Phase II – let’s start with some tile…

It’s been quite a while since I wrote about our house. Mostly because on June 6 we welcomed this little guy into our lives (he’s the BEST).

James is the greatest thing that has happened to us. Yes, we miss sleeping. And going out to dinner. And heading out to do anything at a moment’s notice. But nothing can replace the feeling I get when I see his funny face.

While figuring out this whole parenting thing, Garrett has found some time to continue with our plans to update the house. The main floor of our home (upstairs) is at a near complete stage, so it’s time to start focusing on the downstairs living area. We have enough space (foyer, hallway, half bath, and two small rooms) to make something nice, but it’s going to take a lot of work and creativity… and finding a home for all the boxes that remain unpacked in the rooms we lovingly call our “storage unit” at the end of the hall.

Garrett and my dad started “phase II” by pulling up the beige carpet that covers the downstairs flooring completely so we can put down tile… only to find linoleum tile hiding beneath. Garrett got to work scraping and peeling that stuff up to get to the bare floor.

We picked out some California slate tile that is multicolored grey and looks and feels nice and cool – love it! So the fun begins.

Garrett worked to lay the tile (after learning how to tile by doing the bathroom upstairs) starting with the foyer and laying the whole tiles first, leaving the cuts for the end. Slowly but surely, we’re seeing progress! I just love the difference the tile makes.

Before:

Scraping up the old stuff:

 

Laying down the new tile:

More pictures to come!

welcome home (a long overdue update)

April 28th (moving day) came fast since we were busy every night after work, finishing the kitchen and painting the last walls and touching up the ceilings. We also had our baby shower on April 22, which was beautiful and so touching as we celebrated Baby B with close friends and family.

Thanks to the tremendous help from Garrett’s brother Austin, friend Chris, my sister Stephanie, my mom and dad, we got everything out of the apartment (in one piece) and into our house.

Here we are, saying goodbye to the Wakefield apartment!

 

 

My dad was working up to the last minute to hook up our fridge and dishwasher so we’d have functioning appliances (everything works great and looks so nice in uniform black!).

Here is our new bedroom and the guest room, waiting for furniture!

 

We all crashed Saturday night, and Garrett and I got up Sunday to begin the arranging and unpacking. My aunt Nancy stopped by as a surprise with some delicious meatballs, sausage and homemade sauce… it was amazing to have a home cooked meal (and left overs!) without having to cook after such a long weekend.

After having more time to unpack all those boxes, we’ve started finding homes for all our stuff…we have a TON of stuff.

We still need to do some rearranging, but that comes as we go, day by day. And we’re still searching for some shelving to put above the fridge instead of cabinets, to make the most of that space that we created – we’d love to put our extra glasses (tall beer glasses and margarita glasses and pitcher) up on a neat shelf…so we’ve been searching every Homegoods and TJMaxx type store around for the perfect piece.

Here are some shots of the near-finished kitchen with dining area, plus our living room and the bathroom. It’s amazing to see what a difference the fresh coat of paint makes, not to mention filling the rooms with our furniture and accessories.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been weeks and we’ve stayed busy, but I can’t describe how nice it feels to be HOME after all those days of commuting to work, to the apartment, to the house, back to the apartment…and so on. We have some time now to come home and crash, work on a project for an hour or two, and then call it a night.

Garrett was most excited (no, really!) about cutting the lawn for the first time. So, I had to take a picture, obvi. And then, he came in to enjoy the Kentucky Derby with a beer – the first time in SO LONG that we just sat on the couch for 10 minutes to watch t.v. – ahhhhhh!

 

Garrett and Dad are still at it on the weekends, as we begin phase two with the downstairs projects (front door, electric water heater, tiling the floor, ripping up carpet and installing wood laminate flooring in the downstairs playroom and office, and eventually turning the half bath into a full).

Saturday, May 12 they tackled our new front door. After two trips to Home Depot, they ended up with a completely different door style and color (the door we originally purchased was incorrectly labeled for size, and then later they found we needed a completely different sized door anyway…hence the multiple trips). We started with a white door and ended up with a beautiful mahogany colored fiberglass door. This will change some things on the exterior of the house (I’d like to paint the shutters since I don’t love the red with the brown door) but the door itself is an upgrade and is absolutely beautiful.

