{ Painting Continues }

Painting is my life lately. I am consumed by color choices and swatches at all moments. I have visited the Benjamin Moore store, Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, Menards, all for paint in the last two weeks. After all those trips and staring at swatches and photos I STILL haven't decided on colors for the living room or the master bedroom. 

The good thing is, I have the kitchen and the upstairs completely primed and painted. The living room is primed and ready for paint. The bathroom is primed and painted but I've decided to change the color already. I know. It just isn't the color that I was going for so back to the drawing board on that one!

Here's a small sneak peak at the kitchen

I am completely in LOVE with the color in this room. It is a very calming "greige" color during the day light hours and a peaceful, cozy gray green in the evening hours and I couldn't be happier!

This room has come a long way when you look back to this first photo

Here's a really bad phone picture of the upstairs color

In the photo it looks like a gray color but in person it is a very dusty matted blue. This was actually my second choice. I started doing something different on that wall and then changed my mind (imagine that) but I am really liking the color up there and I have a pretty fun idea for wall art that should be done tomorrow so I will share that whole story with you next week. 

I am a little dissapointed that I didnt have my good camera with me to show you an accurate photo of the color. It still is a HUGE improvement to what we started with. Remember this?

Here is the primed living room, all ready for paint. If only I could pick a color then we would be all set!

I am considering going with the color that I painted in the kitchen just because I love it that much but Mark thinks we need something different. I will hopefully make a final decision here soon oy! What do you guys think? Too much of the same?

The bedrooms on the main floor haven't been touched yet and like I said the bathroom has to be re-painted but that is such a small room, I am hoping to get that done on Saturday.  

 We have so much happening around here the next few weeks so it will be really fun to share it with all of you as we see some pretty big changes!

{ Unexpected Upgrade }

The kitchen is ready for primer and paint!! I am beyond excited and last weekend as I was walking down the stairs to start vacuuming out the living room, I had the thought that I can actually feel myself being able to live here. I haven't had that feeling like it's our house or even a house I would ever want to even spend one night in but I finally am feeling better about things. Now that we've turned a corner into finishing things off instead of digging in and getting dirty it feels more and more like a home every day. 

While I was busy working on finishing up painting the walls upstairs, Mark decided he was going to pull the old slider door out and fix the flashing around the door since it appeared to be installed incorrectly due to the  floor rot near the door. 

This is where we last left off when it came to the floor. You cant really see it in that photo but the floor along the length of the door was rotted and Mark cut down one more layer in those spots to replace that board. He then decided he needed to take the door out and fix the problem or we would have more issues later down the road. 

This is where the "unexpected upgrade" comes in. He pulled the door out and only after he got it all out he could see that the whole bottom of the wood frame door was completely rotted. #justourluck.

He made yet another trip to the home improvement store and luckily they had a door in stock. The only problem was that it was two inches shorter and lacked a few inches length wise too than the original.

So the house got cold for a bit. Not like we haven't spent enough in heating bills already this winter!

Mark built a new frame for the slightly smaller sized door and luckily my brother stopped in at just the right time to help Mark get the new door in it's place.

New slider is in, the house is warm again and crossing our fingers we don't need any other new items that we didn't plan on. There's been enough of that already.

Although it's not an extremely noticeable "change" in the house, the new slider is definitely a major upgrade from what was there originally so it is nice having that in the house. Plus it gives us one more eye sore on the outside of the home which should push getting the new siding on to the top of the list as soon as weather improves. 

Oh and if you were wondering, no we STILL haven't removed that old stove from the deck. dang snow, go away, we have so much crap out there to clean up!

I am so excited to share my painted kid's room upstairs with you all. Check back next week.

{ New Stairs }

Our stairs got a makeover. 

A partial makeover rather because once we get carpet on them then they will be finished but for now they are ready and waiting for that last layer.

You probably don't even really notice the difference because in the scheme of things it's a very tiny update but I am here to tell you that having new stair treads makes a huge difference when walking on them.

The old stairs looked nice but we knew we couldn't keep the old treads in the condition they were in. They felt extremely fragile and the creaking noises as you ascended were unavoidable. I tried. 

The third step eventually ended up snapping in two pieces one day (see photo below) and that made up our minds then and there. 

The new treads are sturdy and silent as you walk on them. My two year old used to be afraid of the old stairs and wouldn't go up or down without a hand to hold and now will go up and down freely as she pleases.  So much better!

We decided since we were carpeting the upstairs we would run the carpet down the stairs too. 

I thought for a hot minute about wanting to keep the old treads and maybe even doing a stair runner but with the broken tread and the creaky-ness (yup just made that word up), we would go with carpet. It's inevitable that one of our three children or myself may fall or partially fall down the stairs (hey, it happens) and we like to think that the carpet may soften the fall. The carpet has been ordered and hopefully will be down in the next two weeks or so! 

