Before and After - Kitchen

And you thought the kitchen was done? We finally added our sexy, orange, glass tile back splash and it...is....stunning!

For the last year it's looked like this:


Now this:


As a reminder, this is what it was when we purchased:


And here's the work in progress:






Thanks to Page Construction Service and my husband's exquisite taste.

Still to come - Scott's porch project!

Bedrooms & Blinds

I'm thrilled to announce that the LAST BIT of construction cardboard has been pulled up from the floor. The remaining bit covered the floor in our master bedroom. We didn't have furniture to put in there and we hadn't picked a paint color and it just wasn't a priority. However, we stumbled on a major deal and wound up buying a new bedroom set and mattress. A much needed mattress, I might add.

We also had blinds installed throughout the living, dinning, kitchen area.

For your viewing pleasure (sorry they are just iphone photos):

Sun room blinds:


Half opened, the way we normally keep them:


As you walk in to the guest room:


New guest room dresser (and purple wall):


Final look of the corner:


The bed area (we already had this furniture & we'll get a duvet eventually):


Putting the new bed together:


All put together:


Close photo of new dresser/green wall:


Master Bedroom dresser & green wall:


Bed and a bit of the night stand:


Pippet enjoying her new bed:


Master bedroom sheets and duvet coming along with a dual blind. And we'll need a rug.

And at some point we'll get to that guest bath and the basement project. It really does feel like a home now!

And, I want to mention that all this has happened while I've been out of town for work. Awesome props to my husband for making it awesome. I can't WAIT to get home!

Still going....

A delay in writing due to a much needed trip away from construction. Scott and I drove East with our baby girl, Pippet, this weekend. It was her first vacation. A dog belongs on hiking trails!

While we were gone, Ryan worked on the house. He replaced the leaky garden window in the "her" bath and put our kitchen floor in (!!!!). Things will be slow moving the next few weeks as we didn't think our house would take so long and Ryan had another job scheduled. Today the dry wall guy was here sanding away, our friend has been painting the walls as we finish rooms (he'll be by tomorrow to finish up one of the bath walls) and our tile guy is aiming to hit the bathrooms by end of the week.

In the meantime, here are some new photos of the progress:

We put plastic up all through the house the morning before we left. It helped cut down on the dry wall dust in the rooms we are storing things and in the room we are living out of. This photo is the plastic we put up to keep the sun room from getting coated since we are storing several things in there:


We almost had an oven and microwave ready for use but something wasn't lining up correctly. Another trip to Ikea in our future to make it work. Here's Ryan and Mike trying with Scott looking on:


WE HAVE A FLOOOOOR!!! It looks dark gray in this photo but it's a blue/gray in real life.


Leaky garden window is gone:


New window is IN (That's Porter paints Antique Silver on the one wall in the bathroom. The wall without drywall will get tile.):

Sorry for the Delay...seems to be going around

Too much changes on a weekly basis. I don't know where to begin to update. We were supposed to close today. Bummer but several things have delayed us. Scott and I played paper pusher today, collecting signatures on quotes, collecting old pay stubs, bank statements, mortgage statements, writing letters explaining everything we've done for the last 2 years. Now it's all in the mortgage brokers hand. The appraisals should come in tomorrow. And then....hopefully, we are in business. That's when the blog can really heat up. Scott and I will start the demo and we'll start ordering all the goodies.

Updates from old posts:
1. We are leaning more toward a solid color floor in the kitchen. Easier to match, easier on the eyes, etc.
2. We are holding off on the fancy counter tops for now. I may have mentioned this previously but we are spending a ton of money up front. There's a difference by more than 1K if we start off with formica and upgrade later.
3. We likely won't go with red counter tops, no matter how awesome, because we've fallen in love with an orange back splash.


I guess that's about it. After we close I can finally share this blog with the rest of my friends and start putting some true "in process" pictures up.

Send good house closing thoughts. We gotta close in the next 2 weeks or the seller is moving on.

The kitchen

A few posts ago I mentioned "design our marmoleum floors". Well, Scott saw some pictures and was inspired. He designed the floor and back splash below. He incorporated it into an Ikea photo that shows our cabinets (the brown cabinets on bottom) but not really our layout. We are considering 1 or 2 of the horizontal cabinets - probably in stainless though. We also decided to go with a re-issue laminate (boomerang, the offwhite version with the light gray booms) counter tops for now. We can add the red quartz counter tops later fairly easily when money isn't as tight.



In other news....we are still in the waiting game. The house in not ours yet. Appraisal still to come. General contractors can be so elusive....
For those who don't know how a 203K loan works - you have to turn in your #'s and they have to cover everything that needs done on the house (even if you're going to do it yourself - you have to show that the contractor is doing it and getting paid...rubish) within the amount of money they are giving you to do it in. They don't want to know that you are going to add some money to the pot in order to only have to do it once instead of spending $800 now to "get it done" and another $2K later to do it right. It's a frustrating process but one that will HAVE to be worth it.

Red counter tops?

We are currently trying to decide on counter top colors. Seems too soon, you say? In order to get the two appraisals (before rehab and post rehab) we have to submit a list of all the work we are doing, including cost of materials and labor. It's extensive. Counter tops vary in pricing based on many things. The picture below is a close approximation of the colors of the cabinets we've picked. The lighting is what it is in the photo, but otherwise, how do you feel about red counter tops?

From Ideas

Stayed tuned for the next installment: Design our marmoleum floors!