Update Alert

6 new posts. I've gotten behind, but here it all is. Too much to take in at one glance, but have fun!

WAY Befores and Afters

Just thought you might be interested to see the before pictures back from when we bought our house nearly three years ago. Our construction is taking a long time because we are doing it ourselves in random spare time, but looking at these pictures makes me remember that it is seriously worth it! AND, we are nearing the end for the upstairs to be actually completed! So. . .

Original gross, brown, yellow nasty bathroom. We used it for a year, and then in 2006 we remodeled to. . .

This! I love our bathroom. It is about 6 inches longer because Phil moved a wall next to the tub, and our cabinetry makes the space there is much more usable. Oh. Plus it doesn't drip random yellow moisture from the ceiling like the old bathroom. That is always a plus.


Hello the Brown kitchen. Brown floor, brown cabinets, brown walls, and brassy brown light fixtures. It actually did have kind of a cozy, homey feeling, but I was not in love with it, by any means.

New, clean, modern (very modern on style, so for all you traditionalists out there, you may prefer the brown look).

Mostly Done Kitchen

New Wilsonart HD Bella Noche Countertop installed! I chose the dark color to tie in the floor, black appliances and silver hardware, and I think it works. You can see some of the details of the kitchen that still need to be finished, like the back of the bar and some doors, but it is fully functional, and I can COOK again! Hurray!


My very favorite IKEA thing is having mostly DRAWERS as our base cabinets. This is not a very traditional idea- go to any Home Depot Kitchen and notice all the regular doors, not drawers- but the drawers are awesome! We don't have a pantry in our kitchen, and so we needed lots of usable space to hold food, and its the details about IKEA design that I love.
The drawers are VERY deep, and hold every ounce of food we have, and because they are drawers, you can see it all, and don't have to rearrange everything to get the one item you need out. I can't quite tell you how convenient this makes it to cook!

The drawers are also deep enough to hold all my appliances, which once were stuffed in one tiny cabinet, where, if I wanted to use the crock pot, for instance, I would have to unload everything to get to it. Now I just lift the appliance out of the drawer, and Bam! Breadmaking in the Bosch in an instant! (Yes, I am a little obsessed, but I seriously love it!) This also makes unloading the dishwasher happen at lightning speed!

Ikea Cabinet Slide Show

Finishing Walls

Learning to mud. . .but Phil did most of it!

The mudded seams and screws

Primed walls! Hurray! It's starting to look like a room!

PAINT! By far my favorite part of remodeling. This color is Sherwin Williams Trusty Tan in Satin finish! Sherwin Williams has extraordinary paint!

PAINT FINISHED, and floor reinstalled. This picture was taken at 3:47 in the morning after we had spent all day reinstalling our floor. The purple patch was trying out a color idea for the backsplash, which I didn't end up liking.

Walls

This is the Kitchen sink/dishwasherwall with all new plumbing and electricity.. .

and this is the same wall with insulation (It backs the bathroom, so any insulation for sound is helpful, if you know what I mean).

Drywall beginnings

Drywall finished!

Kitchen Remodel "Before" Part 2

If you haven't checked out the previous post, look there first.

Here is the plaster. Oh how we will miss the plaster, and the metal, and the dust. The dust that is still settling on my piano. Phil hates plaster, so he took it all out! Our whole house was made of plaster, and now the only plaster left in the entire house is two walls and a ceiling in the living room, and the stairwell. Everything else is drywall.
We took up the laminate floor, which is the only thing we also kept for our new kitchen. Underneath was interesting tiles that had a red tinge underneath the black coat. Hmm. Maybe we should have used that. . .
OOOH! This was a good day. No plaster, all new wiring and electrical boxes, a brand new ceiling, and beautiful can lights. It is lighter with those 5 lights than it ever was before!
Just didn't want to leave this detail out. Underneath the corner cabinet was a tiny remnant of the original 50's flooring. I'm secretly sad that we can't keep it, but you know, we all have to sacrifice.

Look for more posts about the NEW kitchen, which is turning out beautifully thanks to IKEA, Wilsonart laminate countertops and flooring, and Sherwin Williams Paint.

