A little house that needs a lot work

Long Overdue

2010-12-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been almost a year since I've posted something on the house. This isn't because we've stopped working on the house. We have been working plenty on the house! I have just been so busy that I haven't had time to blog. Then I thought about how muvh enjoyment I used to get from blogging on the house that I thought it's time to start this thing up again. Hopefully I still have a reader or two out there.

So our main focus at the current moment is the half bath. We are turning this huge closet off of the kitchen into a 1/2 bath. This summer we had a licensed plummer come out to run the piping. Lucky for us, he was out of a job and we got him for the low low price of $25 per hour. So he ran all new piping so that all we need to do is add the bathroom fixtures. He noticed that our main drain going into the basement floor was loose as well, so he rented a jackhammer and fixed/ secured the pipe under there as well. All of this work for the low low cost of $625. That's including materials! After all of the bad contractors, we finally found an honest one. I feel like we're the ones who made out this time. His work is flawless.

Now all we need to do is finish framing the bathroom and sheet rock, before we get our fixtures of course. For Christmas I received this awesome rug from my mom.
I absolutely love it! I picked up this little rug for the front door.
Sorry these photos were taken with my camera phone. I think I'm going to do black silk curtains in the living room to pull the black out of the rug near the door and tie the whole thing together.
That should add the drama I want in the room. Anyhow- that's it for now. I'm going to try to be more on top of my poor neglected blog.

The big reveal

2010-03-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... It's been a really long time since I've posted anything on here. I am happy to announce that we got the floors refinished, the lights installed and new furniture in our living room. It's been a long haul, but here it is.

Firt we had the floors refinished by Arnes floor sanding (the same guy who did oiur upstairs floors. He did an amazing job! There were really deep scratches and plenty of marks. He did the best he could and I'm really impressed with the results.

Then we finished th ekitchen lighting. The repair and sanding is almost complete in the kitchen...

And finally... Here is the amazing new furniture.

I got a new signed print and a mirror above the fireplace. It's finally starting to feel like a home. I LOVE it! To go with the theme of the house I am going for a transitional vibe. I think this firnture fits it well.

It just wouldn't be the same without the fireplace or furniture. I am going for Charcoal drapery and rugs with turquoise accents. Let me know if you have any greta places for nice drapes that are inexpensive. I'm sure I'll be stuck with Pottery Barn. What do you think of the progress???

20 hours later...

2010-02-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

Whew! That was a lot of work. I finshed this over a week ago and am just updating my blog now. Life has gotten so busy. This is the almost finushed product. I am going to be just doing some grout on the inside of the fireplace. Glass scratches, so I don't think I'll be putting any inside. I guess I'm happy with it overall. We ended up using the squares and went for a smoke blue-green color. Someone asked me if I used back splash tiles the other day. I tried to give it a more zippered look rather than just throwing up square sheets of tile but I don't know how well it work. I feel like it's really lacking the drama I wanted it to have. Oh well, it's still an improvement. Here are some more photos up close.

Now- for more exciting news. The floors on the main level are being refinished and polyed as I type. My promise to myself was to get these floors done this winter after I completed refinishing all of the woodwork on the first floor- which I did! Even more exciting, I purchased a gorgeous modular sectional to replace my hideous red couches. It's getting delivered this Friday and I'm so psyched. Here is a photo of the couch on the floor. It'll be in more of an L-shaped design at our place:

Last but not least, Quentin installed all of the lighting in the kitchen, and I painted it. What a difference the lighting makes. It really makes the kitchen flow more with the rest of the house. The lighting is soft and halogen vs. ugly flourescent lighting with a HUGE framed oak home made fixture. Here is a photo of the old light:

I'll post photos of the new lights once we are back in the house! Here are some photos of the fireplace before we touched it.

What a difference- right?

Did I say tiling was fun???

2010-02-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I lied. Over the weekend, I began putting smoke gray blue glass tile going vertically on the face of the fireplace.... Ugh. I worked at it for 7 hours pretty much non stop on Friday and about 3 hours yesterday and I'm still not finished. This space is only 12 feet! The tiles come in a square foot sheet. I didn't want to just put the tile up there without cutting the sheet, because I thought it would look boring. I cut the sheets into strips and did a vertical pattern that alternates. It almost gives it a zippered look. Well, non of my spacers fit between the sheets (I got 2 different kinds) so I've pretty much had to eyeball everything, which has made this job more difficult than it needed to be.

Anyway, I am hoping to be finished with this project once and for all next weekend. I'll post some pics then.

Almost finished... but I just found another sanding project.

2010-01-26T13:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I am almost done reassembling the baseboards and staining/ polying. The wood work on the first floor looks AMAZING! What a difference. I almost can't remember just how awful the old woodwork used to look. You would think I'm beginning to like sanding woodwork with this new project I've taken on. In fact, here is a glimpse of how dull and boring the old woodwork looked.

That is a floor grate made out of wood up against the baseboard in the dining room (which I've already refinished). BIG Difference. This is the new project I've taken on. I have pulled one of these apart already and plan on sanding it down this weekend. The floors on the first floor are sort of the last to do for us when it comes to woodwork. We plan on tackling those within the next month. Oy! 3 days of homelessness.

Here is a peak at how some of the other woodwork turned out:

Quentin also framed out the stairwell ceiling so that it matches the rest of the woodwork. We sort of assumed that it looked like this at some point before the gorgeous tiled ceilings we installed. Whether it's original or not, it's going to look amazing when it's stained and polyed.

This Friday we finish the tiling on the fireplace!!! Can't wait to have that complete!

We did it!

2010-01-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

One final weekend of dust from sanding! We have completed all of the woodwork on the first floor. This has been bugging me since we bought the house 2 years ago. It's the messiest project, not to mention the dust makes us sick, but we're all done! We just have reassemble the baseboards and stain them as well as the doorway.

Here is the stain and first coat of poly on the last of the windows:

As you can see we still have some work left to do. The last dusty project is to refinish the floors. Hopefully they will be done within the next month or two.

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

2009-12-07T14:31:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-11-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-09-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-02T08:17:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-08-19T08:42:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-08-10T12:35:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-15T09:02:00.001-07:00

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.

It's been awhile...

2009-07-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posts. The summer is seeming to fly by way too fast. We got the entire house pressure washed, the fence and gate up, just a few more finishing touches and it should be complete. We got a great price on the stucco repair on the house and put our deposit down 2 weeks ago and still no work has been done. He seems to be a bit unprofessional but does good work so I gave him a deadline to have everything complete by Monday or we'll go with someone else. Ahh... contractors.

Other than that we just got back from AZ. We had an amazing vacation that involved laying by the pool and doing absolutely nothing for 4 days. It was refreshing. This weekend I will be powerwashing the garage driveway and sidewalk. Our goal is to have the house painted by the middle of August since I am going back to school on the 24th. I just planted the last of the plants in the landscaping for the season. It looks so good. It's hard to believe how far we've come. It doesn't even look anywhere close to the house we bought. Our appraisal came in $40,000 ahead of what we paid and we aren't even finished yet!

Big Weekend Project!

2009-06-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

This weekend we will be pressure washing our house. Luckily my brother inlaw has a machine he is going to let us borrow. On Monday we are going to have a contractor begin stucco patching and repair. The stucco has come off near all of our down spouts on the gutters. They also took out 2 windows at some point, one of in the bathroom shower (thank god) the other in the kitchen above the stove. There isn't much wall space in the kitchen so I see the need for the window to be gone- however there isn't much light. It's really a toss up. They are going to come over and put the texture back up to make our house look good again. Then we will paint this fall. Here are the problem areas:

As you can tell we need new gutters too. I doubt gutters will be a huge expense but I guess you never know. We are painting the house a medium taupe and all the trim will be white. I am so excited. Our curb appeal will sky rocket once this is complete.

As promised, here is a close up of our required 40% open fence:

And finally, we are going to have a BBQ on Saturday July 11th, friends, neighbors and fellow bloggers in Minneapolis are welcome. If you would like directions and time please email me at ssetzer@athomeapartments.com We'd love to meet you!

The Fence Is Halfway There!

2009-06-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

I Finished sanding, staining and polying all of the woodwork on the fireplace, archway, window and DR baseboard. It looks amazing! Since I got all of this complete, I decided to paint the firsplace a charcoal/ flynt color. It looks really good. The couches don't really flow with it but we plan on replacing those this winter. Check out how nicely everything cam out:

Since we were putting up the fence I decided to complete the landscape along the front side of it. It's so cute! I planted some red gnome dogwoods and echinaceas. The dogwoods should get pretty big. I bought the smallest ones available since everything else has taken off so much. I can't wait for them to grow- exciting. What do you think about the pattern of the fence?

