Kitchen Renovation

It took from March 7th to November 28th. We are tired!


So, from the beginning. We decided to do the demolition and contracting ourselves. After getting a general idea in our heads about what we wanted to do, we met with a kitchen designer for an hour and just confirmed that all of our ideas were correct, and she drew up a quick blueprint so we could get started.


Here's a quick lots-of-pictures post. 

The night before demo-day we cleared everything out of the kitchen.

Clearing out the appliances and cabinets only took a couple of hours. 

We found this credit card statement behind one of the cabinets. I hope they didn't forget to pay their bill...

Then began the dirty work. Thanks to our friend, Ben Russell, for helping out during this part.

Also included in the kitchen project was the laundry room.  We couldn't properly cook or wash clothes or dishes for about 3 months. Awesome! We knocked out a closet that opened to the garage and added the space to the laundry room.

After finding some rotted subfloor under the cabinets, we decided to replace all of the subfloors. We also got them 1/8" thinner so we could make the hardwoods in the adjoining rooms flush with the kitchen floor... how's that for detail?

We added insulation because everything fell on our faces during demolition.

We hired out the drywall work. I have crossed "doing drywall" from my bucket list.

This is after the cabinet install. The are amazing.

Here is what we call our "dog shower" in the laundry room. Good for: muddy feet, muddy dog feet, novelty sized dishes.

   

I was also able to cross "lay tile" from my bucket list. It turned out well. Will do again!

Here's the sink installed with our Dishmaster M2000. It dispenses soap and water from the brush from a reservoir under the sink! Really cool product.

One of the first projects we tackled when we moved in was replacing the flimsy hollow core wooden door to the garage with this metal one. Turns out, metal is magnetic! Perfect!

  

And here is the finished product:

Built-in hutch displaying Natalie's awesomely colorful Pyrex collection.

It looks amazing. To heck with modesty-- we did a great job!

Moving right along...

Goodness, we need to update this thing! Things have been going well-- just trudging through the house repairs. We are officially down to four rooms left to renovate: both bathrooms, the kitchen and the utility room.

Here is the front living room's before shot:

And the after:

We really, really like the way it turned out, and we finally got to cover up that horrendous red accent wall!

The back living room is still in progress, but it's unbelievably different. Before:

And kind of after:

The photo's a bit burry and there's obviously still some work to do, but we are really pleased with it so far.

We are going to start work on the kitchen soon-- we finally saved up the cash to get it all done! Very exciting. I hope to post a bit more on here shortly, but we can't make any promises... the whole blog thing is pretty difficult when you spend all of your spare time doing the things you're supposed to write about.

Hey Everybody! The Study's Done!

Check it out!

It might just be the most beautiful study I've ever seen. And it only took 9 months to complete!

The Hallway Ceiling Saga

Ranch style homes. Everybody knows that they are objectively the best home design in human history. Simple, functional, elegant. One of the most well-recognized features of ranchers is their long, straight hallways. We have one. You may remember our hallway from such videos as that way-too-long timelapse of me stumbling my way through installing hardwoods.

P.S. Look how awesome it turned out (although this is pre paint and baseboards):

Well, since these hallways are what feels like 50 feet long, our lighting seemed to be a bit on the, oh, how shall I say it?, I-can't-see-anything-I'm-sorry-mom-I-haven't-been-eating-my-carrots-even-though-you-said-superman-ate-them side. We had one fixture near the entrance of the hall, and that was it. One light and then 500 feet to go. There were many-a-night where, on the trek back to our bedroom, I would become unsure of myself and have to call out to Natalie to come find me in the abyss.

Simple solution? Another light fixture!

We found this fixture at CSN Lighting. $18 a pop. Simple, functional, elegant. Perfect for our humble abyss.

As soon as the fixtures arrived, I spent 20 minutes replacing the existing fixture, then ran the wiring in the attic and had the new fixture installed in another 30 minutes. Oh, wait.

Mr. Graham got a bit wobbly in the attic, and being frustrated at his horrible lack of balance, got angry and kicked his foot through the ceiling! 30 minute project just turned into a 2 week project. Which brings us to...

How to Fix Your Ceiling When You Put Your Foot Through It

1. 
   
   Put a hole in your ceiling. Be creative! (pictured above)
2. 
   
   Mark all extremities of wonky-shaped hole and create a square. Extend square as far as you need to expose half of nearest rafers in order to fasten the drywall. If that is impossible, put a 2x4 above drywall and attach to neighboring drywall for support.

     3. Do your standard taping/bedding magic.

    4. Texture to match, which we all know is 100% impossible, so let's just call it what it really is: texture to make it look good enough to not notice every time you walk by.

    5. Prime your new ceilingbaby up.

    6. Paint your ceiling the same way you just got done doing a few short weeks ago. Disregard blotchiness-- wet paint.

    7. And after all of that, install your new light fixture, thus allowing you to travel your hallway safely for years to come.

P.S. Our bathroom door is uneven for no reason. Well, probably for the same reason as only having one light.

Before and After

We got carpet installed today, which brings our 4 bedroom renovation project to a near close. Here are some befores and afters.

The Study:

This has been the most major change we've made in our house. We ripped out a hallway-facing closet and added the room to the study. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos on me that show the progress neatly.

Walls have been yellowed, new carpet installed. It will be furnished by this weekend. Still left: replace light fixture with something less... pull-stringy.

The Master Bedroom:

We decided to remove the shelf/desk built-in right inside the door because it completely blocked the light switch. So we did.

 Much better.

 Before (note the lighter square in the carpet. That's where the previous owner's bed used to be. Gross):

After:

 New carpet, new paint, new blinds. It's... just... *sniff*... so beautiful. We especially like the green/purple colors.

So, that's just a start the magical bedrooms. We'll work to get some better pictures together and give you a tour.