Remember the Exterior Paint Project?

We got about halfway done last summer, but this year we were smarter: we hired someone else to do it. And it turned out even better than we expected.

Here's when we bought the house.


Today!

Our place on the left, Tim and Sarah's on the right.

New Kitchen Floor!

So, we found the hardwood under the linoleum, tore it all out and got a decent look at the wood -- but we had no idea that the end result would be so beautiful!
Look how shiny!

Our neighbor across the alley, Mike, has a hardwood floor business and he did this lovely work for us. (I also like that his animals -- a sweet dog named Anna and a shy cat named Tommy -- adore him to the point of following him everywhere.)

Kitchen Floor Progress

Tim helped M with the demolition ...

... and we got a decent glimpse of the floor.

A Cooler Closet Than J. Lo's

Here's the deal. My clothes were basically flung all over the Blue Room upstairs. All the time. I liked to blame our minuscule closets, standard when the house was built. To his credit, M never suggested that the true problem was either a) me having too many clothes or b) me being a word that starts with "l" and rhymes with "hazy." But I could just never work out a decent storage system (I tried several over the years) that I could maintain in my crappy closet.

Separately, we have this weird little room at the top of the stairs. It's legally a bedroom, but at about six feet by seven feet, it's not like we could do much with it. During law school, it was M's office; that was enough to make him hate it. I tried making it a "reading room," but neither of us ever wanted to read in there. At most, I would go in to open or close the window, and then I'd leave.

Magically, we both saw the logic of putting my need to have workable wardrobe space together with the presence of this strange little room. Add two trips to Ikea for drawers and bins, throw in an old hanging rack I was using in the basement, et voila: my new closet.

Check out the window! I was reading about how Jennifer Lopez has a room in her house just for wigs, but I bet even she doesn't have a view of a birch tree from her closet.

I'm using black posterboard to hang my necklaces.

That's the travel DVD player that Dad and Bunny gave us a few Christmas ago. I watch 30 Rock while putting away laundry.

ZOMG, Hardwood Floors!

As part of the kitchen makeover project, we've been planning to put in some faux wood laminate flooring from Ikea. Today, we were finalizing the plans, one part of which was, "Can we install this over the nasty linoleum we currently have, or do we need to pull that up first?" M decided to do some further investigation of what was buried under the linoleum -- it was a layer of plywood. Under that was more linoleum; under that was tar paper and glue.

And under that are the same awesome oak floors we have in the rest of our downstairs. Woo hoo!

Kitchen: Top Cabinets Done!

Given that I've only finished the top row of cabinets, the photo comparison below is a bit premature, but because I lurrrrve doing a before-and-after, I'll go ahead and jump the gun.

Here's a look at the original cabinets.

And, now: ta da!

Why, yes! That little framed item is an Addie Ray original -- thanks for asking! :)

Kitchen Progress

Slowly but surely, it's coming together!



I'd been debating between gray and black for the lower cabinets. Sounds odd, but the second I did the two test swatches below, I fell in love with the black.

"Costa Rica Blue"

... is what we ended up with for the walls, plus a touch-up coat of off-white on the trim, windows and doors.

Next up: cabinets!

Mini Kitchen Makeover

When we moved into the house five summers ago, we painted every room except the kitchen. At the time, we had similar feelings about both the kitchen and the backyard: they were too much of a mess to worry about at the time. Obviously, things changed a bit with regard to the backyard in recent years, but holy hannah, the kitchen was a whole other story.

The counter space was ridiculously inadequate. The fridge was almost as old as I am. The flooring was embarrassing. (Why, yes, that is ancient, cracked and yellowing linoleum -- thanks for asking!) The pantry was awesome in terms of space, but ugly in terms of everything else.

And while it’s been the least favorite room in the house for years, it’s not like it’s easy to cute-ify a kitchen. Living room? Sure, slap a coat of paint on the walls and the trim, add one’s usual furniture with a couple new throw pillows and wall art from a different room -- done. Kitchen makeovers, on the other hand, generally mean things like power tools and dust and months of eating microwave-only food and, of course, thousands of dollars. That just wasn’t in the picture for us (law school debt, anyone?).

Over the years, though, we started to see opportunities that, together, end up being a mini-makeover for the kitchen -- less expensive, more incremental. Ron built us an awesome countertop/shelving thingy (yes, I believe that is the technical term), partially financed by Mom. Dad gave us a Lowe’s gift card towards a new fridge. I found some simple fabric shades on sale. We bought a dishwasher. Ikea had a cute barstool for 15 bucks.

And then, there’s paint.

It has begun.

Home for the Holidays

Autumn Chores

Over a beautiful fall weekend, with George displaying all his autumn color ...

... I pulled up the annuals and tomatoes, and cut back the perennials ...

... I brought the parsley indoors (we'll see if it makes it) ...

... we planted three gorgeous "Golden Carousel" barberry shrubs around the front foundation ...

... and we finally got the new house numbers up.

Phase One is Done!

When We Bought the House
Progress on Phase One of Painting

Phase One is Done!