Where We Lay Our Heads

So while we have moved into our house, we haven't moved into our Master Suite yet since the bathroom isn't finished yet and most of the supplies for the bathroom have been living in the bedroom. Instead we've been staying in the largest of the guest bedrooms (I call it the green room, Landon calls it the not-purple room).  All the bedrooms are still something of a work in progress since a lot of furniture will move around once we move into the master bedroom, but we've started to get things more settled.  I though now might be a good time to give a little more before/after information on where we are with the two guest bedrooms.

First up, the Green Bedroom.  I started out as a dingy yellow office that looked like this when we first got the house:

 And, yes, the giant desk is now ours.  I'll sell it to you if you want it since it's currently living in the middle of our garage and taking up roughly the space of a small car.  It's a nice solid desk, but it's entirely too big for two people that both use laptops all the time.

During the reno process, the room looked something like this:

Carpet and Trim gone.  Walls sanded and patched.

New light switches installed for the new overhead fan/light.

This was after I discovered that the old owners had painted over a
wallpaper border about 5 coats of paint ago.  Parts of it were
peeling off, so I pulled it down before I primed and painted.

And the drywall patch where we had to pull wires
for the fan/light and switches.

After new floors, lots of wall patches, fresh paint, a new fan, new doors, and all new trim, the room is looking something like this:

The bedding is from my old townhouse.  I bought it at Macy's and I love the green.  The rug came from Landon's house--it was in his bedroom there.  The curtains were also from my townhouse, but there they lived in the living room.  They're the nice insulated ones so they keep the room very dark and very warm (necessary since the window in that room is cracked and all the windows are drafty.) The mismatched dressers are mine and Landon's.  His (the one near the door) will move into the master once we're in there.  Mine will stay and I'll use the dresser that matches his for the time being.  I'd also like to find/make a head board for this room to make it look nicer and more finished.  I don't have a picture of them, but I've also add two framed pieces of "art" that I found at Goodwill and hung on either side of the window.  The mat matches the curtains and the art is dried, pressed herbs.  It works with the nature vibe we have going on  in there pretty well.

The other guest bedroom is now known as the Purple Room due to the purple IKEA bed spread in there.  It began life looking like this:

You only get one picture because it had to be the most uninteresting room on the planet.  Just a giant beige box with crappy carpet, bumpy walls, and a wacky closet door.  During the reno we did some work: 

The weird closet door.  The closet extends from the wall
to about six feet to the left of the current opening.
It is a nice sized closet, but most of it wasn't useful.

So we widened the door.  This was my first time using the saw.

Beige box with no carpet.

Must like in the other room, it got a new floor, lots of work on the walls, new paint on the walls and ceilings, a new closet opening (we still need to put the bi-fold doors in ), a new ceiling fan, and some furniture and now it looks like this:

The new closet opening.  No doors yet.

There are currently two dressers in this room, one will be mine once we get into the master and one holds all of my crafting supplies and will eventually live in the nook in the craft room.  But for now, they both have a home in here.  At some point this room will get my childhood bedroom set which includes a headboard/footboard, dresser, and desk.  The bed clothes will stay the same, and rug (also from IKEA) will stay since I like it.  The curtains are also from IKEA.  I found them in the As-Is section for $8 each, which is awesome.  I still need to hem them, but currently the extra fabric serves as a nice cat bed when the sun is out.  The large dark bookcase came with the house and has been holding random tools and house related stuff.  Eventually it is going to get a fresh coat of paint and will find a new home somewhere, but that has to wait until it warms up enough to work on it outside.

So, that's where we are in terms of bedrooms so far.  They aren't done yet, but we're getting there.  And when I look at the before and after shots, I can see exactly how far we've come.  

We're Still Alive!!

So, it's been awhile.  A long while.  I swear it seems like the last month or so has flow by, probably because I've been so busy with school, the house, and hosting a baby shower.  Wait, what?  How can I host a baby shower when I don't have a house?  Well, we do.