 

 

 

The baby will be here so, so soon (I’m 36 weeks on Monday) so it’s time to finish the nursery. We (okay, Garrett) spend a lot of time putting together this beautiful crib, a hand-me-down from our neighbors (thanks Nick and Amanda!). And Sunday (my first Mother’s Day) after an indulgent brunch at the Cafe Fleuri in the Langham Hotel, we came home and put the mattress in with freshly washed sheets and quilt.

 

 

We’re making more progress every day, and are really excited to host our first weekend guests in a few days as our friends Kaitlin, Jim and their baby Henry will be staying with us while visiting for our friend Allison’s wedding shower. Things are looking pretty good! We are excited to show them how far we’ve come.

The beautiful kitchen interior window

We’re getting closer! It’s almost time to move our furniture in, so we’ll be finishing the kitchen in the next few days, including painting, replacing the countertop, and plugging in all those new appliances. Check out the transformation from shades of baby blue to dusty olive upstairs, featuring our awesome interior window and improved kitchen doorway all framed in and ready for paint.

A before shot from the living room, looking into the kitchen and dining area:

And after, nice and open with clean white trim and new green paint (a work in progress as you can see!) in the living room and kitchen:

 

Again, this is a picture from the kitchen looking out:

 

a sneak peek at 12 days from move-in

Our kitchen renovation is underway now that we’ve got a fully functioning bathroom upstairs (a major accomplishment – pictures to follow as we’re currently hanging doors, attaching fixtures, and making things look nice… there is a shot at the end of the blue we painted!).

Again, here’s what the kitchen wall looked like with the fridge in a free standing cabinet, and the beginning of our interior window:

 

Under close guidance, Garrett gets ready to shift the door frame:

   

Garrett’s brother Austin was in town last weekend, and helped lend a hand in creating temporary supports as well as running wires from the attic in the kitchen to get ready for moving the doorway and cutting the window into the wall between the kitchen and dining area.

  

Here comes our interior window…

 

Having the window cut into this wall really opened up the small kitchen. I can’t wait to see it framed in!

 

Although I haven’t unveiled the final touches, here’s a quick look at the bathroom transformation: from pink and brown to blue and bright white.

   

And the baby’s room is looking better as well, with fresh paint and shined up floors, it’s almost ready for furniture!

 

My mom (who truly is a skilled painter, I can’t thank her enough) and I will continue to paint in the hallway and throughout the top floor so we’ll be ready for moving in the last weekend of April. With the guys dedicating time every day to moving these projects along (and I cannot say thanks enough) I think we’re going to make it!

3 weeks before move-in day! bathroom progress and new appliances

Remember the pink bathroom tile? And the bare floor boards and scary walls?

The guys are making huge progress! Here’s a shot of the bathroom with smooth walls ready for primer! The tile looks beautiful, well worth all the hard work!

On Friday, our appliances arrived! We ordered a black fridge, microwave, dishwasher and oven, to give the kitchen a nice update. They’ll be hanging out in boxes in the dining area until we finish the kitchen demo work.

As the guys tackled electric work and bathroom touch ups, and with my mum’s help, I was back to it with more wall paper and paint scraping in the kitchen. This wall was a challenge because of the wallpaper, paint, wallpaper paint quadruple layer. BUT…since we’re cutting this wall to move the doorway and creating an interior window, we could skip huge spaces where there will be demo anyway (huge time saver!).

We also got rid of the microwave and stove, to prep the walls behind for our new appliances and painting. Garrett learned how to carefully install the range outlet for our new stove, and patched up the giant hole that surrounded it. Lots of progress!

The baby’s room is freshly peeled down to the nice plaster walls, and has been gooped to fill in all the nail holes and gouges. Soon enough it will be ready for painting and touching up the floors.

 

After a long day’s work, Garrett and I came home to do some beer drinking and some baking for Easter.  (who do you think did which?)

grouting the bathroom tile

Garrett lay the majority of the tile down on the first night, saving the pieces they had to rough fit and cut with a wet saw for day 2. Just having the tile on the floor makes the bathroom look so much nicer already. Now, the walls are being patched and “gooped” to prep for sanding, priming and painting. Things are looking great!

Here’s a shot of Garrett buttering the tile. Nice spacing work.

Tile setting overnight…getting ready for grout!

Garrett picked out a “latte” colored grout with some guidance from the guys at Lowes, and even though we were skeptical, I think it actually complements the colors in the tile really well. With a quick lesson from my dad, Garrett got to work with his grout float and did a nice job!

