Wednesday, September 26, 2007

More rooms

Rylees' room, the office/josh and jessica's room (there!), another hall shot, the incomplete entry and other random shots.















*not everything is done yet, please have mercy!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Abode

More before and after pictures!


The fireplace!




The Hall Bath






Part of the Master (not done in there yet)





Small Portion of the Master Bath





The Hall






Living/Dining








I'll have Rylee's room and the office/guest room up next, promise!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Sunday, September 23, 2007

P.S

Rodney has made me promise to post more pictures of the kitchen tomorrow, once the seal has set in.

So along with other house pictures, there will be more kitchen pictures.

The end.

The Transformation, Part 1

Well.

We're settling into the house nicely. Things are being completed every day and we are getting closer to be 100% finished.

Ha! Those of you fellow home owners out there are now laughing uncontrolably.

I know, we'll never be finished. We'll never stop working on the house.

So far for us, that's the best part.


I'll start with the bulk of the work, The Kitchen

As I type this now from the bedroom, my ever-slaving husband is sanding away on my new countertops.

This is what we started with:




After the demo/gut (a newer shade of green):



Building cabinets, the whole family gets involved.





Starting to go up on the wall.




Doors on, Tiled backsplash, Refigerator in.




Getting there...



Almost complete.







Things that are left:

Molding around the bottom of the cabinets (where the lights are)
A few paint touch ups
Sanding and sealing the workstations (being done right this second!)

That's it!

I'm so incredibly happy with the outcome of this kitchen. I'm super impressed with my do-it yourself husband and I absolutely love walking into my kitchen every morning! The most rewarding part of this entire experience has been designing something and then seeing it come to life. That and watching Rodney do this by himself. (I helped too but really, he deserves all accolades)

Tomorrow I'll reveal the rest of the house transformations, be on the lookout!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Tiny update

Update soon, I promise.

We're exhausted and over worked but it's nearly done. We've moved and spent the last two nights in the house. Rylee still cries to "go home" but I'm sure she'll get over it soon.

More very, very soon.

xoxo,
steph

Monday, September 10, 2007

The Finish line

It's been a crazy week.

We're not done. It's close but not close enough.

A few appliances are in (including the fridge which was the most exciting part of the week) but we still have a lot of work to do.

What we accomplished in the week Rodney was off:

Marked the walls
Put all cabinets together, squared and plum.
Went to Ikea 3 times
Installed all of the back wall cabinets (there are 7)
Cut the dish rack in half and installed it
Put in the counter top on the back wall and got it cut for sink installation
Installed sink
Partially installed faucet
Installed/re-did plumbing and new garbage disposal
Tiled the backsplash (thanks dad!)
Installed the under-cabinet lights
Installed the wire baskets that go inside one cabinet and the tall pantry (7 baskets total, screwed in by hand = stephanie in pain)
Put the dishwasher back in
Cut and added filler pieces on the back wall
Installed the brand spankin' new fridge (best part)
Installed the floating cabinets over the stove island, including the cab for the microhood
Installed the cabinet for my work station
Changed out outlet/outlet covers throughout entire house from almond to a lovely white.

What's left:
Change out light fixtures in the kitchen
Finish installing faucet (tonight)
Install handles/knobs throughout
Install floor cabinets and stove in island area
Cut out counter top for island (hello birch!)
Cut out counter top for work station
Install microhood
Cut and attach cover panels for island
Add finishing filler pieces and molding

We also have to drop the cable line in a different place, paint rylee's new bed, move the thermostat to a different wall, pack and MOVE this weekend.

Did I mention that we're all sick too? Rylee's the worst. Rodney definitely doesn't feel well either and he had to go back to work this morning. We even had to miss Kelsey's birthday party yesterday. It was a huge bummer but I didn't want to be that parent that brings her kid to things when she's feverish and has snot pouring out of her nose. Not when there were going to be a bunch of other little kids around.

I've been taking a lot of pictures and I'm itching to post them. Hopefully we'll be done soon and I can satisfy that itch! It's really starting to shape up and with the addition of the tile and the fridge, it's becoming very real. Rodney is doing all of this work for me, I hope he knows how much I appreciate it. I know he could really care less about kitchen stuff but he's gotten into this full force and I've been amazed at watching the progress he's made alone. He's a pretty cool dude.

I've got to try and find a drill bit today that will cut the holes in the sink. We thought we'd bought that tool while we were at Ikea but we must not have because we cannot find it anywhere. Rodney's dad gave us a drill bit but it just turns and burns the metal, doesn't pierce through. Suggestions?

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Busy Little Bees

We've been hard at work on the house. At least, I feel like we've been hard at work. For the last 4 days we've had to so much to do during each day that we haven't even gotten to the house until 6 or later. The days and hours just keep passing us by.

Progress has been made so all is not lost. We had to go to Ikea yesterday to get another suspension rail because we somehow managed to miss the fact that we needed two. That trip blew. Fortunately we did happen to see The Shipmans out there. That was a pleasant surprise. They came over after their shopping trip and the boys hung a few things. It was nice to have them over.

Today we got up and went to look at tile. Our trip was brought to a screeching halt when we realized that what we wanted to do with our backsplash (all 16 feet of it) was going to cost us a fortune. Things just weren't going our way today at the MANY tile stores we visited. We finally decided that we wanted to get a different counter top for the sink side of the kitchen. This meant ANOTHER trip to Ikea. I just can't believe we've had to go out there so many times lately.

This trip was pretty successful. We exchanged our countertop for another and proceeded to stroll through the "as is/clearance" section of the store, near the checkout lanes. I found this awesome chair.

Retail Price: $59.99
Awesome Price Stephanie Paid: $4.50



Can I get "woot woot?" ( I watch entirely too much Shrek)

Rodney stumbled upon a very large cart of shelves/random wood pieces/table tops/drawers/cabinet doors/bed frames that said only, "as is: $19.50" I noticed that there were at least 4 headboard/footboards in the pack, including two that are toddler/youth beds that I love so we snatched that enormous cart right up.

It started raining so we had to make sure everything was wrapped really well and covered with a tarp. I guess we didn't do that good of a job - most things were wet when we got back. No big deal though, I just wiped them all down with some paper towels.

While we were unpacking all of the "as is" items we bought, I noticed that there is an entire canopy bed, two toddler beds and a day bed. There's also a dresser and some other random things. Now all we have to do is figure out how to put it all together. As if we don't have enough to do!

Rylee is a big help.





Sometimes anyway, ha.



Seriously though, steal of the century on the chair.

Oh! We did get some tile for the backsplash and I'm pretty happy with the choice I made.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about snowboarding. It's all I want to do for some reason (besides finish the house and get moved in) Last year's trip was fun but clouded by Rodney's shoulder injury the first day. I want to go now!

That's me!



Clifford, me, Amy



I can't wait to blog about our remodel. I have lots of pictures but I'm totally waiting until we are done!