What was I thinking?

2009-06-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Minneapolis has been rainy and cold the past few days. However, it really screwed up my staining last weekend. Let me rephrase that- I screwed up the staining last weekend. So I don't know if I posted about this yet, but I decided to sand the last unrefinished baseboard in the dining room, the archway leading into it, the fireplace and the window next to it. Yeah- quite a bit of work but I am definitely a pro at this point, not to toot my own horn or anything (toot).

I stained all of the woodwork and it typically needs to dry about 6-8 hours in good drying condition and 24 hours in cold or damp weather. I had a few drinks with some friends last night, came home at 10:00pm and decided to put the first coat of poly on before bed. It's not horrible but in some places alot of the stain came off and it's streaky. Shit. Now I have to resand those areas. I am so bummed. No more working after drinking! Here are some before pictures of the sanded area.

I'll put up some after pictures once my mistake and the poly is complete.

Check out how great our landscape is looking:

Since the weather was so bad this weekend Quentin installed a garbage disposal rather than working on the fence. However the majority of the fence is framed. We're getting there! We also have a new foster dog. His name is Simon and he is so cute. He follows me everywhere and always wants to sleep on me. He's sooo cute. Here is a photo of him with Tito and Roscoe when we we're having nice weather last week.

The posts are complete!

2009-05-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this weekend we will begin building the fence panels. It looks so good. I can't wait to have a fenced yard to enjoy. Other than that we are still plugging away at patching up a few unfinished small items. The house is really coming together. I love it. I couldn't have found a better hobbie to put my time and energy into.

One Crazy Neighbor

2009-05-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

How depressing- It's already May 20th and I've only had one other post. This weekend we are going to finish installing the posts in the yard as well as begin constructing our panels.

This is very interesting... Last Spring was our first in our house. I had met this woman who lives on a different block that was thrilled that we purchased the house/ was happy to see us planting trees and doing work etc. I spoke with this woman about possibly volunteering for random things around NE Minneapolis just to give back to the community. She seemed pretty nice.

A few weeks after meeting her we began getting sited for different things around the exterior of our house from the city. They were dumb things like repairing or tearing down our dumpy old fence, clearing brush out of the back of our garage. We were repairing and doing all of this landscaping work to a house that hadn't been touched in how long, and here they are threatening to fine us for piddly stuff that is going to get taken care of any how. We were under the impression that the city has just been driving around and fining people. Well, I had my suspicions.

Once the fence was removed the woman walked her dog past the house again and was so happy that the fence had been removed. Later that day Quentin began putting the posts in. We are putting 6 foot posts in and cutting them down to 4 feet but need to make sure everything is level. Being a corner lot gives you a lot of restrictions. Around 8:30pm me and some friends are having dinner- literally eating dinner. I have a full plate of food in my hand. Someone starts banging on the back door. I open it- dogs are going nuts- friends are a little freaked out. There she is with her dog in the darkness at my back door. "can I help you". She said she just wanted to make sure that we knew the fence was way too high and we better take care of it before the city comes around. I kindly but firmly told her that we were well aware of the laws and thank you for your concern. I shut the door in her face while she began muttering something else. RUDE! She could see us having dinner through the windows and felt the need to interrupt as well as knock on my back door. WOW!

A few days later I receive a note on my garbage can that is telling me to water the trees in the front boulevard. Somebody (this neighbor) took the time to walk all the way home, write a note and tape it to my garbage can. How malicious. I have put in so much time to my yard and am very knowledgable when it comes to plants, especially on regular watering schedules and keeping them alive. This woman doesn't even live on my friggen block. The best part is that the 2000, and the 2100 block is full of shit hole dumps and this woman is out for me. She better pray that I don't find out where she is living. I will be outside of her home with a clipboard doing preliminary work for the city.

Our progress

2009-05-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posts, yet again. We have been finishing up some projects and I've been a bad blogger. Here are my weekend updates:

I am still working on the front patio. I've been stripping all of the cracked paint off of the windows with a heat gun, sanding, priming and painting with a white gloss. I am almost done. It looks very nice and clean.

I have also added 14 new plants over the weekend to my landscape design. It looks really great! I spent about $200 which is not so great, but it really pays off. I went to Gerten's. The reason I love Gertens is that all of their plants and shrubs are guaranteed for a year. I returned 5 blanket flower and didn't have an issue. Tangle Town only offers a year on their shrubs. It's worth the drive. Here is the right side of my front steps. Just 13 more plants to go before it's complete!

And last but not least- an update on Quentin's project. We've got about half of the posts in the ground. The rest will be in soon we are hoping. At lease you get a good idea of where the fence is going to be.

Let There Be Light!

2009-04-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Quentin re-ran the wires for Laine's room so she has a lovely new ceiling fan and working electrical outlets. Now we just have the office fan to rewire. Or should I say Quentin has it to rewire. I apologize for my lack of posts recently. We have been finishing up alot of unfinished projects. It feels REALLY good! Everyone is so impressed when they come over now. It's so funny how much work goes into every detail- yet noboody knows just how many hours went into the smallest thing that you pass by every day.

This weekend we are going to begin digging all of the holes for the posts by ourselves. Can't wait! (sigh). It will be nice to get the fence up.

Excited for the fence

2009-04-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend we are getting some new electrical run so that Laine has some light in her room. We have had an issue with the lighting in the office and new guest bedroom since last August. We've had to rip open the walls so we've been sort of waiting to open this can of worms do to the mess. It's almost complete though- putting all of the baseboards back together is going to be the Shitty part.

AND... We just might be renting a post hole digger this weekend from Home depot. It'd be much better than doing it by hand. I've heard it's quite labor intensive. They rent for $46 for 4 hours. I'm thinking that should be enough time to get all of the holes dug. I can't wait for the fence!

The fence is down!!!

2009-04-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend we got our eye sore of a fence removed from the back patio. Now we just need to get in contact with City Hall so we can get the new fence process moving along. We were thinking of applying for a variance to make the fence 5 feet rather than 4. Being on a corner lot, and having the fence in our back yard and side yard makes a big difference. We want the new fence to look welcoming, but not so low that our dogs can spring over the fence. (they can jump about 4 feet high!) So that's pretty exciting. Now comes the funds. I'm so relieved that we are going to have some extra money since my friend Laine is moving in. We wouldn't be able to do any of this without her help.

I am dying to begin planting more of the plants on my plans for the yard. The first trip back is going to be pretty expensive. I have about 18-24 more plants to complete the area up by the house. My Salvias and cranberry bushes are already coming back. I LOVE plants! Gardening is so much fun and by far the most rewarding to me. I also seem to go broke everytime I go to Gertens if that says anything. Just 1 more month!!!

My small dilemma.

2009-04-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

I pulled down the hinges from the bedroom doors upstairs and stripped them. Stripping paint from hinges and pulls is very easy by the way. All you need to do put the hinges in a pot you don't plan on using again, fill the bottom of the pot with baking soda and simmer them for a half an hour. When you pull them out the paint just comes right off. It's not good to use stripper on metal as it is abrasive.

Ok, so onto my dilemma. The orginal hinges are copper underneath. I think they are pretty charming, however the rest of our hardware is brushed nickel. We are restoring the woodwork, in the house, but that's about it. We are updating almost everything. Do you think it would be weird if we kept the hinges copper and had silver everything else? I am thinking I may just give these guys a coat of metal spray paint.

PS. Our dumpster is being delivered as I type this. Down with the ugly fence this weekend!

Starting the fence!

2009-03-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

This week I am getting bids to have people come out and put fence posts in. We will hopefully have a lovely wooden fence within the next 2 months. Our current fence is Horrid and makes the house look really TRASHY! The inside just looks so great now that I am just dying for the outside to match it.

One of my great friends, Laine, is going to be moving in with us in May for a few months. It will be a little strange going back to having a roomate again but I am just hoping everything works out. The extra money will really help out on the projects we want to do. The new guest room, our old room, is painted and looks amazing. You can't even tell that there was ever a popcorn ceiling in there. I LOVE IT! We are slowly doing the small things now that have been getting put off due to all of our rather large projects. I have been raking in preparation for Spring. I can't wait!!!!

We got a new foster dog, his name is Buddy and he has really bad arthritis. He is such a sweet pup.

Good weekend

2009-03-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I got the final bedroom ceiling painted. We also hung up our blinds in the dining room. On Sunday got the paint up in bedroom. The color is a gray brown. It's the darkest color we've used in the house so far. The ceiling, floors and trim a very light so I think it looks great. I was worried it was going to look like a cave but I like it alot. I am officially tired of painting!