Another trip to Home Depot and/or Lowes is in our future as we buy paint supplies, bathroom door knobs and hinges. We’re also going to look at flooring options for the 1st floor entry and hallway.

One final picture to share! My mum has been helping me scrape paint and wall paper in the baby’s room, which is so incredibly nice of her. It just so happens that this is the same room which had become the upstairs work bench for all the tools, buckets, saws, and the toilet and sink waiting to be installed. After making quite a mess with our busy work, and hiding all the tools under our shavings, I think we started to panic my dad. So during the day, my mum went to the house and relocated their work bench area to our guest room, in the most neat looking work space imaginable (below). Only a mum would know to do this… thank you for keeping us organized!

Once the bathroom is finished, we’ll continue on to the kitchen. Earlier this week, Garrett unhooked the old dishwasher and stove to prepare. Our new appliances have been purchased and are being delivered to the house tomorrow! We’re approaching our move-in date (25 days to go) but I think we’ll have the majority of the project work completed by then (bathroom, kitchen, painting). The rest will have to come as we can take it while we’re living in the house!

everybody’s working for the weekend

Friday rolled around and we were so thankful to finish up the work week. There’s an instant where you experience the freedom and prospect of what seems like endless possibilities with the entire weekend ahead of you, and it feels so good.

With the bathroom project well underway, Garrett packed up and headed to the house after work to meet my dad.

Yessss. We have a tub. With shower walls. Ready for sealing up!

When I got to the house, my mum and I started of the WORST project ever: scraping paint and wallpaper. Let’s say it all together now, “NEVER, EVER paint over wallpaper.” What a mess.

Look – I started scraping next to my mum and we came up with a nice Easter egg and bunny (can you see it? I could… call me crazy…)

We called it quits around 10:30 or so, but overall made some good progress after my dad showed us how to heat up the paint with a heat gun (although I was too intimidated by the open flame to actually hold it, my mum was a champ and she would heat up my section of the wall for me). THANKS mum!

Saturday was a new day. Garrett met my dad early in the morning to pick up where they left off. The biggest accomplishment of the day was laying our tile! Check it out, Garrett is now skilled in tile work (he’s really learning a lot, I keep saying it but I’m so, so proud!).

(below, you’ll see the last piece of wall board plastered up in the background too)

I had an easy morning, lucky to spend some time with my friend Allison, shopping for her upcoming wedding and finding some cute stuff at Pier 1 and Home Goods for the house. We saw this watering can at HG and couldn’t resist. Allison bought it for me as a gift… a steal at $16.99 compared to one at Anthropologie going for $68.

Anthro’s cute version of the snail can:

I got back to the house and my dad was psyched to tell me that our idea to use my clothing steamer made the hassle of paint chiseling a slightly easier task. A HUGE thanks to Steph and Taylor Steinhoff for the most useful wedding gift!

Don’t I look like I’m having so much fun? Getting low to the ground is tough with a preggo belly, so I took a seat and kept on plugging away.

Garrett and I called it a day, left the house and made a trip to Jordan’s Furniture and Pier 1 so I could show him some of the things Allison and I found that I really liked. It might be too early to plan our living room and downstairs hallway, but I really liked this arm chair, console table, and fireplace screen for our living room area/hall, and hall tree (for downstairs). Pier 1 had some great deals, and we have a 20% off coupon for our entire purchase, so these ideas might become a reality (tomorrow? TBD!).

Liliana armchair ironwork ($379)

Linford console table ($249)

5′ X 8′ Spider mum rug ($249)

Ellisha fireplace screen ($119)

Alcott hall tree ($369)

Shopping for the new stuff is the best part (although it’s scary to spend so much money at once, we’re always looking for sales and deals, and I think we’ve done a good job).

Sunday is going to be another busy day of running around. Tomorrow, we’re meeting Auntie Peggy at Sears to meet the manager, order our new appliances and set up delivery. Once the bathroom is finished, we’re on to the next big project: the kitchen!

a week’s worth of progress

I stopped by the house last night as the last piece of plywood was laid down on the bathroom floor.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of Garrett and my dad, this bathroom is well on it’s way! While I was there, I caught some prep of the PVC pipe and drain for our bathtub (in our soon-to-be living room!) so the guys could cement the new tub into place.

I don’t have any pictures yet, but the guys cemented the tub into place so it could set overnight. Today they’ll be putting up the shower walls, which you can see set up in the background of the photo above. Then comes more wall board and we’ll be ready for tile.

