Thanks Mom!) I spent the day priming and painting.












Sunday: Michael installed almost all of the bamboo flooring, it's beautiful! Mom painted the cabinets, awesome! And I finished priming the foyer and spare bedroom, and began painting. I love the colors so far!










"Scottish Shortbread", beautiful color!!



Now to attempt to postpone the appraisal for one week :)

Living Room is ALMOST complete

I finally finished painting the living room (with some assistance from my mom & Michael). I think it looks pretty good. It still needs baseboard mouldings and the wiring to be tied into the circuit breakers, but all in it looks like a complete room. Yay! Now onto the spare bedroom :)

Here are some photos:






Charley absolutely loves hanging out on the window seat and looking out the window. I'm sure we'll never be able to get her off it once we actually make cushions for it.



Our foyer is halfway cleaned out, it may not look like much, but it's a significant improvement :)



Our new lamp!

The walls in the front bedroom were pretty damaged in our efforts to remove the awful wallpaper that seemed to be crazy glued on to every surface. So our two options now are to skim coat it with mud, or do a textured plaster-like surface. I'm torn, honestly, at this point, I just want to do what will be easier and look good. I don't want to totally sacrifice quality, but I also need to make some serious progress. Any opinions?

Living Room Progress

I've had some extra time to work on the house lately since I am currently unemployed. So the up-side is that we are making some serious progress, the down-side of the situation doesn't really need to be explained.

I spent most of the last week touching up the drywall in the living room, mudding and sanding, over and over. Now we have primed the entire room and given the walls the first coat of Martha Stewart "Cake Stand Blue".

Here is what it is supposed to look like:



We picked the color out last year, and when I looked at it again I decided I hated it. I don't hate it anymore, but I don't love it. I think it will work, and Michael really really likes it. It's hard to choose a color for such a big room.

Anyway, here are some photos of our progess this week:


Fun times sanding drywall.







Michael getting ready to prime the ceiling.





It's finally starting to look like a room, not just a collection of drywall. The color is only on the walls in the last photo, but it didn't show up very well as it's only one coat and lighting wasn't great. It's all very exciting and rewarding. I can't wait to finish it up and start moving in to it, it will really make a huge change in the whole dynamic of the house as we will have a dining room once we aren't using it for a living room anymore, and the ktichen will be much more spacious without the dining room table in it.

Hopefully we will have some new and exciting photos soon.

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!!