Since September we have gotten soooo much done inside the house. I am ready to start working outside again. Especially now that everything is pretty comfortable inside. My favorite thing to do is garden. I can wait for all of my plants to come back this year! We should have our new wood fence within the next 2 months and my hope is that we have new gutters and paint on the house by October. The more I say it and write it, the more likely it will happen.

Here are some photos of the progress of the bedroom and the dining room windows. We still need to trim the room out.

The Upstairs is ALMOST FINISHED!!!

2009-03-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

We had a very productive weekend! I scraped the entire popcorn ceiling pictured below in my last post. Under the popcorn ceiling was 2 layers of wallpaper. Luckily I was able to remove everything in about 5 hours. I've already mudded and primed the ceiling. It should be all ready for paint next weekend. I also primed and painted the walk in closet that had some ugly wood paneling. This is the last room that has been longing for some human touch and it should be complete by next weekend.

We also are also finished sanding the windows in the dining room- so I can FINALLY hang up my $300 worth of roller shades on 2 windows. Geeze.

I'll post photos next week when we are all finished so make sure to check back.

The Entire Upstairs Will Soon Be Complete

2009-03-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in blogging. We just got back from vacation in New York City.

There are just a few items left to complete in the guest bedroom, mainly just closet stuff. Unfortunately closet doors are going to be a little pricey so they will have to wait a bit since our Spring projects will begin soon (HOPEFULLY!). We move our furniture into the guest room and saw that there wasn't really enough wall space. We decided that we will probably have to keep the other room as the master. Atleast now we have some closet space and a nice room for guests, right? Here is the way the room looks so far:

The closet still needs framing and doors:

What a difference! Our house just keeps getting better and better.

Quentin is going to continue doing all of the final finishing touches on the guest room this weekend while I begin the master room. Fortunately this room will only the ceiling scraped, the walls and trim painted and thats about it. Oh yeah- and a new ceiling fan. Everyone typically likes the paint that's in there but this is definitely not my taste.

Can't wait to begin scraping the ceiling! Hopefully this will be fast and painless. I am ready to just enjoy the interior of my house rather than see projects everywhere. The exterior is a different story! =)

Moving slowly

2009-02-24T13:07:00.001-08:00

Last weekend we finished patching and painting the closet in the bedroom. I began putting down so gray carpet tiles. We still need to put up the trim around the door leading to the hall and "build the closet". Once we are done with these last items we will be moving all of our stuff into that bedroom while we paint our room which will be the new guest room. Confused yet? I need a vacation!

Photos of the Guest Room

2009-02-17T07:02:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are the photos of all of our progress:

Sorry for all of the pictures. So much work went into every detail. The ceiling turned out better than I'd imagined. It's not perfect but pretty darn close. We are almost done with all of the trim work. The door still needs trim, as well as the closet, but the window is pretty much finished. What do you think of the color? I like it. It flows with the rest of the upstairs. Isn't it hard to believe that this was all ceiling tile, wood paneling and ZERO trim just a few months back???

Almost finished

2009-02-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

The guest room is painted and all of the base moulding, quarter round and window trim has been put up. We even got up some new blinds. The guest room is looking so amazing. I'm thinking next weekend we'll begin designing/ building a new closet in there. Once we've got that completed we'll be moving into that room while we go to town on our current room. The upstairs will be complete once that done. How crazy is that??? We wern't even planning on doing this room for awhile and it just sort of happened. I gutted it by myself one day and it's just been a slow progression since then. I'm so happy that I'll have a nice comfortable upstairs soon.

I also bought some nice organizational stuff for the office.

The brown and sage-ish beige color really flow with the blue gray walls and the brown accent chairs I got. Now I finally have storage for all of my office stuff and it's no longer all exposed or in boxes. All I really have left to get for the office is some art for the walls and then it will be complete.

I took photos of the guest room for all of you but I totally forgot to grab my camera. I will have some photos for you tomorrow.

I'm so happy!

2009-02-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

What a productive weekend. We finally finished mudding and sanding the guest bedroom. I primed, and painted the entire room. We ended up painting it a dark grayish blue. It looks pretty good. We also put in all new outlets and a new light fixture. What a difference! We bought new base moulding. The base moulding we chose was actually primed particle board. Of course this wouldn't be my first choice but compared to solid wood this was $1.65/ sqft vs. $5.75/ sqft. We cut them and painted them a nice semit gloss. You seriously would never know the difference by looking at it. It's solid and look really good.

Quentin installed a new window over the stairs in the basement. Someone had broken in through this window before we bought the house and ever since then we've had a board over the window. We've always had enough on our plate that it just wasn't that big of a concern. On Friday we cleaned and organized our entire basement for 4 hours. That's 8 hours of dealing with dirty basement. It looks so good! That's the spot we put our junk. All of our tools are down there and it just gets neglected. I'm happy to have it back and have more natural light and less draft in the basement.

So typically I post a bunch of pictures of the progress, but since we are almost done I want to give you the wow factor. You'll just have to wait until we get the trim up. I Got the accent chairs for the office through overstock.com. Once I got them I bought the very first rug for our house. I haven't bought more due to the other floors not being refinshed yet and our dogs having accidents here and there. What do you think of the entrance into the office?

Before new office furniture:

After:

Here is a photo of our foster dog Archie. He's already lost a pound or so. He's such a good dog!

My Favorite New Toy

2009-02-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

Everyone who has or has had hardwood floors throughout their entire house knows how frustrating it can be to constantly mop a floor. I mop, then I sop everything up with a towel, the towels filthy, the floors never really get all that clean. Well, I found the best thing in the world.

The hoover floormate works sooo well! It has scrub brushes that spin and then it sucks all of the water up. I am in love with this thing and can't wait to get home to clean more floors. Hahah.

We are almost finished with sanding and mudding in the 2nd bedroom. We should be priming by this weekend. It will be nice to have that room back. Everything is sort of everywhere.

Busy bees

2009-01-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

The guest bedroom just keeps getting closer and closer to completion! Quentin framed in a new closet and ran electric. The ceiling has about 1 more coat of mud to go. What do you think of our new closet? We put in his and hers because the closet is shaped so funny that this just makes it alot more accesible.

I have been using antique wood refinisher on our windows in the dining room. I spent $280 on 2 new roller shades for the dining room and I want the windows to be refinished before I install them. It wouldn't make sense to pull them back down 2 months down. So I recruited 2 friends to come over and help me last weekend. Ugh. This is how far we got:

If I ever said the refinisher was easy, I was just happy to be doing something else. It's not the easiest task and it smells horribly. I am almost halfway done so hopefully I'll just get it done quickly. I don't know how much more of it I can bare.

Guest Bedroom

2009-01-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

We are finished with the 1st coat of mud. Taping and mudding really isn't my cup of tea but I'm drinking it anyway. Tonight I am going to finish sanding and maybe put up another coat of mud. In total I think we are looking at doing around 3 coats of mud. Quentin has begun framing in the new closet- it's going to be so cool! I am excited to just get this room finished. I am tired of all of the ugly that I've been forced to look at upstairs over the last year.

We have a new foster dog that we are watching. His name is Archie. He was dropped off to a kill shelter and was deemed unadoptable because he is ten years old. His owners said that they wanted to go travel around the world and didn't want him anymore although he's been a great dog. So sad. He is a little overweight but we are putting on a diet to get him healthy and slim. Our dogs are chasing him all over the place the way it is. He's getting quite the workout. I'll post a picture of him up here once I get one. He is such a cute, good hearted dog.

Office Furniture

2009-01-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

So I though I would post some before and afters of the office. The office doesn't have all of it's furniture yet but I've got the 2 largest peices and I just couldn't wait to share it. We have yet to get a new mesh office chair and 2 accent chairs by the mirrored table. Here is what the office used to look like:

And now with the new desk and bookcase:

There is the full view from different angles. The L shaped desk makes so much more sense considering the slopes in the ceilings. Also this bookcase is so much better because the other one was WAY too big. These are the accent chairs that I am considering:

The cool thing is that these chairs could also be extra seating for our dining room and would flow with the rest of our color scheme. Then once we get up the art work and all I think it'll be looking great.

Under the weather

2009-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've had an awful cold for the past week that just won't seem to go away. Atleast I am finally back at work and it can only get better from here. can you believe the -21 degree temperature we're being fordced to endure?

