Chris, Jen, Grant & Eleanor

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Dining Room

This room was originally used as a dining room but it is actually no where near the kitchen. Our tentative plans for now are to use it more of an office type space. I have also thought about putting my piano in here too. There was a thick brown carpet in here that continued into the living room. It was in decent condition but had a bit of an orange hue to it and still was really old. I was willing to leave this carpet in for the time being but when we were able to get a good deal on the laminate we decided to go ahead and replace it. When we removed the carpet, which included 2 thick pads underneath it, we found original hardwood floor. It is actually in pretty good condition. We have decided to leave the hardwood floor and refinish it eventually.

This picture is looking into the dining room from the living room. You can see the carpet I was talking about. It even went right in front of the front door which you can see on the left. It continued into a coat closet by the front door that you can see. I decided to paint the walls grey and to paint the wood paneling white. I think I would have preferred to remove the paneling and do something different like wainscoting but this seemed like a quicker easier fix for the time being. I also thought the trim around the entry to the room added a lot of character but I didn't really like the dark wood color so I decided to paint it white as well. By the way, notice the sweet hanging lamp by the front door. :)

This shows the living room but I wanted to show what it looked like when we started pulling up the carpet.

A close up of the paneling and the trim I wanted to paint white.

Starting to paint the walls grey. I'm working hard supervising in this picture. :)

We decided to go ahead and paint the little bit of wall surrounding the wood trim white instead of grey so it would be easier. The trim was still tricky to paint but definitely so much easier not having to worry about taping or trying to get grey in all the small spots. The paneling definitely looks better painted white. I think the look on my face in this picture says, yes I can do work other than supervising. :)

We still need to replace the light fixture, put in the baseboards, crown molding and trim around the window and do a few touch ups around the wood trim. But I definitely like how it is turning out.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Nook Area

We have called this area the Nook, but honestly I am not really sure how this area will be used yet. It's right off the kitchen and the door to the garage. This is what it looked like originally. Giant black iron wood burning stove, lovely brick floor and blue carpet.

I told Chris that the stove and brick floor had to go for sure. It just was something I would never use and seemed like such a hazard with kids. Not to mention that it took up a ton of space in that room.

Taking out the brick floor proved to be a little more challenging than expected and they ended up using a jack hammer. We had originally planned on just replacing the blue carpet that was there and then the old linoleum in the kitchen but we found a really good deal on some pretty nice laminate at Sams Club so we decided to do everything but the bedrooms which just got new carpet a year ago.

This picture shows the finishing pieces Chris was working on putting on. The door on the left goes to the garage and the door that the wood pieces are bracing against goes outside. The kitchen is to the right and the nook area is facing the outside door.

Chris installed all the flooring and ended up needing to replace the sub flooring where the brick floor had been and a lot of the area around it.

I decided to paint my kitchen yellow but ended up not liking the yellow I picked out once we started painting it on the walls. It just was way too bright. We added a little white to tone it down a little and it looks better. It's still not really the yellow I would have picked but I think it will work just fine. I also had seen on Pinterest that you could whitewash brick so I decided to try it on the wall that was leftover from the stove. There is actually another brick wall on the opposite side of the room but it is the old original brick that it is used on the outside of the house. You don't really see that wall very much so I decided to just leave that one alone.

You can see how depending on the light it looks a little more of a mustard yellow. I think whitewashing the brick helped lighten the tone of the yellow too. It was super messy and I was a little nervous how it would turn out but I like it. I only had to do one coat.

We patched the hole in the bottom and I finished this on Saturday. We still need to add baseboards, window trim, and crown molding besides switching out the lights and adding some sort of window cover.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

House Remodel

Well, it has officially been 2 years since I have updated this blog. Sad sad. I haven't quite decided if I should just let it all go and start over or at least try to put a few pictures of the past few years up. But for now I wanted to document the project we have been working on for the past couple of months.

The beginning of this year we decided to rent Chris's grandparents home from his mom and dad who currently own it. It's an old farmhouse home in West Layton. There were a few things that both Chris and I felt needed to be fixed before we moved in. We started working on those with an idea that we could move in to the home in March. Well, slowly but surely our list of a few things has grown and the few projects has turned more into a full remodel. And although everything has taken a lot longer, the finished product is going to be so nice.

I really don't know what is the best way to go about documenting all of this, especially since I am just starting now and have a lot of catching up to do. I think for now, I'll just list things we have done and then do separate posts for the different rooms of the home. If I had realized what I was getting into when we first started, I would have made more of an effort to take pictures that could be used for good before and after comparisons. Oh well.

I also wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has been helping us with this project. We have had so many people help us and we are so grateful. An extra huge THANK YOU needs to go to my sis-in-law Stephanie who has been very involved in this remodel. In fact, most of it wouldn't have happened without her.

Here is a list of things we have done so far in no particular order:
-removed big black wood burning stove from kitchen area and the brick floor beneath it
-brand new fridge, oven, microwave, and dishwasher
-painted brown kitchen cabinets white
-removed all the flooring except the bathroom and bedrooms. This includes yucky old industrial type blue carpet, really old linoleum and and orangish brown carpet
-replaced flooring with nice laminate and also discovered real hardwood flooring in the front rooms that was in pretty good condition
-tore out the cabinets in the laundry space (can't really call it a room) so that there will be room for a stackable washer and dryer
-white washed the brick wall in the kitchen
-figured out a way to get water over to the fridge which involved Chris spending lots of time in the creepy crawl space beneath the house
-brand new marble countertops and tiled backsplash
-brand new kitchen sink, faucet and disposal
-brand new toilet
-deadbolts added to doors leading outside
-tons and tons of painting: kitchen yellow, everywhere else but the bedrooms gray, the wood panneling and trim in the dining room white, the built in bookshelves and fireplace in the living room white

Friday, May 20, 2011

Someday I'll get caught up, but for now........

Eleanor at 9 months