reno and demo: stage 4

CABINETS ARE INSTALLED!

Cabinets arrived last week, but our contractor was out of town for the week. While everyone was out of town last week I went over to the house and painted every night. Painting upstairs is coming along slowly...but surely. We are just about finished painting all the trim white on the second floor and are picking out wall colors this week. 

I am loving this color for out master bedroom. I think it is the perfect blend of masculine and feminine, and also a perfect combination of blue and green. I am also loving this dark/navy blue in our guest bedroom separated by our white chair rail that is throughout the room. 

Anyways, back to the star of this post.... the CABINETS!! We ordered these cabinets quite a while back and I am loving them! We picked out white shaker style cabinets with a brushed nickel drawer pull to compliment the cabinets. The picture below is the start of the peninsula, which is where our oven/stove will slide in between the cabinets. 

Our contractor realized that one of our cabinets didn't come in right. We have two cabinets next to the sink that are glass front, so they need to be white on the inside as well as the outside. It turns out that one of them is still tan on the inside so we have to get the correct cabinet ordered and delivered. Hopefully the correct cabinet comes in quickly so we can get the kitchen put together completely. 

I am hoping that the next step will be for the cabinet guys to come measure for our counter tops. Luckily, the lower cabinets are all installed so the counter top measuring should still go as planned. You can see one of the glass front cabinets in the picture below-and how they are supposed to be white on the inside. We still need to get measurements for our trim that got ripped down in the dining room and kitchen and that should hopefully happen sometime next week. 

On to the next stage of renovations....

reno and demo: stage 3

WE HAVE DRYWALL UP! 

I am so excited to see drywall up in the new house. Things are starting to come together and the kitchen is taking shape. The half wall is dry walled and the dining room ceiling is up. 

The knee wall/half wall that will house the oven/stove and will also double as a breakfast bar with seating.  

The bulk head is all framed and dry walled. Cabinets will go in on Sunday. I am counting down the days for cabinets to be installed!

The basement now has dry wall installed and is starting to come together. The ceiling is quite low, so we will have to look into some flooring options that don't add too much extra height. This will be the "man cave" so decoration isn't really up to me. 

battle of the beltway

I was lucky enough to see two games of the Washington Nationals/Baltimore Orioles series over the weekend. I had planned on going Saturday evening with a group of friends for a while, but I was also lucky enough to get tickets for Sunday's game as well.

For Saturday's game I went with my other half, some friends, and my brother. We had seats in the upper deck and the view from up there is pretty spectacular! The Nationals ended up winning the baseball game on Saturday to tie the series 1-1.

I was fortunate enough to get tickets for Sunday's game as well. My other half's parents have tickets in the lower section about six rows back from the visiting dugout. I loved getting to sit behind the National's dugout because I was able to get photos of some of the players. There was a promotional give away on Sunday and the first 20,000 fans got a Hawaiian shirt - hence the crazy shirt in the photo.

The game on Sunday was close until the end, but the Nationals pulled out a win again. SERIES WINNERS!! I had such a fun weekend, and I think this weekend is the epitome of summer--evening baseball games under the lights, hot dogs, and the lovely VA humidity.

painting: stage 1

We have started to paint the upstairs of the new house, since there is still dust and construction happening downstairs. All of the bedrooms had cream colored trim and molding--which is nice--but not my style, and the hallway had this dark greenish color trim . We bought a five-gallon bucket of pure white paint for the all of the trim in the entire house. It is EVERYWHERE! The windows, baseboards, chair rails, crown molding, doorways, radiators, closet doors, and more. We have finished one room completely upstairs, completed the hallway, and are almost finished a second room. We still have two more full rooms to complete with white paint and a couple of random things to paint. 

We need to figure out the best way to paint a radiator, and I am thinking that spray paint may work the best. I think spray paint will also work best on all of the light switch covers and outlet covers-which are a mixture of black and cream-depending on the room you're in. The joys of renovation!

I also picked up some paint swatches at the hardware store this weekend to determine what color we want to paint the master bedroom. I am liking a very light green, not too limey and not too pastelish. We have some tough decisions to make in the next couple weeks. 

currently || july

craving || all of your typical summer treats like popsicles, lemonade, and sweet tea. I'v also had a weird craving for chips and dip recently or chips and salsa

listening || queen station on Pandora. This is usually not my style, but recently I have been digging the music that comes on that station.

planning || some sort of 4th of July weekend/celebration I'm sure. The other half's sister is coming in from California so I am certain there will be plans. We are also visiting my parents this month for a baseball game.

reading || The Cuckoo's Calling

decorating || the kitchen and upstairs. The cabinets are finally here we are just waiting on installation. We have started to paint the trim/molding upstairs in the hallway and bedrooms, but really need to get moving on that this month!