We have made quite a bit of progress on the house. I bought some new office furniture that looks awesome. I got a great L shaped desk and a new bookcase that didn't waste as much space as our last one. Everything that used to clutter our office has been sold on craigslist (I love you craigslist xoxox) and has helped us fund our new purchases. I just need 2 accent chairs and a new office chair and we'll be done with furniture purchasing. Then I'll need to decorate the room but I figure that can wait until more projects are completed.

We are also putting down new maple quarter round in the hallway. The old stuff was just so broken up. It's a shame I am priming and painting all of it but the trim upstairs is all white. It looks amazing. I'll post more photos soon. Now we just need to finish mudding the guest room...

After Photos of the Floors

2009-01-08T07:11:00.001-08:00

Overall I am pleased with the floors. The floors seem to have a yellow tint, which was sort of expected. I am happy that we went with the oil. They definitley have more depth than if they were just white maple floors with water based. I can't complain. Wait, I can complain. The contractor left some chips in my stairs that we just refinished and he also blew a fuse in the kitchen that we just can't seem to correct. Do I have any recourse? I plan on talking to him about these issues tomorrow before paying him. Other than the mess they left I am happy with the floors. So, are you ready???

Here are my refinished maple floors.

Office:

Sorry for the neck cramp. The water damage cleaned up nicely, didn't it?

Hallway:

I can't wait to show you the photos with my antique bronze grate- it's going to look great! haha

Guest room:

This has to be the best transformation. He did a great job with the patch work. I can't even tell.

It will be nice to sleep in my own bed again. The fumes have been too strong to stay in the house. It will be great to get back to normal life. I'll just have beautiful floors now. =)

A great anniversary present

2009-01-05T10:11:00.001-08:00

We have offically owned our home for 1 year as of 01/03/09! I couldn't think of a better way for us to treat ourselves and our accomplishments than to have someone else sand and redo the upstairs floors. We have the ceiling in the guest room completely patched. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to tape and mud the ceiling. The walls just need 1 more coat of mud and some killz before we paint. I can't believe we are almost finished with the guest room. That room was one of the ugliest things I had ever seen in my life and I thought it would be years before we got to that room.

Here are our lovely sheet rocked ceilings. We're getting pretty good at this.

It's a little tricky sheetrocking coved ceilings.

So as I type this they are working on my floors. I am so excited to see them when I get home- I just can't wait. I am posting before photos and will be posting afters on Thursday so make sure to check back.

Guest room Floors:

Beneath all of that dirt is a lovely shade of orange.

Office:

These floors have to be the worst due to the water damamge shown above. The wood almost buckles from water damage.

The Hall:

I'll keep you posted. =)

Oy Gevalt

2008-12-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

We are racing around the clock to finish hanging a new sheet rocked ceiling, scrape wall paper and dismantle the closet in the guest bedroom. Next Monday we are getting our upstairs floors professionally sanded! We will be doing the guest bedroom, office and hallway. I found the contractor through another blogger on here. His prices are very inexpensive and he's the only person I've met yet who I'd trust in my house without me being there.

It will be nice to walk on the floors without having my feet feel dirty even after I've just washed the floors. We were planning on sanding the floors ourselves but I'm going to leave this one to the pros. We have quite a few repairs that need to be done on the floors and I just want it done correctly. I just don't want another large dreadful project. Luckily he will be able to have the floors done within 3 days.

I also ordered 2 new roller shades for the dining room. Who knew shades could be so expensive? I spent $286 on two of them- custom of course, and that's the best price I found. They are going to look really great! I can't wait to get rid of our smoke yellow shades that currently adorn our windows. I guess we'll just have to get 2 at a time. I'm having trouble finding good colors in for shade fabric. Most manufacturers have limited and boring colors. =(

Almost Ready For the Holidays

2008-12-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

The stair are complete! The trim is back on the baseboards and it all just looks amazing. I am so happy this is complete, and what a great result! We also got our Christmas tree up. It still needs a skirt but I'm having a tough time pay $40 for something that will probably just get peed on. I think we may just use pee pads for a skirt this year ;)

There is a little dust on the stairs from putting the trim back up.

Doesn't it look great? This will be my last post about the stairs I just wanted everyone to see the photos of our victory one last time- complete! Oh yeah, check out my favorite comparison yet.

What a difference!

Getting the homestead ready

2008-12-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

We are almost finished with the stairs. The stairs themselves are complete. This weekend we finished the trim that goes right above the base molding. That should be up tonight! We also did alot of cleaning. We have my family Christmas this Saturday and Quentin's over Christmas. We made the guest room functional again so that there is a spare room. I have been soo busy with the house and decorating that I haven't even bought 1 single Christmas gift yet. Yikes- I better get on that.

Help!

2008-12-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know where I can get quality roman shades in Minneapolis without spending $200 per shade? JC Penneys is supposed to be cheap but they are still about $150 per shade for what we want. Target doesn't have a color selction other than your basic crayola box colors. Grr... After all is said and done I may just open up my own affordable roman shade shop. This is ridiculous.

they're done- almost

2008-12-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

Finally!!! That took up about the last 2 months of my life. But they are done and they look amazing. Just 3 more coats of poly on a few of the stairs. In case you forgot what the stairs looked like before we began here is a refresher.

Why on earth would we ever refinish such beauty, right?

View from the top

View from the landing

Just a few more coats of poly and they are complete. We decided to stain them a little darker just because the stairs had so many imperfections from all of the staples/scratches. I think they look pretty darn amazing!

Hooray!

2008-12-04T10:16:00.001-08:00

The stairs should be done this weekend and I'll have photos for all of you on Monday!!!

I just couldn't wait

2008-11-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Lucky for me I got my camera back last night. So I thought I would give all of you a sneak peak at the stairs and some of the work we have done around the house. We are not completely finished with the stairs, but we are binished with most of the molding, windows, baseboards, etc. Here is your teaser photo:

It looks sooo much better.
We still have some of the molding to put back up and some painting to touch up but just look at that color and finish on the wood.

We've also been stripping wood with refinsher in in the dining room.
Here is a before and after:

I spray painted the heat grates. They were a lovely brown before and I sort of antiqued them if you will. I didn't want to spray them silver so that they stuck out like a sore thumb yet I didn't want them to blend right into the wood. They almost look brand new.

It's sorta tough to tall but it makes a difference.

And finally- our newly inulated/ sheet rocked guest bedroom:

Almost Done

2008-11-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

On Friday I had the day off and decided to finish the stairs. In 4 miserable hours I got the last of the sanding completed on the stairs! We are almost finished polying the side trim/ banisters/ etc. The stairs we are going to do every other stair and riser so that we don't have to lease the house after we put on stain or poly. They look amazing so far and they aren't even finished. I can't believe that the project is almost over- and thank god for that. I'll post photos once it's complete. Unfortunately I still don't have my camera but plan on getting it back this week. Get ready to be impressed.

More work complete

2008-11-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I finished removing stain and poly (more like old motor oil) from the left side of the dining room trim. Tonight I will be putting the final coat of poly on. It was a long tedious process and I think I'll be taking a small break from refinishing wood. Still much better than sanding! Which reminds me, we need to get back to it this weekend and just get those stairs over with once and for all. It's so dreadful. I might just be making it worse than it is though.

Quentin re insulated the walls in the gues bedroom and installed new sheet rock. It looks so good. Next we will be re sheet rocking the ceiling in there- my favorite least favorite thing to do. Oh and the coolest thing- and by far the easiest/ most fun, would be that I sprayed the heting grates in the living room and dining room. I didn't want them to pop so much so I sprayed them an antiques brown color rather than brushed nickel. They look so amazing. Once I get my camera back I'll post some pictures.

What was I thinking

2008-11-14T07:21:00.001-08:00

I thought you had to sand old work work to get it smooth and even. Was I ever wrong. I have antique wood refinisher. You take the refinisher dip some steel wool in it and rub in a circular motion on the wood and the old finish comes right off. Look at one of the floor boards I just redid!
Before:

After:

And this only has 1 coat of poly on it. It looks so good with 1 coat that we decided to just use 2 coats of poly on the wood we are refinishing this way. It's amazing. The wood is even smoother than the wood we have been refinishing with a sander. This is the way to go people!

Oh we also have been scraping... ahem, I have been scraping all of the wall paper in the guest bedroom. Here is a not so great photo:

Here are the finished windows above the stairs:

What a difference!

And all the while here is Roscoe enjoying the a fire while we work.

