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 :)

Quick Update

I have not been feeling much like taking pictures of the house...and for some reason I feel bad about posting without pictures...so I haven't been posting.

But here's a quick recap of the last 2 months.

November 4th or so, we moved in. Exciting, yay!

I lose almost all motivation to work on the house other than some organizing and cleaning, and barely any of that either!

We decide we can't afford to redo the kitchen, so we focus on insulating and drywalling the living room and spare room.

Around December 10th or so our toilet decided to explode (not literally of course). We are very sad. The plumber who comes to see if the drain is plugged tells us his best suggestion is to MOVE THE BATHROOM. Ridiculous. Apparently the one pipe we didn't replace because it was buried under the ground has worn out and most likely partially collapsed. Michael and I simultaneously wonder if the house is actually becoming a money pit.

We move back in with my parents. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

Michael has a plan that seems like it will not cost a bazillion dollars and will not take forever. I am optimistic that we will be able to move back in before the end of January. Unfortunately the plan involves ripping up half of our beautiful tile, and therefore the remainder of the warm tile system that was working, but we do have 2 extra boxes of tile, so hopefully we will be okay.

So now I just need to get back to actually helping with the house and hopefully I will be back to taking pictures and making progress soon!

And because I feel bad posting without pictures, here is a photo of my adorable niece:

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!!

We Could Get a Lot More Done...

If everything didn't take so long.

We managed to make decent progress this weekend. Not quite as much as I'd hoped, but not terrible.

The waincscoting panels are now all up. The drywall is completely finished (YAY!). And the built-in cabinet is essentially finished. I'm a little sad that the pictures don't appear to show much progress, but that will change soon.



Michael contemplating the space for the last wainscoting panel:


And it's up!:



(the window still needs its top & bottom trim, and no I that is not what they will actually look like when they are finished.)

Today when I get home I will either start staining the built-in or priming the drywall, whichever sounds more exciting to me.

We also have the supplies I need to work on the bathtub. I'm excited to see how that turns out.

I guess it's still possible we could start moving in the weekend of the 12th, but it's probably more realistic to think the weekend after. But I will still tell myself the 12th to try keep my motivation up. The same way I like to keep the clock in the car a few minutes fast to try to get places on time. But based on that philosophy I shouldn't have to use too many tricks because we thought we might move in 3 months ago, and that clearly didn't help all that much.