Kitchen Remodel "Before" Part 1

So. 6 weeks later, I am finally posting about what we have been doing. Phil started remodeling our lovely, "80's updated" kitchen on my birthday, which, as you can tell from this before picture, wasn't exactly the beginning of the remodel. The large beam on the ceiling is from Phil taking out a huge wall separating the kitchen from the dining room, the wood panneling on the right hand side HAD to go, and the wall strait forward was leftover electrical work access.

The pure wood theme of our kitchen was one of the things we both didn't love about our kitchen, not only for the "oh my heck the whole kitchen is brown" issue, but also because it was very dark. So, we took everything out!

Going. . .

going. . .

Gone!

One Year Picture

It's small, but cute!

Haircut!

Check out the hair before the haircut- long locks of craziness!

Then. . .voila! The Saturday after Benson's birthday, I laid him on the floor on his changing pad, gave him a grahama cracker, and cut his hair. It isn't perfect, but I figured out of his eyes is better than totally even. And, he looked darn handsome, if I do say so myself! Of course, we saved a lock in a baggie for his scrapbook. I guess it's just what you do!

Birthday

Happy Birthday to the sweetest boy in the world who has completely changed my life and expanded my ability to love unselfishly and thoroughly! I love giggling with him, reading to him, throwing balls with him, singing finger-play songs, pointing at things with him, making him laugh, him making me laugh, watching him learn how to fold his arms, clap, wave, scoot, and a million other little things that he does! Motherhood is wonderful, and I am priveleged to have such an amazing boy for a son! Love you, buddy!

Holidays

Here are the highlights from the Holidays which, until now, have been nonexistent on our blog:

Phil and Benson downtown at the lights.

Cold, happy family

Christmas Morning- Benson got a bath toy from Santa. . .

but really it's the paper that he loved the most!

Christmas at Grandma Nielson's house. These are some of his favorite toys- stacking cups and blocks from IKEA, and classic Fisher Price stacking rings. Learning how to put the rings on the stacker taught him all sorts of great fine motor skills! Thanks Grandma!

What a fun first Christmas for Benson!

Delinquent

three months later. . .what can I say?

Gratitude

My very talented sister-in-law took this beautiful photo of Benson on Thanksgiving. Although Thanksgiving is over, the season of gratitude continues. I am so grateful for family: a wonderful husband, a darling little boy, awesome brothers, mothers, and in-laws, and for all the friends that are considered family in my mind too! Thanks for all the love and support I receive so abundantly!

Whoops!

And suddenly it is December. I truly don't know what happened to November, but anyway, I though I'd better get back to posting, because otherwise, I might never do it again. We have spent the month focused a lot on our little boy and our house. Phil has put in tons of insulation and drywall, and we've decided to try and get our kitchen done (yea!) before Christmas. Usually our jobs take longer than we expect, but here's for hoping!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'll post pictures later!

Constrution Updates

I thought I'd update our blog about current construction activity. This picture shows our front bedroom after Phil took down the inner walls, and, by the way, I made Phil pose that way! Our outside walls had no insulation, and were just made of two layers of bricks with plaster attached to the inner brick wall. Phil took down ALL the walls, including ceilings, and then took out the inner brick wall. So, for about a month, the walls we had in our bedrooms were red brick, the same that made up the outside of the house. Needless to say, we needed to get insulation and walls in by the time it got cold.

This picture shows the newly framed 2x4 wall that Phil built to replace the inner brick wall. The Pink stuff is a thin type of R5 insulation that serves as a vapor barrier too. He rewired the bedrooms completely, and then we installed the regular R13 insulation that you can see on the right hand side. Getting the insulation in has improved our home's ability to keep a more constant temperature, and it has been wonderful! Let's hope for lower heating bills this winter!

Halloween Preview

Here is our little Pea Pod a week early. He didn't really love getting into the costume, but we snapped a couple of shots with out any crying. Getting out of it was another story.

If you notice the walls in the background, you will see what walls look like underneath wood panelling when exposed. We tore down the wood panelling, and since then, Phil took down all of the dry wall in order to insulate and wire. Fun, fun!