We just can't stop

2008-11-13T07:31:00.001-08:00

Starting new projects that is. Last weekend I made a trip out to Home Depot to grab some stuff. During my trip I got some wood refinisher. You use some steel wool and this product and it takes the old finish right off. Last night we did a stretch of baseboard in the dining room. I already put the 2nd coat of stain on this morning. It looks really good! The wood is already condidition so it's not as raw as it usually is with sanding. I can't wait to show you guys pictures. This is what we are doing on the rest of the house. It's going to go so much faster!

We took a break

2008-11-10T15:06:00.001-08:00

We took a break from sanding this weekend. We were both just so sick of inhaling and cleaning dust week after week. We finished all of the stain and poly coats on the windows above the stairs and they look really good! We also began stripping the pink/ purple butterfly wallpaper in what used to be the outdated wood paneling room. We pulled out the old gross insulation and reinsulated as well. This weekend we are going to put up some sheet rock and do some hole/ ceiling repair as well. We will also do a little more sanding. Grr.

This just infuriates me!

2008-11-05T13:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry to bring politics into this blog but I am just really sad today. How on earth could groups of people who have been discriminated against and have been fighting for equality their entire lives vote for prop 8? This is disgusting.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/11/05/what-civil-rights-victory/

Moving along

2008-11-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Last night we finished sanding the windows above the stairs. We put the 1st coat of stain on last night and I put the 2nd coat on this morning before I went to vote- Ambitious, I know. I forgot how much I hate the smell of stain. We are going to have to do this bits and peices at a time because your hands cramp pretty bad while you put it on. Mine do anyway. Here are the photos of before and after on the stain.

Stairs

The stain was wet when I took the photo so it looks like it's on there pretty heavy- but I assure you within 6-8 hours it will be ready for it's 1st coat of poly.

After we are done with this... In like 6 months to a year. We will start refinishing the rest of the wood work

PS. These photos are a little large. Just click on them to view the full photo. Oops.

So close

2008-11-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

This is now the 3rd weekend we have spent sanding the stairs. Granted we only sand 1 day out of the weekend. That's about all we can handle. We have the stairs and the baseboard and windows near the stairs sanded with the coarse grit. We even bought a paint scraper with a carbide blade to get the corners of the steps that were unreachable with the sander. Now it's time to go back over them with the fine and very fine sand paper next weekend. Hopefully we will be able to get that done in 1 day. That's definately some wishfull thinking but you never know. We would like to get the 1st coat of poly on everything before we leave for Thanksgiving.

I am so happy this project is almost over. We have so much motivation this time compared to when we sanded and stained the buffett. Now we know what we were getting ourselves into and know that the best thing you can possibly do is just keep pushing yourself until the job is done. If you wait and take weekends off you only make the job more dreadful for yourself. That's why alot of people have unfinished projects. I won't be one of those people! I'll have photos of progess for you tomorrow. Get ready to be amazed!

Faster than I thought

2008-10-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

After devoting 2 of my entire weekends to sanding the stairs I think we are almost done. We are offically done with the 40 grit sandpaper on the steps and just have a little bit of 60 grit left to do on the trim. In the middle of sanding this weekend my Ryobi sander died on me. I took it into Home Depot and they gave me a new one. Apparently my drive belt broke. I press a little hard on the sander to get more off in less time. I had to break the new one in for an hour or so to get it back up to my standards of sanding =)

Here is what the stairs look like now:

Top of stairs looking down:

Next we'll sand a medium grit, then fine, then very fine. The great thing about the other sand paper is that you're no longer trying to get rid of any imperfections so it goes pretty quick. In fact we might be able to get it all done this coming weekend.

Oh yeah... I'm soooo sick of dust!

Fun With Sanding...

2008-10-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm sure you remember the long tedious process in which we recently sanded our massive Buffet. This weekend we just began another awful sanding project- the stairs. I have been dreading this for soooo long. The time has finally to just get them done and over with. This weekend I began working on the stairs and probably put a good 6 or 7 hours in of sanding. The worst part of sanding, besides vibrating hands, dried out sinuses and nausea, is the clean up. I have about 5 stairs left to go so I am almost done with the 40 coarse sand. After I am done with that I'll switch to medium, then fine, then very fine. I am hoping the have the stairs done within 2 more weekends of working on them. The worst part is using the course sand because you and sanding out all of the imperfections/ old stain and you spend about 1/2 hour or so on each step. The good news is that all of the other sand paper we use goes pretty quick!

So our plan is to sand the floors throughout the house with sanding machine before we stain and poly the stairs. Poly for stairs smells so awful that I would prefer to just knock out the entire house over the course of a weekend. Since you can't walk on it and all... Here are the photos of what the stairs use to look like- in case you forgot. I'll post updates tomorrow.

Not only do I have to sand these steps, but I also have to sand the landing and more steps to the right of that. *sigh

Workin it.

2008-10-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we got quite a bit done on our front sun porch. We finished sanding the front door. We stained it pretty dark (ebony). We wanted it darker than our interior stain so that the front door really sticks out, on the exterior. We also sanded, and decided to just paint, the door frame and the window frame. It looks really good. All of the paint stripping really paid off. Although it was pretty tedious and time consuming. We still have alot of paint stripping to do around the windows and of course the bead board ceiling, which I will be staining- not painting. That should be a blast.

I didn't get a chance to take these until last night so they are a little dark. What do you think?

Otherwise we rehung pictures in the dining room and it made a huge difference. I got a really cool plant that fills some space in there too. Now I just need to get a center peice for the dining room table and some window treatments and blinds and we're all set.

I can't wait for Christmas. I can wait for the cold though.

New dining chairs

2008-10-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

We didn't really have too much time for any projects this weekend. We went up to the cabin this weekend to take out the dock. All weekend I have been dreaming about these great dining room chairs that I saw last week. After going to check them out again we realized that the chairs I liked might be better accent chairs. The previous chairs we had were your basic Ikea chair- completely uncomfortable. We went to Odds and Ends and found these slingback chairs for $79/ chair- that's a steal. I'm not 109% sure of them- just like everything else that I paint or buy. I just really wish that I was 100% sure of them.

What do you guys think?

Here is the view where I think they just look really big- Almost like mad hatter chairs. Am I crazy? I might be obsessing a bit.

Deh-muh-li-shun

2008-09-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here are the photos of the almost completely wood paneling free guest room. There is a lovely lavendar butterfly wallpaper that covers the walls. The other wall near the window has no sheet rock but is insulated which is good. I'm wondering if we should bother to reinsulate the walls?

Although it looks a little scary it feels so much bigger. I think the wood panleing was just a little bit scarier than this. Now people won't be so afraid to sleep in this room once we get a few minor things done.

I'm offically beat!

2008-09-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were very productive. Maybe too productive if there is such a thing. We started our weekend off by sanding the front door and starting to sand the trim around the windows (this is on the front sun porch). I started caulking around windows to prepare for this extremely cold winter that we are being told about (can't wait!). Then, on Sunday, we decided it was time to start gutting the guest bedroom. We are redoing the hard wood floors and I just really want the major demolition to be finished before so that we aren't dragging this stuff through the house.

So here are the only before photos I could find. These are from the day we got our keys to the place:

Don't you love those great built in dressers? Hahah. I think wood paneling was the cheap easy way for guys to 'refinish' a room back in the 70's.

here is another random:

All of the wood paneling and dropped ceiling along with tiles are now gone. I have to take some photos tonight when I get home and I'll post them tomorrow. The room looks soooo much better. Even gutted. Sad.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We also bought a new light for the office and changed out all of the ourlets so they are clean and white. Well now there is a short somewhere and half the lights are out upstairs. What a friggen mess. TG for my maintenance guy. He's going to stop by tonight.

A little excited.

2008-09-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

We had a fun visit with some friends last night, who are also fellow house rehabbers/ bloggers. We had been planning on paying someone to sand and redo our hardwood floors. The upstairs hall and office alone was going to cost $825. A little pricey but it needed to be done. I've never really wanted to tackle a sanding project because I've always been warned I would sand too deep and could really mess up my hard wood. After speaking with them it sounds like this is actually a project that we are going to take on. Not only will we be sanding the office and hall... We will also be resanding the living room and dining room. How ambitious, right?

The only problem is that we won't be able to put the furniture on the floors for about 7 days after sanding, which isn't much of a problem. We'll just have to fins a place to stay for a week. This is going to be a big- FUN- project. I'm excited! The hand sanding of our stairs starts either this weekend or next weekend.

Hall paint

2008-09-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

The paint in the hall is pretty much done. Just a few touch- ups left here and there. What a long tedious project. I have to take long breaks in between painting rooms. Everything is a mess until it's finished. Here's what the hall looks like now.
Sorry- these photos were taken at night time. It's a wee bit dark.

