Before & After

Just wanted to do a few before & afters. Ill have more once I'm finished but I was dying to share these. I cannot believe the difference and I cannot believe Lee and I(Jay Arthur included in I) did all of this. So crazy!!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

I'm about ready.

I decided to take a break from home improvements after we finished 90% of the first floor and its been nice, no sore muscles or deadlines looming over me. I thought the desire to finish would never come back, but I was at a friends house this weekend who is also remodeling and I'm ready! His basement looks amazing and it got me excited to start our basement project. But first I have to finish sanding the kitchen, paint, install the ceiling fan and hang molding. Its gonna be torture but I'm ready to look like this.

After we finish the kitchen we can start on the basement. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do down there but I have an idea. I know I'm going to remove one of the closets, add shelfs, enclose the water heater, re-do the shower and extend the bathroom.

Oven Mittens!

While we had the floors sanded we had to move all of our furniture into a uhaul. Our buffet is extremely heavy so we asked our friend Jonathan to help us move it in and out. This picture is moving it back in. I couldn't resist posting it.

Kitchen

So we are finished with the kitchen...well, about finished! I NEVER thought I would get to say that...its so weird not having a project or something to worry about. We still haven't painted, installed molding or toe kicks on the cabinets, hung curtains, etc. But I really just want to show off the granite and our WORKING sink!!! We have been with out a working sink for 4 months. Can you believe that? We have been hand washing all dishes in the basement sink or our bathroom. It was miserable:( Now we have a sink and a dishwasher!!!! So exciting.

Lee installing hardware

Hardware & Granite close-up

First dishwasher load!!!

Arthur trying to will chicken into his mouth!

Floor

The floors are BEAUTIFUL!!! We are so happy with them. We were debating re-finishing the kitchen floors since they were covered in tar paper and looked like re-finishing wouldn't be enough to help them. But we decided to go for it, knowing we wouldn't be happy if we had tile or fake wood.

Before

sanded

finished product

They aren't perfect because they are the original floors, 105 years old, can you believe that? They have lots of nail holes, holes that were filled with the wrong color, nails, and little imperfections, but I think that is what makes them beautiful. We went with a satin finish and no stain, we really couldn't have asked for a better turn out. I cannot wait to finally have the walls painted, furniture in place and a working kitchen. This year has been extremely tough but we are almost there. YAY!!!

Kitchen

I know, Im in big trouble, I have not poticed pictures of the kitchen in forever. So Im gonna skip the chit chat and show you the progress. Since I last posted we have...installed all cabinets, had gas and water lines moved, installed new stove and microwave, drywalled the kitchen walls and ceiling, had the entire all the floors sanded and refinished. I am currently waiting on the countertop people to come make our template and then I can finish the sink plumbing, install the dishwasher, add toe kicks and molding to cabinets, paint and BE DONE!!!!!!

4th of July

I know this is a really late post but I wanted to share our 4th of July fun we had. Jacob and Katherine Spencer came to town and we went to Katherine's hometown: Chestertown, MD. It is on the eastern shore, one of the most beautiful places in Maryland and happens to be Arthurs favorite place on earth. Here are some pics and a video!

Ideas for the kitchen

Here are all my ideas and thoughts for the kitchen...not sure it will turn out exactly as planned but I'm hoping most of this will happen.

granite with cabinet door

minus the yellow paint cause it clashed with the granite

Here is a picture of what I expect our floors to look like when they are sanded and finished! I am really excited about them, especially since they are the original floor and so far, look in perfect condition.

I want to add bead-board to the ceiling and paint it blue, like this:

Hardware options:

drawers only for the pull handle

I like the idea of mixing these four on the doors

like these too:

I still haven't figured out a color but I think I will stay in the purple gray family. I have that on the walls in the living room and I like the idea of it flowing into the kitchen.

Preview

Our kitchen is gutted, the floors are being refinished next week, we are installing cabinets, and appliances. Here are the before pictures...Ill post the progress as it becomes available.

the light patch is the color of our pine floors

new stove

cabinets in liv room

was sink wall, now stove wall

Kitchen Floor

Big things are happening in the Kitchen!!! I have pulled out the wall cabinets, hidden storage above the cabinets, tile floor, subfloor and now the layers of vinyl. It has been a brutal battle with the floors. Lee cut 2 foot section in the subfloor so we could pull them out. But each section had about fifty nails in it and when we pulled it up the nails stayed in the floor. So while he was prying the sub floor up, I went behind him and pull the nails out. Our muscles are sore!!!

Investigating the many

layers and finding TONS!

Lee prying up the sub floor

Look at all the nails

sticking up from the vinyl

Kitchen Window

The kitchen window was down-sized last thursday. In order for us to have base cabinets wrap around to the window wall, we needed to shrink the window. I had a man come over and install the window for me. He got here at noon thirty and left at four thirty. Not bad...

before

We had to frame it in siding(which I am not big on), but once we paint the brick around it white, it wont be as noticeable.

Progress

So a bunch of stuff has happened since I last posted. My parents came in town for a week each and overlapped for four days. My mom and I "tried" to get some work done but she apparently isn't into home renovations. So I made her paint the back door white while I sweated tears:) After that labor intensive 30 minutes, I decided she should stick to making us delicious dinners and pies and doing investigative research(shopping for fun stuff to put in our house!!). Which, as we all know she is amazing at, look what a stellar buffet we found for the living room!! I'll probably strip and stain this and def add new hardware. It was an awesome fine and we were VERY proud of ourselves.

I had a great time with my mom and we did explore a bunch of cute places around Baltimore but the real work and progress happened when Jay got here!!!

We hung the rest of the dry wall on the walls and ceiling, started taping, mudding, and sanding the walls and he helped us figure out a bunch of challenging issues we were having. He was a huge help and we would not have gotten this far with out him.

I know it doesn't look like a ton of work, but hanging dry wall is hard. We each had to climb a ladder while holding the sheet rock, hold it to the ceiling with one hand then drill the screws with your our other hand, all the while, our arms are turning to jello. After two pieces we had to take a break because our arms were numb. In between hanging pieces I was working on the half wall in the entryway, I had to remove 5 layers of paint.

And the most exciting news of it all...I finally picked out and paid for our Kitchen. I am so excited for the day I get to post our KITCHEN!!! It has to be finished with in the next 50 days and we have a lot of work to do before then. I started working on the kitchen floor today and popped up most of the tiles, there are still the ones under the fridge and stove. My arms are getting a very good workout:)

This is a close up of the layers to be removed, you will never guess how many there are....5(three linoleums, subfloor, tiles). Everything has at least 5 layers on it.