Move-In-Ready!

After nearly a year of renovations, the house was ready for us to move in! For the most part, we wanted the house to be a blank canvas when we moved in. "Moving in" entailed bringing in not only our furniture but much of John's grandparents' furniture as well (came with the house, go figure). That said, we wanted to see the rooms with our modge podge of furnishings before we selected paint and what not. We did, however, decide on a neutral color for the living room and used that color throughout for the time being. Fear of heights = we're not going to be repainting that room ourselves, ever!

Enjoy some of our favorite features of the house! Paint, textiles, furnishings, and decor coming soon (our never ending work in progress)!

welcome! view from front door 

living room

living room

back stairs by side entry

view from side door. looking through living room and into kitchen.

kitchen!...still waiting on countertops, backsplash, and island light fixtures. 

master bedroom

top of the front stairs

catwalk 

jack & jill bath

upstairs guest bedroom 

before and after...a little different, right?

before and after. we expanded the opening from the front door just a tad.

stairs now continue forward rather than turning. luckily, we were able to rework the handrails and posts.

before and after...old back of the house now opens up to the catwalk over the living room.

before and after

Bad Blogger Plays Catch Up Part-Two

Here we go again. Another five months between postings! Oh well.  Here is the second installment of "Bad Blogger Plays Catch Up" featuring the months of June and July. These document the final months of construction. We moved into the house in late July/early August.

It amazes me how much kitchen cabinets and a finished floor will complete a house! The kitchen was the one room I was always a little nervous about because it was hard to visualize. The room is oddly shaped (almost like a W) and I was worried about it getting cramped with the cabinets. However, once the they were installed, my worries melted away! It has become one of my favorite rooms as you will see in upcoming posts.

"Move-in-ready" pictures coming soon!

kitchen before cabinets

field trip! visiting cabinets to see the color!

master bath tile going in! John liked limestone and I liked marble so we went with best of both worlds

had to rig multiple ladders to hook up that puppy

kitchen cabinets ready to get installed! very pleased with how the color turned out!

living room ready for floors to be finished

mantle coming back into its home

mantle coming back into its home

Bad Blogger Plays Catch Up Part-1

So...life gets a tad busy sometimes and BAM! Five months go by and I have forgotten to update our blog. I'll do my best to work month by month. The first installment of "Bad Blogger Plays Catch Up" features the month of May.

 

laundry room floor

upstairs jack&jill bath

Behind the walls

This week they're going to start installing drywall, so I guess it's time to catch up on what's been going on inside the house.

 

Foam insulation in the ceilings

 The smallest bedroom upstairs get's the largest closet.

 Hopefully the shower won't be as scary once it's finished.

 Definitely need handrails

The insulation has made the house very quiet despite all the noise from West Main Street.

Safety rail please!

Here comes the sheetrock.

Brick House

When we first began renovations on the house, our initial thoughts were to to repaint the house. We had gone so far as to pick out exterior paint and trim colors. Then we sand blasted off the old paint to reveal the beautiful, gorgeous old brick! For now we are going to stick with the exposed brick.

One benefit to painting the brick was that we wouldn't have to worry so much about matching new brick for the addition to the old brick of the existing house. Exposing the brick presented us with the challenge of figuring out how to join the old and new brick. Our contractor worked hard to find new brick that would blend nicely with the old. We were pretty pleased with the outcome! What do you think?

scaffolding up, bricks are stacked and ready to go!

back of the house almost finished

moving around the the front

Finished brick!