This is where the closet was ripped out:

The color is a continuation from the living room/ hall. I could have picked something sooo much cooler but I really have a tough time with picking colors. I think it looks pretty good. The floors are just driving me nuts now. We have these great finished walls and these ugly paint splatted, worn floors. November or early December they WILL be done. That means we start sanding the stairs next week. Yay- Can't wait (a little sarcastic).

We stripped paint off the porch windows this weekend. I've come to find that citrus stripper works so much better and faster than a heat gun. It's alot safer on or around glass as well. We'll hopefully sand that area while we work on the stairs. Who know- maybe not.

Office paint

2008-09-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

The office paint is complete. I'm not a huge fan of the color. It's a little hard to tell from these photos, but it's a light gray with a hint of blue to it. What I really need now is some color in this room and black accents. I'm torn on what color to do in here. Maybe rust? I need to get to work with my colored pencils and play with a few different ideas.

Now I'm not complaining by an means. This color is soooo much better than the electric jean blue that used to cover the walls. The floors are next on the list to redo so I am excited about that being right around the corner! Can you imagine this color with some light natural smooth flooring. I'm excited.

We'll soon be building a new desk. I really don't even like the desk in this location, however, this is about the only spot for it. This room has all of the furniture I'm not too fond of. Eventually everything in this room is going to be replaced and upgraded.

The new desk will be built over this weird hump next to the window. It's the ceiling of the stairwell beneath it. Then the room and space will be more functional. Somebody please sign me up for a room makeover show.

I'll have some photos of the upstairs hallway once we are finsihed cutting in this weekend. I'll be happy to be done with this project. Whew~!

The speed of light

2008-09-15T10:16:00.001-07:00

Not only did we prime the walls in the office last weekend, we also got both coats of semi gloss paint on the trim, the office painted and the hallway painted. We just have 1 more coat to do on the hall. I can't wait to post the photos- it looks amazing!

Once we are finished with this we are going to start sanding the stairs. We're both dreading this project. There is something about working with a sander that drys out your sinuses, eyes and makes you feel a little crummy over all. It's called saw dust. I'm just so happy that the steps will be done soon and we can enjoy them rather than dread them. We have come so far!

This project seems to be going on forever

2008-09-11T07:15:00.001-07:00

Last night I worked on the hallway and office from 5:30pm to 9:30pm. Did I mention I went home on my lunch break to roll out the first coat of paint on the ceilings? Ha ha ha. I just want this project finished so bad. It will bring some normalcy back to our lifes. I'm tired of looking at those walls and having dust and paint all over my feet every time I walk down them.

Last night I primed the hall walls as well. No more yellow glue walls! I also got ambitious and started painting the woodwork semi gloss white. The wood work was already painted and wasn't worth stripping. Maybe the next person will be ambitious enough to strip them.

Here is our progress:

Before

After

Here are the painteds ceilings in the office. Not as overwhelming as the floor to ceiling blue. We should have the hall painted by this weekend and the office should be primed.

Almost there!

2008-09-08T13:08:00.001-07:00

We had a very productive weekend! We finished the MASSIVE amount of sanding on our hallway and are almost finished with the room. Since it has been so long since the place has been taken care of there were cracks and holes pretty much everywhere. Especially underneath the wallpaper. Every inch of wall was pretty much spackled or completely mudded. Also we had a large patch job next to the bathroom where a door had been covered over for a closet and never really got a proper fix. I trimmed out most of the walls in primer, I think my maintenance guys call that cutting in, I'll just say trimmed out. Tonight we'll probably finish sanding the office and do any final mudding that we might have missed. That means tomorrow we roll out the walls with primer.

After we we are done with that we will begin sanding the stairs. Thank god! They are such an eye sore right now. Soon enough they'll be a back sore. heheh. I also primed the back vestibule which leads in the kitchen. The vestibule has wall paneling up. I painted it the same color as the sun porch. I figured since they're both entrances, and they are such small spaces, that the color wouldn't be too repetative. I also don't want it to look like a fun house with too many different colors. I just need to pick up more high gloss white paint for the trim in the vestibule and paint the ceiling. Once that's complete I'm replacing the carpeting with the same gray carpet tile in the sun porch. I'm not a huge fan of them but it looks nice and it's good enough for now. Especially since we are still doing work which could mess up something nicer.

Things finally seem to be moving along so much faster. We just seem to be knocking out projects left and right lately. I don't know what we would do if we had no motivation. Alot of people forewarned us that we would get sick of working on the house when we bought it. They thought things would never get done. I can imagine most people would lose steam pretty quick and I'm just thankful we haven't.

Before & After

2008-09-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

So this is the last post about the buffet since there has been so many. I was looking through old photos from when we purchased the house last night and stumbled across this photo.

If you look closely you can see that one of the drawers were chewed on all corners by an animal. You can barely tell there was ever an issue now. Here is a better photo of the complete buffet.

We sanded and stained the woodwork around the windows above just to make sure it didn't look mismatched. I just thought I'd share this with everyone

Priming our lives away.

2008-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

So, this week we are not only going to be priming our hallway- which won't be too tough. We are also priming our office- which is a lovely shade of shit blue. "There is no such color as shit blue," you're thinking. Well, there sure is.

Ok, so maybe it's not that bad, it just doesn't belong on a wall. I have a feeling that this color will be bleeding through a few times, thus the priming. Not only will we be priming the walls in here, we'll also be priming the ceiling.

Maybe that's why the color is so overbearing. Don't you love that brass 1 bulb light fixture? We'll be upgrading that as well. After we prime the walls we'll have to wait until the floors are refinished to paint. This is the other room in need of some sanding and poly. It's going to look so good!

On a happier note- look what is growing out back by our A/C

Our very own corn on de cob. Isn't it cute? When I was pulling weeds I thought I would save it. Pretty random.

Ta Daa!

2008-09-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here are a few blurry photos of the buffet. We just have one more pull to put on a drawer and then we are completely finished. Speaking of finish, the finish is alot more vibrant than what it looks like in the photos. The blur and sun make it look a little dull.

What do you think?

I ripped out the closet in the hallway. Eventually this little area will be part of the bathroom expansion when we get the 10-15k we need to redo it. Probably next pay check. (yeah right)

Atleast there is finally some light in the hall.

I also finished scraping wall paper- Finally! Next week we'll start priming the hall walls and painting the ceiling. We are going to wait to paint the walls and trim until we have refinished the floors. I really don't feel like dusting off walls.

I almost forgot. Here are some pictures I took of the dogs the other day. Tito is at the doctor today because he has some mites that have almost cause him an infection. I'm waiting to hear more details but I feel so bad for the poor guy. His little eyes was really swollen bad.

Roscoe is doing good. These guys are really expensive too. I love my house and I love my dogs. Why do the things we love cost so much?

So so busy

2008-08-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

What a busy summer. Every weekend has just been crammed with one thing or another. I'm still working on the hall project and this weekend we are offically finished with the buffet. What a long- painstaking process. But hey- it was all worth it. It looks amazing.

A sigh of relief

2008-07-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I am very happy that I have the bathroom livable. I am now motivated to complete the rest of the upstairs to make it, well to make it up to my standards. The entire upstairs hallway is next on the list. The carpet was removed from the floor and what's left is hideous floors in desperate need of some sanding. We also have this awesome wallpaper (I'm assuming it's from the 30s or 40s). I've got most of the wallpaper scraped from the hallway. I just have about 4 small sections left. Here is what I'm working with:

The completed scraped walls

Now this is pretty interesting. See this lovely door in the back ground?

This door leads to a closet that someone created. Guess what's inside this closet?

A window. Actually it's the only window in the hallway. That means no natural light in there unless this closet door is open. So after I'm finished scraping all of the other wallpaper, this wall/ door will be coming out. I'll put some nice blinds/ drapes and a chair in the corner for right now. I'll hopefully get to this by this weekend.

A small dillema

2008-07-22T19:16:00.000-07:00

Here are the photos of our new bathroom! I just bought that shower curtain and I'm sort of not feeling the flow. Should I return it and just go for a plain white shower curtain? I need some opinions here!

Here is a photo of the lovely purple that used to dominate our bathroom. I guess I've got some touch up to do.

Another angle

New lighting! I'm thinking that mirror needs to be flip right side up.

So what do you think?

Here are the photos of our landscaping! For the larger photos, just click to view the entire picture. Doesn't the bedlining and mulch make it look so much better? We still have quite a few
more plants to add (that's why the mulch doesn't come all the way up)

If you scroll down you can see just how much it's grown since May.

