Primed and painted!

Now that the drywall mudding and sanding is complete, I was eager to get the first coat of primer on the walls.  Once the priming was completed and dry, I didn't waist any time in repainting.

(Sorry for the fuzzy pictures.  They were taken at night with the glare of lights and with the iPad.)

My kitchen may look a little odd in this transition mode, because I painted the light grey that is in the dining room into the kitchen to the corner above the remaining hanging cabinets.  The rest of the yellow is on it's way out as well, as I am ready for something else, but I just haven't decided yet what I want to do.

Paint the cabinets a different color and keep the rest of the walls the neural grey?
              OR
Keep the cabinets white and paint the walls a different accent color?
              OR
Keep the cabinets white and paint all the walls the neutral grey?

What do you think?  Here are some more pictures to help you understand better what I am looking at.

Now that things are painted, we are ready to get the counter top on and the shelves hung.

Kitchen work continues

Remodeling an older home is never an easy task!  Andrew has had to figure out all the old wiring, that were in the walls, as well as the newer wiring done by previous owner.  Next, try to either relocated them to another spot or at least fix what was there.

A couple outlets had to be moved down on the kitchen side, an outlet that wasn't working had to be fixed on the dining room side, the kitchen light switch had to be moved down and rewired in a crazy way (down the half wall, under the walkway to the living room, up the wall by our fridge, and over the the light fixture), and the dining room light switch had to be relocated and rewired (from the half wall side to the other side of the walkway).

My dad has also been busy with getting the header looking nice and smooth again. Mudding, sanding, mudding, sanding, etc till he gets the end result he is looking for.   

On the outside wall, the kitchen side of the wall and the dining room side of the wall were at different levels.  I guess the thickness of drywall was different, so that also posed as a challenge to somehow taper it off so it is not as noticeable and hope that the shelves I am putting there won't accentuate the problem.  With the wall there, who have known the difference....until someone had the crazy idea of taking that wall away!  Oh well.  It added to the character of an old home, right?

This is the tedious part, that always makes a project feel like it is taking forever!  Cutting open the wall, seemed to go so fast, because you get big results with each step.  Once we start painting, and installing the counter top, things will start coming together again quickly, and then you start feeling like you are really accomplishing something again.

Kitchen remodel has begun

Remember this post [here] where I talked about sometime in the future removing the wall between the kitchen and dining room.  I can say with excitement that it is finally happening!  My kitchen will not feel so small anymore and I will be able to see and talk to anyone sitting in the dining room.  I can not wait for it to be done!

We have decided to do this in several stages.  Stage 1 is opening the wall, installing a bar height counter, and some open shelving on the outside wall.  Stage 2 and maybe even 3 or 4 will be working on the rest of the kitchen cabinets and counter tops.

Here are the begining details of stage 1:

We emptied the cabinets and took them down

View from the dining room side

Drywall is down and they are working on the electrical (whatever was in the wall now has to go elsewhere).

We tried to cover things to keep the dust from covering it all, but everything was still covered in dust!  Oh well!  It's all part of having construction going on in the house, while trying to make it livable. :)

Things are looking nice and open already! (What you see hanging down on the half wall is our thermostat, which is currently being rewired and installed somewhere else.)

Another view from the other side.

The drywall and mud is covering the bottom of the header now and down the side.  Even though it will a bit yet before everything is done, this kind of gives you an idea of what the end will be.

The next few steps for completing this first stage of kitchen remodel are finishing the drywall, painting, installing a countertop on the raised half wall, and installing open shelving on the outside wall between the two windows.

DIY Roman Shades - No Sewing

I had the itch to do something creative around our house, as it has been a while, so I thought about areas in the house that could use some attention.  The one area that came to mind, was our front porch.  I really had not done much in there since we moved in and I have been meaning to do something with the windows or walls, but had not really settled on anything that I fell in love with.  But with the urge to do something again, I revisited the ideas, I had going in my head and decided to focus on the windows and what I can do to add a little more life and color to the space.

Here is what the room looked like when we bought the house (Sorry it doesn't give you a good view of the windows.  Some how I lost my 'before' picture I took of what the porch looked like right before I worked on it):

The walls are painted white and there are white mini blinds in the windows.  I had pinned several diy roman shade ideas on Pinterest that I wanted to try someday, so I figured why not try they out now, with the current mini blinds.  Romans shades is the best application for that space, as I have six windows all in a row and I didn't want any rods running the whole stretch, or curtain panels hanging all the way to the floor.  So, I looked through all the tutorials I pinned on Pinterest and decided on {this one} for this project.

Avery and I went off the the fabric store and spent some time looking at all the different colors and patterns they had to offer.  I wanted something that would fit well with the current color pallet I have in the house, while still giving me some flexibility of still working with any changes that I want to make in other areas in the house, in the future.

The fabric we ended up coming home with is a Sunbrella material which is suppose to not fade as fast. 

I wasted no time in taking down the blinds and getting started on them.  I cut the ladder cords, but saved the main pull cord.  I took off the bottom rail, so I could slide off the vanes I didn't need.  Put the bottom rail back on and retied the string at the proper length.  Then I switched my attention to the fabric.