On our list to purchase next is a vanity mirror and sanded grout for the tile. I didn’t know picking out grout was going to involve so many choices! Dad said to let the guys at Lowes show us what would look best next to the tile so we can pick out the right color.

Although we considered vanity mirrors with medicine cabinets, I think I like a simple cherry mirror like the one here by Allen + Roth, that matches our small vanity sink by Allen + Roth (also below). We have to measure one more time to make sure the 30″ H mirror will fit under our light fixture nicely without looking too crammed. The bathroom is a small space so we want to make the most of the room we have!

I’ll also be picking out paint for the kitchen, dining area, living room, hallway and baby’s room. This seems like such a FINAL choice to me that I’ve been putting it off. Unfortunately, the previous owners had left wall paper up in the kitchen/dining area and the baby’s room and then painted over it (UGHH) so we’ll have to see how much of a pain it will be to peel off without damaging the plaster walls.

Since the main floor is fairly open and not too large, we will likely paint the hallway, living area and kitchen/dining area in the same color. Garrett and I really like Behr’s Modern Oasis “dusty olive“ interior paint, with white trim. The blue we like for the upstairs bath will be Velspar’s “window screen“ which is a soft gray-blue. I think the baby’s room will be very neutral, either Behr’s “ivory lace“ or a slightly darker “mushroom bisque“ … I will have to decide when I get to the store!

I am so thankful the weekend is here, it’s going to be another busy one but I’m really looking forward to seeing our shower/tub complete!

Let there be walls!

After a night off, Garrett was ready to get back to work. The guys prepped the studs and started to put up walls (really quickly!) in the bathroom on Tuesday night. Check out the wall board and joint compound in the nook where the toilet and sink will be. There’s a shot of the sink and cabinet set into place to make sure things are fitting according to plan.

With a quick trip to Home Depot at lunch on Wednesday, Garrett picked out this Hampton Bay light fixture to hang above the sink (he’s got good taste!). The brushed nickel will match our faucet and the shower fixtures perfectly.

I didn’t stay long (I had to watch American Idol to report back to Garrett when he came home) but as I was leaving, the guys were getting ready to put down plywood on the floors to prep them for our beautiful gray caribbean slate tile (see below). The picture doesn’t do it justice, there are pretty flecks of blue-gray in the tile that look really nice and will pop in combination with the slate blue paint we’re planning on using.

I can’t wait to see the progress tomorrow! These two have only been working for one week, and have done some major work already. I’m so thankful and very impressed! The count down to move-in day is on (33 days), but I think we’ll be in good shape.

Day 4 bathroom reno – insulation, electrical and plumbing work

Sunday was another day of working in the bathroom. That means making a few more cuts into the drywall, screwing in the floor boards for reinforcement, patching up some holes in the sub flooring, and cutting insulation and putting that in between the studs.

Dad helped us with some electrical work, re-running wires inside the walls in the bathroom and kitchen for our outlets when we’re ready. He also made some pipe changes to the bathroom plumbing so we’ll be ready for adding the tub and shower walls, toilet and sink.

fun with fiberglass insulation. it makes me itch just thinking about it.

new wiring for outlets (the bathroom didn’t have a single outlet inside!)

Our porch has become a temporary graveyard for the old appliances and tub!

The cabinets are completely gone from the wall between the kitchen and living room (they had just painted over layers of wallpaper in the kitchen, which we saw here). This is the wall that we’ll be cutting into to expand the doorway at the top of the stairway, next to the place we’ll put the fridge. We also plan to cut an interior window into this wall and add countertop and cabinets below.

peeking around the corner

Here’s where Dad rewired the electrical, and made some notes on the wall for plans to come!

Another long day for the guys. We did take a break to head to Sears, where we picked out our appliances, all black finish. Thanks to my Auntie Peggy, we are getting a great deal and she put us in touch with a guy at the store named Jim who was incredibly helpful and had a wicked sense of humor. We chose Kenmore for our fridge, oven, microwave and dishwasher. I’ll post pictures of those soon.

Tomorrow is Monday, and we’re calling a time out. Garrett and I have tickets to see the Hunger Games after work (yesss) and we’re looking forward to seeing how it compares to the book series.

It’s been an incredibly successful weekend, thanks to Garrett and my dad. They are getting pretty close to putting up new walls! And to think, they’ve only been at it for a few days. I’m so proud of them and extremely impressed.