If you scroll all the way back to January you can see the weed bushes that took over our landscaping. My we've come so far in such little time!

A temporary solution

2008-07-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

The bathroom is complete, for now. I figure if we really do the bathroom the way we would like to it will probably cost around 10-15K. I can't wait to show you photos though. We put up a new light fixture, new pictures, paint, rugs. It's hardly recognizable to us. It feels really clean, which is exactly what we were going for. I'm not 100% in love with the color but hey, it could be worse. It could be purple.

We also added about 12 new plants to our landscaping this weekend. We put in some Salvia, blanket flower, Fiesta Forsythia, and Red magic Flox. We also put down some more mulch. It's looking so good!

I had a very productive weekend- Finally.

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far!

Progress...

2008-07-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

It's been about a month- but I finally have some news about progress. I finally began priming and painting the bathroom. This is currently the only bathroom we have in the house. It's pretty spacious but everything is crammed into one area- the toilet sink and tub. I primed all of the woodwork in the bathroom. Typically I wouldn't paint woodwork, but it's got a late 70s feel to it. It's nice wood but will look even nicer with a medium bright white gloss.

I didn't get photos in time but I'm sure most of you who've been to our home remember the lovely purple bathroom. I'm happy to say that the color has been primed. This weekend we're painting the bathroom a fresh spring green. We are also putting in a new mirror and some polished nickel lighting. It seems polished nickel is becoming more popular. People must be getting tired of seeing brushed nickel everywhere. Whatever happend to brass? Oh yeah- that's right, brass sucks.

We are also doing more yard work this weekend and I can't wait. Here are some photos of the bathroom under construction.

sky light

This is about half of the open space we have under the other arch... Oooh the possibilities

Sorry

2008-07-10T13:10:00.001-07:00

I haven't written anything in soooo long. Summer caught up with me and now I am incredibly busy. If I'm not up at the cabin I'm moving the sprinkler around the yard and taking the dogs for a walk and blah blah blah. I miss having 3 full months to do whatever the hell I wanted to do. Maybe I should start teaching ;) Yeah right.

Milestone

2008-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

It's my 30th post. Who knew blogging was so much fun?

This weekend we were very productive. We planted a few more plants/ shrubs in the front of the house and started on our bed lining. I also pruned the trees behind our garage so it isn't as much of a jungle back there. Now I just need to cut all of the branches down so that we have our yard back. There is a huge pile of them that is accumulating quick, yikes- I'm just waiting for a another violation for the city. Well, actually I'm not. I think I'm going to post an add for free sticks on craigslist next weekend. Catchy right? I'm sure my phone will be ringing off the hook ;)

We also did some much needed organization in our office. Having an organized clean home feels so good, doesn't it? You're usually either working on the house and have no energy to clean when you're through or you're cleaning with no energy to work. This weekend we made time for both. Hooray.

Everything is looking so good. I took photos of our landscaping but something is not working. So I leave you with a photo of our little babies. Tito chewed up a pair of my nice work shoes this weekend... Little shit. He's lucky he's so cute.

Comments.

2008-06-12T12:23:00.001-07:00

Now you can leave me comments even if you are not a user of blogger.com. It'll just post as anonymous.

*Cough* friends and family.

Finally, some curb appeal...

2008-06-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

We a planted bunch of shrubs and 2 trees this weekend- about 13 to be exact. Everything went pretty smooth. The most difficult were the sky rocket junipers at each corner of the house. It looks so much better! There is still so much work to do in the yard. Baby steps- right? This weekend I'll be doing our bed lining and putting down more dirt and mulch. I love gardening!

I really wish we could paint the outside of the house. I need to do some stucoo repair 1st and we know that is going to co$t us. I really do miss living in a great apartment, spending alot of money on new clothes, going out and looking great. I don't think I have even bought myself new work clothes not to mention clothes for me. Every extra penny goes into the house- and willingly. That's the scary thing. I love this house and I love making it beautiful.

June bugs are invading our yard. They are about as gross as the palmetto roaches I used to live with in Florida. I think they live in dirt. They come from under the ground. I hope they are called June bugs for a reason. I don't think I'd be able to deal with them in July and August as well.

Here are the plants!

We've got Magnolia trees, Sea Green Junipers, Summer Wine Nine bark, Cranberry something or anothers and rocket junipers.

Because you were dying for a closer look.

I've just opened another can of worms...

2008-06-04T07:05:00.001-07:00

So you know how I was painting the front sun porch and I didn't like the color? Well, I changed it. I really like the new color. It's called quiet terrace and I thought that was fitting. It's not as neutral as I usually go but looks good.

So here is what happened. I bought some semi gloss paint to start doing the trim. Well, the paint was all cracked and the fresh coat of paint looked a little less than fresh. I was reading Ranty's blog (my real estate agent for life) and she had been doing some work with a heat gun. Well I got inspired and took on another huge project. I am stripping all of the woodwork of paint in the front porch.

I guess you really can't see too much of a difference in the paint- but I notice it.

I'm almost debating not sanding and staining the wood because this rustic look is kind of cool. Although I like a clean crisp look so I'm sure it'll be stained and sanded.

There are alot more windows to do... Plus I also began stripping the bead board ceiling... Yeah, you heard right. I am taking on the task of stripping th ceiling and returning it to it's natural beauty. This is going to be an on-going project but it's going to look SOOOOO GOOD. Everything has to be done right.

Oops...

2008-05-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I grabbed a ton of paint swatches from Home Depot and brought them home. I planned on picking out a new color for the sun porch in the entrance. After long deliberation, Deanna and Quentin urged me to pick this color.

It looks like S***. I HATE this color. Now with a little sunlight I don't mind it as much

Back to the drawing board. I wanted more of a honey beige or muted, neutral yellow. On Friday I'll be painting again =(. Hopefully this is the last time.

We have completed our walls and ceiling in the stairwell. Here is the finished look.

The stair sanding madness will ensue this month. I'm not looking forward to this at all. Sanding is the pits. We have to have it finished before July 4th so that we can get someone out to do the poly.

We begin planting this weekend!

Our dogs are doing good. They love to fight.

Not feeling so stumped anymore

2008-05-21T13:49:00.001-07:00

I called a few numbers on Craigslist to see about getting 2 tree stumps grinded out that are near the front door (the prime area that we need to get plants going). The guy went out there today and removed 2 stumps for $65. He isn't insured so I'm hoping all is good. I've never even met him, just spoke with him over the phone. Hopefully I walk away with deal vs. a problem.

Will report back.

* Update* I got home yesterday to find both stumps removed and looking great. If anyone needs a refferal let me know. What a deal! Next task- rent a garden tiller and buys some plants!

What a great weekend!

2008-05-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

I am so pleased with all of the progress we made over the weekend. For starters, I have been dying to get some furniture in the front sun porch, seeing as though it's pretty much useless without it. I went down to Target to check out this set that I've had my eyes on for the last 2 months and to my surprise it was 10% off. Not only that but I had an additional 10% coupon plus I got another 10% off of the love seat. Total I saved about $80-$90. I just had to yap about it because there is nothing better than getting a good deal on something you love. Good thing I waited! The only bad thing is that now I want to begin redoing the front porch.

Onto the big projects. We finally started removing the huge weed bushes that have turned into trees. We removed 2 big bushes/ roots by digging down and using the chainsaw. I'm hoping the bushes don't grow back but I guess we'll just have to attack them as they come. It's already made such a difference by removing them.

We got the landscape design back from the lady @ Indigo and she did an amazing job. We will hopefully begin planting our trees and shrubs 2 weeks from now. There weren't any hostas in her design so, to use of what was already in the yard, I planted a row of them on the side of the house that people don't really see. We also planted 2 trees, one to the right and 1 to the left of the driveway. Everything is really starting to look nice.

The two little white sticks are the new trees

On top of all of this, it was my nephew Luke's 4th birthday today. Nothing like a child growing to make you feel like you're really getting old- or just growing up. Ok, getting old. My nephew and neice are so cute! Why can't they live a little closer.
My baby and I.

Dog Training and yard work

2008-05-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

The dogs really need training. They are both dominant (one more than the other) and think they run the show. I think I am going to sign the naughtiest up for training this weekend and then we can practice what we learn on the other. We are the ones who really need the training. They just need some rehabilitation. Thank you, Cesar Milan.

