Happy 1 Year of Home Ownership to Us!

Sorry I've been ignoring the blog. We've had a lot going on in life and this has taken a backseat. Part of the blame is the fact that my old, piece of crap digital camera has decided it doesn't want to take pictures anymore. I need to figure out what's wrong with it (cause the camera on my Droid isn't cutting it anymore), or I might need a new one. We're still working on the kitchen, which let's face it, is quite an undertaking. We still have to finish up a *tiny* amount of our glass tile backsplash, paint the bottom cabinets, install new hardware on those, paint crown, wainscoting, and do countertops. We were going to be painting the countertops with a paint called Giani...it looks like granite when you're done. But, we found a product by The Formica Group called 180FX (similar to WilsonArt) and we like how one looks. Yes, it's laminate, but I for one don't want granite cause you will never get your return back on it, and I was surprised at how inexpensive 180FX is. The 180FX we've picked out is called Travertine Silver, and yes, it looks like Travertine. I wanted something lighter since the cabinets are dark brown and our backsplash is on the dark side, we needed something to "even" it out.
This is what it looks like:

In other home improvement news, we've painted our laundry room. I antiqued the cabinets in there which looks nice (to me anyway) and all we need to do is paint the base, and crown (it's dingy, and we had to let the wall paint cure so we can put tape up)Here's what it looks like now:

We've also started painting our bedroom (a green color to go with the black bed). The only things left to paint are all 3 bedrooms, our bath, and some touch up paint in the spare bath and we'll be done with the inside! (other than kitchen) I've also been moving a rug around our house trying to find a home for it. (it was in my dad's room and he decided he didn't like it, so instead of it collecting dust in the basement, I took it) I thought it would look good in our bedroom (it's black and white-ish like our bedding) but it looked out of place. I tried it in the kitchen, to no avail...before settling on the livingroom. I think it fits in perfectly, and adds a little "pop" in there. I find it crazy that one rug can open up a room, make it feel larger than it was. I moved the "old" livingroom rug to one of our spare bedrooms where Buddy's "man cave" is. Here is our "new" rug:

We've also painted our new front door, and my crafty husband (after some choice words), installed it. We used some crown moulding we had leftover to frame the door, and all we have left on that is to paint the trim around the door white.

So, there's a little update for you. We are extremely proud of our home and the hard work we've put into it. Look back at original posts in this blog and you'll see how far we've really come! It's not perfect, but show me an older home (and even a brand new home) that is. There are ALWAYS faults to be found in ANY house! Like I've said before, I love our home, and if no one else liked it, that's ok with me. I'm sure there are things that could be "fixed" and "pointed out" (please don't cause that's rude :) ) but I'm happy with what we've done. I will try and get my camera fixed so I can start updating this thing with progress pictures, and before/afters. Have a great week, everybody!

P.S. Yesterday marked one year we've lived in this house. So, happy 1 year home ownership to us!

Dining Room, Hall, and NEW CARPET!!! :)

Well, I've finally gotten around to writing an actual blog with house pics. Our dining room and hall are both done after getting baseboards, and crown moulding put up. Buddy has a friend who loaned us a nail gun which was not only fun, but cut our work in half. The only thing we really have left in the hall is to buy some new doors (and one for our bedroom). We had our new carpet for the bedrooms installed yesterday, and it's so wonderful not walking on old, yucky carpet....and nevermind the old people smell is gone :) We will slowly start painting the 3 bedrooms and our bathroom....but our next big project is the kitchen. We're getting our textured wallpaper in this week, which we decided to do that since our ouside walls are concrete, and the wallpaper up now is applied directly to the concrete (hard to remove). There is no way to cover it with paint, and there are holes where they used plastic anchors to hang pictures in there....the wallpaper will cover all of that and it's pretty :) We're painting our cabinets, installing new hardware and a backsplash, and to save money on countertops, we're doing something neat to ours. I won't tell you what it is, you will just have to wait for pics. Now, onto the newest rooms done.



This was our dining room after we had sheetrock installed over the paneling:


This was once we got our first coat of paint on, before we put down wood floors:


The start of us installing our own flooring in the hall and dining room:


Crown is installed,just needs paint:


Buddy using the nail gun to install door casings:


Baseboards:


Door casings minus paint in some areas:


Finished product (want an accent table underneath the pics):


Left side by coat closet:


Painted the inside of doorway for cool transition from hall into dining room:


Just a refresher of what the hall looked like. That hole is where the coal burning fireplace was before they upgraded it. Ugly,huh?


The hall after sheetrock was installed, we painted and put in wood floors, baseboards:


One of our guest rooms before (old carpet):


After with new carpet. We just need to paint it:


Another view with Buddy's tv and game systems aka his "man area":



Will post pics of our bedroom once it's done, but the carpet is the same in all of the bedrooms. Hope you enjoyed, and we are proof that it doesn't take a huge sum of money to update your home, nor is it difficult to do it yourself. Just look for the best price, and have fun making your home into something not only nice, but something you can be proud of for doing it yourself.

Gearing up for kitchen renovations :)

There aren't going to be any pictures in this blog, and I apologize. Life has been busy, and we're still putting the finishing touches on rooms we've started. In the hall we have: baseboards, and 3 door casings. In the newly coined dining room (no longer Buddy's "man cave/den"....that was moved to one of the spare bedrooms) we have: baseboards, crown moulding, door casings and some touch up painting. Whew. We're moving right along though.

Now, we've decided in the middle of all of this to start planning for our kitchen. We didn't win that kitchen makeover, which we're ok with since you have to install the cabinets and counters yourself....and the fact that our style of cabinets are actually coming back in style, amazing,huh? We found that out via some of Buddy's customers who are in the cabinet business. So, that being said, here are our plans for the kitchen:

1. We're priming and painting our cabinets a dark brown,almost black color.

2. We're getting new hardware, if we can find some that aren't an arm and a leg to buy. Plus, they need to be lowered since this vertically challenged woman can't reach half of the cabinet handles :)

3. Our outside walls in this house are poured concrete, and the people who lived here first had the BRIGHT idea to attach wallpaper straight to the concrete and it would be a pain to remove. So, instead of painting on top (which you would still see the seams)we decided to put up some textured wallpaper and paint that (color by Sherwin-Williams is Oyster Bay). There is wainscoting on the bottom separated by a thin chair rail, and that will be painted white. We will also need to replace the crown/trim by the ceiling since they did such a stand up job on it...not.

4. Countertops, which will be easy :)

We're waiting to paint our bedroom, bathroom and two bedrooms for now. I will keep you updated as we go, and I promise to post pictures soon! XOXO.