More changes

Work on the house continues on, but here are a few pictures of changes that happened months ago. Dad put up new porch lights for me since there was just one and it blinded the peep-hole so you couldn't see who was standing on the porch....not the best design considering there isn't a window there to look out of either. Yes, the street numbers in the picture are being held up with tape, but they had fallen and Dad used the tape to hold them in place while the other adhesive dried. Of course, we've had so many storms that the numbers have taken a beating and now the 1 and the 3 have fallen off......now my address is just 36. One of these days I'll get a real address that stays in place. My favorite part of this picture is the little patch of flowers that you can see in the bottom right corner. The elderly woman that lived here before me stuck a whole bunch of silk flowers in the dirt so it looked like she had flowers. I honestly had never thought of that as a quick fix to add curb appeal (but don't be fooled....it wasn't appealing)!


Have I mentioned lately that my dad is amazing? He built me a mantel! My fireplace was pretty boring before, but he built this mantel that is perfect and really makes it look nice. The box on the hearth is the fireplace screen that I will use later, but first I need to take the brass fireplace cover off and clean the bricks. I'm so excited to have a fireplace this winter! I really could have used it last year when we had so many snow and ice storms.

Dad has also put a lot of time into the kitchen. I really didn't like my cabinets because they were stuck in the 80's and thankfully Dad agreed that it was going to be difficult to sand and paint the current cabinet design. So, he cut the dated trim off the cabinets and made new trim to update the look of the cabinets while using the original wood doors. Pretty clever! Here are a few pictures of the work in process and the first coat of primer on the doors. They looked pretty funny for a while since the original cabinet was beige but the new trim was brown. Don't worry...they're white now.

Emerson Lee

I've got a niece! Emerson Lee arrived June 5 at 1:17pm. She was 8 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long. I can't wait to meet her!

Surgery slow down

Unfortunately I had to have my gallbladder removed 2 weeks after getting into the house. Mom and I didn't do any work on the house that week since I had to lay low, but Dad kept on working. He stripped the paint off the kitchen cabinets and began designing a way to update the cabinet doors without starting all over.




A couple of days after surgery I was feeling pretty good so Mom and I decided to start painting the living room and dining room. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I sure regretted it in the days that followed! Not to mention my surgeon wasn't too happy with me. :) Slowly but surely the walls got painted, and Mom and Dad's neighbors, Harriet & BJ, even came over to help!

Demolition

Many changes happened just days after getting into the house. The dark wood paneling quickly came down and the walls were prepared for a new texture. The old, brown, scratched sliding door was replaced with new french doors and the holes that held lattice were covered over. Karen taught Mom and I how to apply a heavy texture. And boy did we quickly become experts! We ended up texturing the living room, dining room, kitchen, master bathroom, and entry hall. I still need to texture the guest bathroom and hopefully that will be the end of my texturing days for a while.....unless I change my mind and texture another room.



As you can see, Dad also added recessed lighting to the living room because it was so dark before. Don't worry, I've replaced the fan from that picture too....it was sad.

My first house!

On February 15, 2007 I closed on my first house. ...and the demolition began about 30 minutes later! My house was definitely stuck in the 80's and needed some serious work to make it my style. Here are a few of the "before" pictures...the kitchen was every shade of white and off-white you can possibly imagine. And how about that lattice-work in the living room? Nice. Please note that these pictures were taken before I purchased the house...i.e. the tacky chair is not mine!

As I look at these pictures now I just laugh because you would not even recognize the inside of my house now. Everything has completely changed. I've also included the first demo picture that took place about an hour after closing on the house.....the lattice had to go!

My first post

I'm new to the world of having my own blog, so please bear with me. I've never started a blog before because there was nothing to report about my life. Now I've decided to start a blog to at least journal the progress on my house and share pictures of the changes with friends and family. Hope you enjoy it!