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 :)

Housecleaning

This weekend I was mostly on my own since Michael went camping with a friend on Saturday night. It's hard to resist taking some time for ourselves, but we are also anxious to get in the house... we struggle with that. But I had a nice time working at the house and did some reading in the evening.

The photos show the result of a simple sweeping and mopping of the floors. It really made me happy to see that they look pretty great under all that filth. We aren't planning on refinishing them, just giving them a good cleaning and then waxing them. (The floor was still wet in the photos, thus the shininess). Oh, and that's the guest bedroom, the bathtub is just living in there until we're ready to refinish the outside and install it.

We went for a drive to the nearby "big town" of Bowling Green in our search for beadboard wainscoting on Friday night. We were in luck because they were in stock, and while they were slightly water damaged, they gave us an irresistible price on them.

I was hoping to start mudding the drywall yesterday, since all the drywall is up in the bathroom, but I had some issues getting the bucket of mud open (i.e. I could not open it!) Today after I walk home I'm going to try really hard again and see if I can't get that started, and then Michael wants to go get all the mouldings for the wainscoting so we can start to put that up. It's nice that we only really have to finish the upper half of the drywall, so I guess I can practice on the lower half.

We had decided to go to the Bourbon Festival this weekend in Bardstown after hearing how much fun it was, but I think we've managed to convince ourselves that we really need to work on the house. It's already almost halfway through September, I don't know how this keeps happening.

Our New Bathroom Inspiration

Isn't it beautiful? We were already talking about painting the outside of the tub black, and now we've pretty much decided to do a full on black and white bathroom. I'm excited about the black, I think it looks really elegant and is not a very commonly used color (or non-color or whatever it is). I just hope we can pull it off, choosing the right paint will be very important!

Michael started working this week, which is exciting, but not good news for house progress. I've been trying to make an extra effort to go to the house after work and I've been sanding the trim for the built-in. I was actually having fun with it yesterday, it really helped listening to my mp3 player. I'm really enjoying an album I put on it by Mika.

Here are some updated photos of our built-in. It looks great. We're having a debate about the beadboard on the wall. I think we're going to keep it up, but we're not sure if we should paint if black or if that will be overwhelming. We're thinking that we'll stain the cabinet with a semi-transparent white stain which will be beautiful and break up all the black. Anyway, here are the photos of the cabinet and a sample pic of the stain:




So the stain doesn't seem to show up very well online, but it will be more like the white stain, but you will be able to see the grain more like in the gray stain:






We were bad renovators again last weekend and went camping, but I think we will get lots done this weekend, and we had a great time so it was worth it :) I had to share a couple of photos of Michael, from when we were out on our friends' boat:

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 :)

Michael explores the world of carpentry

Well, the last of our guests have left (it was fun Peter!).

I managed to be some help to Michael last week, I made an effort to go after work and help put up some drywall. And today Michael started making the built-in cabinet he designed. I can't believe how far along he came in just one day - it looks so great already! And it gives me hope that we may finish the bathroom sometime in the next month... which of course is very exciting :)

Here are some shots of the general progress on the bathroom, the built-in is where the second door used to be.








Our plan is to work on the house Friday evening & most of Saturday, and then take the rest of the long weekend off and camp at the local lake with our friends. We should be able to get the rest of the drywall up pretty easily, and then my job will be sanding/taping/spackling etc. while Michael continues on the built-in.

Which reminds me - we really need to choose a color, or two I guess since the first four feet of the wall will be beadboard. I actually kind of like the look of the green drywall, but I'm pretty stuck on green for the kitchen now. We've talked about doing the bathroom in a turquoise or something like that, I think it could look really good with the black and white tile.

Then on to the tile. But we won't worry about that yet.

Who Knew Visitors Could be So Distracting!

I know I've been neglecting the blog, but I really truly hope that things will start settling down somewhat now.

I have barely been to the house since our last post. Michael is working there during the day, and usually doesn't want to go back at night, and then every weekend this month we've had guests!

We love having guests, and are really happy they came, but we would also like to be able to move into our house at some point. Our last visitor is coming this weekend so that should really help. And hopefully Michael won't mind putting in a couple of evenings, because I'm starting to feel like I haven't done anything on the house at all (except the roof!)

Michael has been able to make some progress on the bathroom. There is now a subfloor - so no more standing on the dirt in the bathroom! There is also insulation and most of the drywall. He is currently trying to get the drywall finished up and then will be working on the built-in. I'm really hoping that in a couple of weeks we'll be ready to lay tile, and once that's done we'll be very very close to having a finished bathroom - and be able to try out our fancy clawfoot tub fixtures.

We are also currently discussing what to do about the kitchen. We had really hoped to get new cabinets, but at this point it looks like the smartest thing to do will be to remove the cabinets, put in new flooring and clean up the walls. We will attempt to refurbish the cabinets then replace and rearrange, and put in a new countertop. We're also thinking about removing the doors from some of the cabinets, which I think will modernize it a bit - and new hardware of course. I think we can still make it look really good, although of course it won't be as nice as having new cabinets. But that's okay, maybe we'll renovate someday :)

I found some great kitchen ideas from a link on one of my new favorite blogs (schmichschack.blogspot.com) to the following bhg article: http://tinyurl.com/2wpg65
and found the following inspiring ideas (I'm not a fan of the big clock though!):



Our cabinets are a similar style to those above, it would be great if we could make them look that nice!