Finally... Some Window Shades that Didn't Cost an Arm and a Leg

We are trying to get all of the loose ends rapped up with unfinished projects before our neighborhood progressive dinner on Saturday. So far we have completed the stain and poly on the front door and the front windows. What a difference! I can't wait until all of the wood has been refinished on the 1st floor. Once that is complete we will be refinishing the hardwood floors ourselves. I figure since it's just a sanding we should be able to do it. The upstairs needed so many repairs that it just wasn't worth our time and effort. Especially now that the dogs are becoming more and more potty trained with little to no accidents- It's just time.


Don't they look great!?!?

We are also waiting on a shipment of the glass tile we want for the fireplace, it's almost there!




Here are the new roman shades. Forget the $150 that I spent on the dining room shades. These were only $17.00 at Lowes. I think they don't look bad at all. They were the best quality roman shades I found at any of the retailers. Although the dining room shades do look pretty sweet:



Roscoe and Tito have been getting crated during the day which has been a huge help with marking. Check out Roscoe in his jail cell.

We're Just Getting Way Too Good at this...

This weekend Quentin finished the wood on the fireplace. I began staining last night. Look at how great it looks.



It almost looks like it was made for our home. This is such a differance from the boring brick that used to be on the fireplace. Of course this is just the first coat of stain so I am so excited to see the end result. We are hoping to finish the glass on the fireplace by sometime in the next 2 weeks before our holiday progressive dinner with the rest of our block. We have pretty much the best neighbors EVER! We'll see if we can afford the $400 it's going to cost for glass tile. Ugh! I swear the further you get along in your house projects, the more expensive the project. At the same time, the fireplace is now a focal point vs. an eye sore.

I also began sanding the front windows so we can finally get some new blinds and the front door. I'm so sick of dust from sanding. I will be happy to finish so we can stick with our schedule of getting our floors refinished this winter.

Tito and his little cousin Lola:

Just click on the thumbnails to enlarge. I think I finally figured this photo thing out.

Finally... A Weekend to Ourselves

We have been working and painting every single weekend for the last 3 months at our friends family home. We really could use the extra income and we are so lucky to have had the opportunity. We actually are beginning more work on their home in 3 weeks, so we are trying to get the fireplace finished before Christmas.

So far we are almost finished framing it in. I think it looks Sooooo much better. Image it with glass tile and stained. It will add so much more drama to the living room! Here is our progress so far.



And I just couldn't resist posting a photo of my little super model- Roscoe

Some great before and afters

We had our first snow in MN this week. I know, it's a little early for that. I thought it would be a great time to take some outdoor photos of the house since the first photos I have of the exterior of the house is when we first purchased it.



You're probably asking yourself, why change something that is already so gorgeous? Ha!



Here is the fireplace While we wait for money to finish it:

The best part of all... I finally figured out how to post photos that you can click on the links to take a better look (that's why they seem so small). FINALLY!
Tito and Roscoe napping together:

My First Tiling Project!

So many things happening over the last week. We finally got a new full view glass door for the entrance to the front porch. I love it! It's just very open and really flows with all of the windows that are on the porch.

While Quentin was installing the door I found a new project to start. I bought a new screen and tools for our fireplace, since fire season is beginning already. Well our fireplace is just a bit outdated. I started my project by chipping out all of the old ugly tile that was there.


This tile was put in without spacers so in some areas the grout lines were HUGE and it others they weren't, so that whoever installed it wouldn't have to cut any tiles. Yeah.

So I went to the tile shop and found this awesome amythest glass tile. Since glass tile scratches I didn't think it was the best idea to have it as a base. Instead I chose granite with amethyst flecks in it. I think it'll look awesome from the relection with the fire.



The grout is a really dark gray. The new tile looks so much better with the screen but now I'm disturbed by the upper part of the fireplace. I want glamour, I want this fireplace to be notice when people walk through the door! So Quentin and I are framing it out with more oak to set the tone and that Amethyst colored glass I loved so much will be going above. Oh yeah, and we will be painting our living room a light gray because it matchess too closely to the wall. Here is a photo of the 1st coat of thin set over the brick. Why did I even waste my time painting it???

My 100th Post!!!

I've officially made it to 100 posts! Who knew I could actually keep up with this? (Not that I've been doing the best job lately)



So we found the garage door of my dreams. I really wanted to have windows on the top of the door. Our garage is so boring and just doesn't feel like it's part of the house. So for $283 extra, we can add just a little more detail to make our garage more part of the house. Quentin isn't too keen on spending the extra money but I am going to veto that because this is the only time we are going to be replacing the door so I think we should do it right. Just think of the return, right?



Well we ended up going with a door from AA garage doors, that first in the phone book really works well. We got the same garage door as we would have gotten from Home Depot except it was $200 less. I was out sick with a cold so Quentin made the executive decisions. While I like this garage door alright, I would have preferred square windows and longer panels below them. This is the door that was installed yesterday:

I really wanted to incorporate the garage into the house, since the garage is detached. Unfortunately the windows on the garage and the panels just don't really flow as well as I would like them to
But then again, I just have to tell myself, It's just a garage. It's way better than the solid POS that was there before. It may not be exactly what I wanted but it's cute and adds charachter to the garage. Even if it does look a little suburban. Ha!

Other than that, Quentin has a majority of the gutters almost finished. They look great. The house just looks amazing from the exterior now. We are looking into updating the kitchen this winter as well as installing a 1/2 bath on the 1st floor. I can wait for the mess, I can't wait for a new kitchen!!!