So, onto yard work. I meet with Lindsay, the landscape designer tomorrow. She was in the Star Trib yesterday in Home and Garden for work she did that HGTV was there to film. How cool, a local celebrity designing my lawn. I hate to say it, but my neighbors are going to have some tough competition on their hands once we get going. =)

I need to get the stucco fixed before be paint the house but I'm desperate to paint it this summer. I have so many projects I want to get done. I want to have more than one going at a time. Please god, let someone leave an anonymous bag of cash at our front door. We'll put it to good use.

Finally- warmer weather

2008-05-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

What a productive weekend we had. First off, we got our babies, Tito and Roscoe, on Friday. They are the cutest things in the world. We pretty much fell in love with them right away. I'll post some larger pictures when I get some. They are the coolest dogs in the world.

On Saturday we finished sanding and painting the ceiling going up our stairwell. We had to put up new sheet rock tap and mud. It doesn't look as great as when we paid to have it taped, but it looks so much better than the tiled ceiling. We also too the living room paint up through the hallway. I'll post photos when we get the mirror hung at the top of the stairs.

After and before- sorry for the neck cramp

Since yesterday was so nice I finally got to begin some lawn work. Lanscaping can get pretty exhausting pretty quick. After an hour or so of shoveling I feel like quiting, but do I give up? No.
Baby steps right? Everything is starting to look better. I am starting on the back patio area. There is a large amount of extra dirt back there so I am sort of transferring it to different areas. I can't wait for our yard to be a little more pleasing to the eye. This week I should be getting back the drawings for the yard!

That fence needs to come down!

A new addition

2008-05-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

I filled out a application for a miniature pinscher through the MN Min-Pin rescue. About 1 hour after I filled out the application I got a phone call about 2 brothers that were found wandering the streets together. Apparently these dogs had been found wandering before. The original owners actually came to pick up the dogs again. This time they microchipped the dogs, brought them up on all shots, etc. The original owners couldn't afford to take the dogs back so they surrrendered them to the rescue.

Originally I only wanted to start with 1 dog. I figured Quentin would say no way to two. However- the boys have been together since birth and we are all about keeping family together. I guess the lasy who is currently watching the boys until we come and meet them said they were in seperate kennels last night and they cried and cried until they were put in the same kennel. We just can't let these little guys get split up. Their names are Roscoe and Tito. They are both 3 1/2 years old. After our home inspection tomorrow night we get to go pick them up!

Ahh... Landscaping

2008-05-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

I went to Gerten's greenhouse yesterday with Jackie, who also has a green thumb but plenty more experience in that area. If you haven't been there you must go. It was amazing, they had quite the selection. I was getting ideas for our landscape designer. I am going with formal type tree yet more modern with grasses, magnolia trees, forsynthia etc. The colors we were thinking we are going for are red, white, and yellow. We are planning on painting the house a dark taupe this summer with white trim so it should all play in together very well.

I can't wait! I have to wait a whole week until I get back the drawings she comes up with. The bad thing is I am picking up my sugar maple this Friday and I have NO CLUE where to plant it. Arg. I'll post pictures of our awful landscaping that we currently have tomorrow

Great news!

2008-04-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

On Friday I am meeting with a professional landscaper to have the plans for the front and side of my yard laid out. I am really excited! She is charging $70 per hour so my cap for her is 4 hours. She'll just have to cut a few corners. Quentin and I will be putting all of the pain staking labor into it, I just want a good design and plants that flow with one another. I can only do so much. Sometimes you just need the extra edge of someone who has more knowledge than you. Yes, I admit I don't know everything- there you have it. Curb appeal is so important and we currently have NONE. Of course this is going to be a project we work on over the next couple of years but I want to get a good head start this summer. Now if we could only get some more nice weather so I can actually work outside without freezing.

OK, I'm sure you are sick to death of seeing pictures of the buffet- but here it is with the poly and all- the finished product!

You gotta see it to believe it

2008-04-25T10:56:00.001-07:00

The buffet turned out better than I'd imagined. It was well worth the dirty house and grueling 2 months spent on it.

Happy Earth day!

2008-04-22T09:51:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone does something special to take care of our good earth today. I'm happy to hear that people are still reading the blog. I was almost certain you had all given up on me. I'm posting a bunch of pictures today!

The stain is complete. He is what a bad photo of the buffet looks like- I took it without day light.

The final photo is the color change between the interior and the exterior of the buffett. I'm psyched to get some poly on there.

The stairs I'm working on are next. There are atleast 60 staples in each step so I continue to pull them whenever I think about it. I've also been scraping the wallpaper in the upstairs hallway so that the glues doesn't get all over what will soon be our gorgeous new floors.

And last but not least, the ugly floors left under the carpet we tore out. The floors in the office look pretty similar. We will be paying someone to come in and do these. It shouldn't be too bad.

I'll keep everyone posted on the stair progress- Grr....

The sweet taste of success.

2008-04-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

I am beginning the poly process tonight on the buffet. The poly process is alot less work than the staining- atleast I assume. We are waiting to start the drawers. If weather permits we'll probably be working on them outside this weekend.

In near future news- I am going to begin sanding the stairs once I've fully completed the buffet. The last thing I want in my life is more sawdust all over my house but this will be the last sanding project we do oursleves for a bit. We are also going to be paying someone to come in and sand the floors in the office and the upstairs hall. I have a feeling it'll cost around $500 give or take. The room isn't very large nor is the hall. Having those floors redone will make a huge impact on the upstairs. I CAN'T WAIT!

Outside we have begun ripping out bushes and I am going to start seeding our non-existent grass this week. I'll post photos soon.

More exciting news- we just had family move near us (John & Kendra) right down the street. They got an awesome fixer upper as well and I'm hoping they blog about it as well. We are super excited to have them as neighbors!!!

Sorry I haven't updated this in so long. I hope you're still reading the blog.

More Progress!!!

2008-04-14T13:36:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't written a thing in what feels like months to me. We finished sandy the buffet! We have begun the staining process. Rather than changing the color of the wood we decided to keep the exterior of the buffet the same color as the rest of the wood- which is an antique walnut. We did a light cherry wood stain the we aren't thrilled with but it adds more depth to the buffet and highlights the glass shelving area. It still looks better than having the entire buffet the same color. The old stain was darker on the interior and you caould barely see what we had in there without opening the glass doors.

Other than that I raked 18 garbage back of leaves from the yard with a few left to go. We are also pulling some type of weed bush with HUGE roots. They seem pretty hard to get rid of but I've gotten some good advice about cutting them about 6 inches underground. I'll post yard photos on the next blog (which will be soon!)

Here are the beginning photos of the stain. Once we are finished- we'll have 3 coats of top coat to protect the buffet with a medium sheen.

It's more work than I thought

2008-03-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written anything for awhile. I don't have anything to blog about. Who knew sanding a buffet would be so time consuming. I'm not even going to post any pictures because our progress would bore you to death.

We stripped the wood inside the doors on the buffet to try and save some time sanding. It was a good idea, huge gobs of black goo came up from the wood. I'm assuming it was dirt and oil over time. Unschlacked wood absorbs oil over time so my guess it just got gross. Anyhow, Hopefully within the next 2 weeks I'll have something great for you.

I'd like some new stain with a side order of shine

2008-02-25T08:54:00.001-08:00

So this weekend I began sanding the buffet, what a task. Eventually all of the trim is going to need sanding and stain as well. The current stain on a majority of the wood work is a darker walnut. It's something that doesn't necessarily need to be completed immediately but something that would make a HUGE difference. Of course there are paint splatters, scratches andscrapes throughout. There also isn't much of a shine to it.

I want to get all of the big messes done in the first year or so, so why not just begin the sanding now? Here is where the problem comes in. I am stumped on what color of stain to use on the wood. Should I do a light cherry, a dark cherry? The possibilites are endless. I want a deep dark rich red, but then again a medium cherry might be nice. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I may just end up going with a dark cherry stain to keep the woodwork looking classic, yet giving it some vibrance. I'll post some pictures of the work in progress very soon.

The Finished Product. Well... Almost.

2008-02-18T07:18:00.001-08:00

We had a very successful housewarming last weekend. Friends and family finally got to come over and see our new place and the progress we've made on it. It was so nice to have the place full of people we love. The house has definately been "warmed". We couldn't have done it without our mothers. They made all of the food for the party and many many thenks go out to both of them.

So here are some photos of the party and the almost finished product. The finishing touches of the living room and Dining room will take place this coming weekend and then onto the next project.

What do you think I should put above the fire place? I need some suggestions. I have this large mirror in the living room and don't want mirrors on every wall. Is anyone aware of any new trends for decoration above the mantle or know of anything that might go good with what I have? I'm sort of lost.

No, that's not a doll on my couch. It's my nephew, Luke.