Just before Thanksgiving, we moved into our house!  It's not finished yet; we still have major work to do on the master bathroom, the master bedroom, and the family room as well as small things to do around the rest of the house, but we're in.  So far, we're loving it, but we still have so much unpacking and decorating to do.

When we first moved in, things look like this:

Total Chaos.  And this was after a lot of the boxes were unpacked.

The kitchen counters weren't in yet., so I had two small pieces of plywood.
This was all my counter space for a couple of weeks.

At least the TV was working.

Note, we don't plan on leaving the bookshelf in the middle of the floor.  

Things have come a long way since then.  We've gotten two of the bedrooms settled enough to feel "finished" at least in terms of being able to use the beds.  And the office is getting somewhat more organized as well.....although it is still the catch all room, so it's a bit of a mess.  The guest bath (which is currently the only one) is also finished, and looks great.

The current master bedroom, at least until the real master gets done. 

The guest bath.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's so tiny that it's very hard to photograph.

I love the shower curtain, though.  It works perfectly with the tile in the shower.

My new IKEA towel bar/shelf.
 The solution to only having room t hang one towel bar in the whole bathroom.  

The middle bedroom (Bedroom 2).  If you look closely,
 you can see a cat butt peeking out from under the bed.

We also finally got our kitchen counters installed, and they are beautiful.  I love them!  And it's so nice to have so much space to work.  I've been cooking up a storm, and I've yet to run out of room, even with cookies spread all over everywhere.

The kitchen.  Please look past the cereal box on the island.
  I forgot to move it in the first photo.

My beautiful island with my beautiful counters.  Quartz all the way.

So much space, even next to the stove.
This is more than was in the house when we bought it.

The view from the sink.
You don't get a close up of the sink since it's still full of dishes from the baby shower, but trust me, it's beautiful.

And my beautiful pendant lights.  

We've also been working on the rest of the living area.  We love that it's all one big room and that I can be in the kitchen cooking and still watching TV or talking to Landon while he's on his laptop on the couch.  It's so nice.

Looking from the hallway toward the kitchen.

Looking from the foyer toward the kitchen.

The Christmas tree in front of the window nearest the foyer.  

So there you have it.  We've been busy, but now that things have slowed down, I'm going to try and update you on a lot of the little projects that have been going on to get us to this point.  Stay tuned.

Did You Miss Me?

Well, while I intended to keep posting on the blog every day during the week, it looks like that isn't going to happen.  School is just keeping me too busy.  Who knew there would be this much busy work in Graduate School?

Anyway, work is still going on at the house.  We're progressing slowly but surely.  I finished up with the tile in the guest bathroom last weekend while my Dad and Step-Mom were up.  It looks great, but we still need to grout it and seal the grout.

 We also got the new vinyl tile floors laid.  We decided to go with the self adhesive ones to save time.  And, if in the future we want to replace them with ceramic tiles, it will be easy to do.  Oh, and the best part of getting the floors down?  It meant we could install the new toilet as well!  We can pee at the house again!  No more driving down the street to the park to go to the bathroom.

Dad and Landon also framed up the pantry and the broom closet along the back wall of what was the dining room.  Dad even got all the drywall hung before he went home.  It really started making the main area take shape.

This was before we got all the drywall up, but you can see how it looks.
 

And the ceiling fan from the dining room is gone.  

While the guys were doing that, Kathy and I were finishing up painting in the guest bedroom closets so we can get the floors down.  We got one closest totally painted, and one primed.  Just a coat of paint to finish that one off.  Oh, and Landon and I got a ceiling fan up in the middle bedroom which looks great.

Pretty, cleanly painted closet.

And, yes there are globs that go on the lights.  They aren't installed yet.

And, we got a huge delivery.....The floors came in!  All 2000+ sqft of them.  Three whole pallets.  They've been sitting for a week now, so as soon as we get the last little bit of painting done in the bedrooms, we can start laying floor!

One pallet chilling in the driveway during the delivery.

The second pallet.

Forklift right up to the front door.  

The first pile in the living area.

And a close up of the planks.  Autumn Maple. So Pretty!