My poor neglected blog

This summer has been soooo busy. I feel like last summer we had a lot of weekends at the cabin and were so busy socially. This year we have just been so busy working around our house and other people's houses. We just finished painting our friends condo for him, that took approximately 8 days of labor. We not only painted the walls- we also painted the cemement ceilings which were difficult due to piping andvents. Oy!

We are currently working on paint touch ups on our house. I have also begun spray paint, brush painting and sealing some of the unopenable accent windows with storms. Its really looking great. The windows are so clean! I love it.




Quentin has began to replace our awful gutters himself. They aren't too expensive- just a little time consuming. Our old gutters were bent, rusted and leaky. The down spouts are missing from the pictures from the painting.



We should hopefully have the new ones up this weekend depending on our time. I'll post some photos.

We were hoping to get an Anderson Windows full view glass door for our front porch. Hopefully we'll be able to get one within the next couple of weeks. Our garage door just broke however and we are going to have to replace that pretty soon here. The frustrating thing is when you have to replace something rather than want. Good thing we are taking some side painting jobs for extra cash for the house. Another $1,200 gone.

So Busy

Last weekend I decided that the front entrance of the house was looking a little drab. The fascia (I bet that's spelled wrong) is covered with white aluminum. The aluminum has probably been on the house for about 30 years, so if that gives you any idea of what it looked like. Most of the trim was streaky, or darker in some areas more than others. The dirt had pretty much just settled in. I decided it would be much easier to spray paint it than replace it. I went out and bought some flat white spray paint and got the enttire porch area painted.

I don't think we will paint under the eves or anything; just the areas that really need it. I also decided it was time to put up some new address numbers on the house and a mail box. In the picture below you can see how good of an accent the balck is with the colors. Once we get out black anderson glass door to the porch it's really going to look sharp... Oh yeah- and our lights. It never ends.

We are almost finished painting!

Last week we took almost the entire week off to paint the house. We got elastameric paint, Convex, from Sherwin Williams and saved 50% through my work. It was still $500, but way cheaper than $1,000. The special paint is made specifically for Stucco so that it can stretch and breathe. I personally think the new color looks AMAZING!



Our accents, light fixtures, new screen doors, etc, will be black. Our fence is going to get stained an ebony color once the wood has dried next spring! Can't wait. Alot of our really expensive projects are coming to an end. There is still alot to do but I feel so much less overwhelmed. The outside finally matches the inside. We are no longer the ugly white house on the corner. We are offically the cute Taupe house on the corner!

So Far So Good.

So far I painted the base/ cinderblock part of the house and half of the chimney. I am a little frustrated because I asked specifically for flat, paint/ primer exterior paint and the woman gave me so paint with a sheen. Now if this was the case for the main stucco I would be furious. Since this area gets dirty I figured the light gloss might be nice because it will be easier to clean off. I chose a dark gray and the main color will be a grayish taupe. The chimney and trim are going to be white. If you check out the photo below you will notice where I stopped paint. Look at how bad it was!

We were going to get some stucco paint @ $50 per gallon. I found a paint called Convex- elastameric. They retail for $45.00 but with my work discount they come out to be $22.49. SWEET right? I was little concerned since we are going to need about 20 gallons. This keeps the paint so much more affordable without going cheap and getting paint that is going to need alot of maintenance. It's my birthday tomorrow, I have the rest of the week off and I plan on painting all week. I can't wait!!! A new paint color on the house is the perfect gift to myself!

Finally!

We paint the house!!! We will start painting the house next Tuesday. I picked a color with just a hint more of gray than the original color that I had used on our garage. I finally got the courage to walk up to my house of inspiration and knock. I told the lady that I am in love with her house color and I had to know what color it is. She was an interior designer and luckily for me we had the same color wheel. I am not in the mood to repaint my garage yet this summer but I'm sure you can barely even tell the difference.

Instead of using a sprayer we will be rolling and back rolling. Unfortunately you can't use a sprayer because it's not actually paint. Oh well, now I don't have to do any dreadful taping and covering windows, trim, etc. This should be pretty easy. One gallon only covers 40 sqft. Gulp....

Can't wait to post some photos!

So Frustrating!

So the contractor for the stucco repair has completely screwed us. He is a nice enough guy but always promises and never follows through. He asked for the remainder of the money before the job was finished. Now I know that is a big no no to pay someone before the work is finished, but he said he would be finished that day. Before the work was done he packed up and left. I told him to come back and we went over the areas that were missed or I wasn't satisfied with. He agreed they didn't look good and said he'd be back the next day. It's now been two more weeks. Wow! He promises and then never comes. His friggen ladder is still in my yard too. I'm filing in conciliation court this Friday if it's not finished. What a HEADACHE! NEVER use Andy Holloway!

On a lighter note- check out our completed fence!







I l0ve the stainless steel post caps. Now we just need to find the right shad of taupe for the house. The garage color is not what we were looking for.

The garden is looking great! I'm so happy I had somebody design the landscaping for me!

Fence is Almost Finished!

Last weekend we got quite a bit done. We pressure washed the garage, did some more finishing touches on the fence. We still need to cut down the posts and put some stainless steel caps on. It's going to look sharp. Then we're going to stain it a really dark ebony color.


Oh yeah, our stucco was finally repaired too. He just has a few more touch ups that weren't up to our standards and then we can paint!

On Sunday I decided to go to Home Depot and find a new color for the house. There is an inspiration house that I love in the Kenwood neighborhood so I tried to match the color as close to that house as possible. On Sunday I picked up 2 gallons of paint and painted the garage. The trim has yet to be painted white but it should give you an idea of what our house will look like when we are all done.