I cut the main decorative fabric slightly bigger than the opening of my window.  Windows were 25"x45", so the fabric was cut to 28"x48".  The extra 1" or 1.5" is what is used to turn over on the other side.  Then I cut the lining fabric to the exact size of the window.  I glued the perimeter of the liner, with special fabric-tec glue, centered on to the back of the decorative fabric.  Then I folded over the edge on one side and glued it in place.  When I went to the opposite side, I made sure that when I turned it over as well, it would measure the 25" that I needed for my width of the window.  Next I folded over the top and glued it down.  Then did the bottom side, again making sure it measured the 45" that I needed.

After I let the glue sit for a little bit, I proceeded to glue the mini blind to the shade.  First starting with the head rail, then moving down with each vane, measuring each one as I went along.  Because I didn't have super tall windows, I only had 3 vanes that I glued along the blind.  Finally, I glued on the bottom rail.  One some of them I has to adjust the bottom rail a bit, as where I have tied the strings, it left them still a little long.  But that wasn't hard to do.

Last, but not least, I hung up my shades and smiled at how much more color they bring to the front porch.  Even Andrew, who doesn't like change, commented that it is so different now anytime he steps up in there!

Well, there you have it!  Super easy, no sewing, roman shades!  The most expensive part of the whole project was the cost of the fabric.  Even on sale, it still adds up quickly!

Have you tried these before?  How did yours turn out?  I would love to see them!

Master Bedroom Closet Door

We have a 10 foot wide closet in out Master bedroom, but the door was only 6 feet wide.  It was always challenging to try and see what was beyond the opening into the dark corners and reach for some clothes.  We finally were able to cut open the wall a bit wider and make our clothes a little bit more accessible!

Our next problem was that there were no standard closet doors in any of the home centers for an 8 foot opening. So, soon we were having to order a custom door.  We decided to go with sliders because they were easy to open and close and didn't take up any additional opening room.

Here is the work in progress and the final outcome!

Widening the opening on both sides of the existing doorway

It was a messy job!

Avery had to get right in there and help daddy out!

...and the new doors!

They are so much nicer to open and close!  And so glad to be able to reach all of my clothes now!

Guest Bathroom Makeover

I know some of you have been waiting for these posts.  It is of our bathroom renovation that started at Christmas time with demolition and it slowly grew to be a bigger project than we originally anticipated.  Also, since we had a little one in the mean time, everything pretty much was placed on hold till recently as we finally finished adding the last minute accessories.  We are glad that we did it and that it is for the most part done!

Here are the pictures of the whole process.

Before:

After:

Here is the evidence of all the work that went into the bathroom. :)

We started this project with the intent of just replacing the tub with a stand shower and linen closet in the corner.  Since the bathroom was so small and we have another tub already, we can do without one here and stand to make this bath feel a little bit bigger, or at least give a bit more room.  After tearing out the tub, we found out that we had 16 inches of dead space behind it that is extremely valuable in a really small bathroom.  With that discovery, our project doubled in size.  Now, we decided to tear down the wall and make a new one farther back, but in order to do that, we had to empty all the blown-in insulation that had fallen from the ceiling (since they didn't know there was a whole there).  That little space took bags, and bags, and bags full of insulation.  Poor Andrew was itchy for several days.  We didn't rush too much on it, but simply worked a couple nights each week and Saturdays here and there.  I wonder if the people at Menards recognize us, as we ended up there many times after realizing we need one more item or the item we got, wouldn't work, etc.

Once we were able to clean out the blown insulation, we tore off the rest of the drywall, cleaned out the rest of the insulation, and old subfloor, as it was rotting in a few places.

Here you can see fresh insulation, a fresh 1/4" OSB subfloor, and new plumbing for both the shower and sink.

You can see here that the new vinyl floor is already in.  The new shower stall is placed on top and they are starting to hang the new drywall up.

Here is the beautiful, but not yet complete, shower base and walls.

Taping and mudding all the cracks and corners.

I realized I didn't end up with any pictures of the painting process, but you can see the results in the final outcome.  We do certainly enjoy our 'new' bathroom and also the larger floor space for comfortableness in dressing, etc.  I also have another linen closet to use, which was great a necessity. 

A Fresh New Look!

My dad does maintenance at our church's local elderly manor and came home with this beauty!  Apparently it didn't work anymore, so the lady had him hang a new light fixture in its place.  So he brought it home to see if anyone wanted to use it or play around with it.  When I saw it, I immediately asked if I could have it!  A can of paint, some new wire, a new chain, and bulbs brought this light fixture a long way to looking much more appealing!

Before:

After:

A Fence & Trees

We dearly love our dog Roxy! Roxy likes to play outdoors but we have had to clip her to a chain since we got her, so she wouldn't run off chasing birds, squirrels or anything else that she might feel would be intruding in HER yard. So, we decided to invest into a fence. That idea was great, but we had one problem. There is a tree in the way of the fence line. It is dead anyways, so we might as well chop it down! It took some time with having to work with it bit by bit as we suddenly had all kinds of fire wood too for camping.

Here is a picture of the side of our yard with the tree and in the winter: (it was the only yard picture I had)

Here are a few pictures of us in progress (and with all the leaves on the trees):

The beginning pile of logs to be split for firewood!

The posts are set!

Here is the finished project:

This is the little corner behind our master bedroom

(with our beautiful flowering lilac and budding rhododendron bushes - this was taken in the spring)

The other side of our yard

Now.... to figure out where to build some flower gardens, etc. I think I have some work cut for me to which I better get busy with!