reno and demo: stage 7

COUNTER-TOPS ARE INSTALLED!! 

I repeat, counter-tops are installed. They were installed last week and they look amazing. I will admit that they are a tad darker than I expected them to be, but I am beyond happy with them. 

The empty space pictured above is where the dishwasher is currently housed. The counter-top wraps around the cover and sits above the radiator to give us more usable space. 

This is the opposite corner above the lazy-susan cabinet. The refrigerator will be located just to the left of the counter-top edge in this picture. 

The stove will go in this gap and you can see from the picture that there is an overhang beyond the stove. This is a 3-4 person bar top that extends into the dining room. Again, this gives us more usable counter top space and a place to eat meals-instead of the sofa/coffee table. 

Short and sweet post updating the progress in the house!

reno and demo: stage 6

I am so excited to announce that...THE UPSTAIRS OF OUR NEW HOUSE IS COMPLETELY FINISHED!! All the trim has been painted white, all the windows have been painted white, the ceilings got a fresh coat of paint, and all of the walls are painted! We are a little more than a month from moving day, which means painting downstairs will be the biggest priority for the next few weeks. I will leave you with some photos so you can see our final paint decisions upstairs. Disclaimer: the photos do not do the paint color justice. It is way prettier in person. 

I wanted something light and airy in the master bedroom since it gets quite a bit of sun from all the windows. I also had to keep it semi gender-neutral since I am sharing it with the other half-no pink walls or me. We decided to paint the walls in a color called Blanket by Valspar. 

I wanted a similar feeling in the guest room as the master bedroom. Something light and bright to catch all the sunlight that comes in through the window. For this room we chose the color Sea Salt Blue by Valspar, although in the picture it looks totally gray. 

For the third bedroom-which will most likely be turned into an office- we decided on something that would really contrast the white chair rail in the room. We wanted to go dark blue without making it feel really small so we settled on Mountain Lake by Valspar.

For the final color upstairs we decided on something neutral since it would be in the hallway and continue down the stairs into our living room and foyer. It's really hard to see the difference in color in this picture, but if you look closely at the lop left side of the photo you can see where the new color meets the old color. The old color wasn't that bad, we just wanted something with more gray tones instead of tan/yellow tones. For this lovely neutral color we chose Woodrow Wilson Putty by Valspar. 

I promise this post is not sponsored in anyway by Valspar but as you can see we quite like that brand and the paint goes on smoothly without clumping in the roller or pan. 

Stay tuned for more updates because the counter tops are getting installed TOMORROW! This will be a joyous week in our household!

reno and demo: stage 2

While we were on vacation A LOT of work was done at the new house. Walls were taken down, cabinets were ripped out, bulkhead was installed, and the new electrical was installed. I walked into the "kitchen" when we returned on Friday and was met with a very awesome surprise:

The kitchen wall is down, and the structure for the peninsula/knee wall is in place. All the electrical wiring is reworked for a new kitchen layout and outlets. In order for the kitchen cabinets to line up properly we had to extend the bulk head around parts of the wall/ceiling. As you can see, renovations are coming along nicely. Next steps will be to pick out paint and start paining the trim and ceiling in the upstairs hallways and bedrooms. Stay tuned!

reno and demo: stage 1

Where to even begin....We spent the last weekend taking down wallpaper in an almost 100 year old house that has plaster walls. Let me tell you, wallpaper removal is not fun at all! It's sticky, it's wet and the solvent stinks. We had to remove wallpaper from the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, dining room, and upstairs bedroom. The whole process took all three days of the long Memorial Day weekend. 

In the middle of wallpaper removal our contractor decided to stop by to answer a few questions we had. While he was over he let me borrow a sledge hammer and start taking down the wall in our kitchen. That experience was AMAZING! Taking a huge sledgehammer to a plaster wall was major stress relief, but I had to clean up the mess afterwards-which was not so fun. 

Overall the process and project is coming along quite nicely. The kitchen wall is down to the studs, all the wallpaper is gone, and the basement walls are down to the studs as well. The next project will be to paint the trim and walls upstairs-since there is no work going on up there. Once the upstairs painting is finished, we will start painting downstairs.