Here's a quick reminder of the stairwell changes over the past five months of home ownership

Not only can you see the stair changes (or maybe you cant since it's not that noticeable) but you can see the wall changes. First that retro wallpaper, then wallpaper removal, plaster fixing, and now freshly primed walls all ready for paint.

The painting saga continues upstairs. That is ONE BIG room with a whole lotta angles going on so it's taking time and a toll on the back but hey it's getting there and I'll be excited to show you that once its done.

Oh the things we home owners get excited about huh?!

{ Skim Coating }

We should really find a use for drywall dust cuz this stuff is in abundance and it's not going away for awhile yet.

It's coming from the skim coat that my fabulous hubby and dad have been working on. Like I explained here, the walls had a bumpy texture to them that we weren't really fond of so to get rid of that texture plus cover up some plaster cracks, Mark decided to do a thin coat of drywall mud over all the walls and then sand that down to get a more smooth surface. 

First we scraped all the cracked parts of the wall and then he filled in the holes with compound

Next he sanded down all the walls and then applied the thin skim coat layer

It's so messy and dusty everywhere, but it really looks great. I'm just happy to see that yellow color gone! The smooth walls are going to be so much better and hopefully it will help to decrease plaster cracks in the future.

He didn't do the area above the fireplace because we are still planning on doing the built in around it, like I referenced here. I added a horrible photo shopped pic below of where the built-in's will be so you can visualize what will be covered up. 

Are you laughing at that picture?! I said it was a horrible but you get the idea. I was helpful for me anyway!

He has a little more sanding to go and then he'll be moving on to fixing a few things on the ceiling. Still not sure what color to paint in here but I'm excited to get at it.

{ Mess, Mess, Mess! }

You know the saying, "It gets worse before it gets better"? I am confident that is ringing true for us in all ways possible. There is never NOT a mess at this house! Between the drywall mud and dust, the kitchen floor being ripped up, the bathroom demolition, and now the window removal in the kitchen we live and breathe mess in this joint! Check out this fabulous pile of old insulation from the wall near the window. Y.U.C.K.

So remember this awkward moment when we had two windows practically side-by-side?

Well we amped up the awkward-ness. Check it out now

Be jealous, be very jealous! 

Not only do we have two different siding colors and rotted wood up there but now we have a big piece of wood covering the hole where the window used to be. 

Don't worry neighbors, it will get all new siding as soon as the weather improves! It kinda looks like it's getting trashier out there but I promise, "it gets worse before it gets better" remember?! 

Here's how the inside was looking after Mark removed the old plaster. 

Then this happened

He is framing it in for a doorway to be there when we do the breezeway and garage addition. For now we will just have it framed in and drywall covering it until we do the addition. Which is hopefully going to happen later this year. The timeline on everything has to be pushed back a lot further due to having to spend way more on the renovations than planned, so we are unsure when things will happen but hopefully this fall we can start on the garage. 

In other news...painting has officially began upstairs so with my fingers crossed I am hoping to show you that by the end of next week!

Have a fabulous super bowl Sunday tomorrow!!

{ Winter Blues }

The winter blues are setting in. I really don't want to be negative but there's really no other way to say that I think we (mostly Mark) are officially burnt out. I am saying this mostly so that I can look back on this blog later (after we are moved in) and see that there was definitely times of frustration but we got through it.  

Someone is still smiling though and that's what counts right!?

I think the frustration is for many reasons. This winter is dragging butt and we are sick of it. It would be an amazing winter to enjoy outdoor activities if we weren't stuck inside with house renovations but we are.

Secondly, the drywalling project literally feels as if it may never end. My dad and cousin have worked hard on the upstairs to get that done. They have been working on it since way before Christmas. My dad is there almost every night mudding and sanding. Because of this we decided to hire out the kitchen and bathroom to give those guys a break. The person we hired didn't do a good job and we ended up having to fire him. Worst nightmare. So now we are stuck with a lot of problem areas that now have to be fixed. <insert sigh here>

thirdly, we have very little family time these days. I know this is short lived and it wont be like this forever but it makes it hard on the kids and on Mark and I. I am usually working or with the kids keeping them busy and I cant bring the kids over to the house like I used to because of the extreme mess with drywall dust and with it being freezing out they cant play outside while we are there so Mark is the only one working at the house out of the two of us. Even if I wanted to work over there, there's not a whole lot to do since there's so much mess and dust I cant paint at all yet. 

Lastly, Mark has been working crazy hours at his day job and is extremely tired at all times which makes it hard to get motivated to do work at the house. 

Are you sick of hearing me run on and on about how miserable we are. I am too. The reason I am writing this is for my own personal venting and the ability to look back on the bad and ugly parts of renovation and see that there was probably a whole lot more good than not and we just need to get through this time. Once the drywall saga is done we will start on many other projects, the house will be cleaner, winter will be coming to an end and the world will feel right again! Doesn't it feel good when everything feels right?Waiting for that day!!