We've Moved!

We're so excited to be living here after all of the hard work!! We still have lots of projects and plans, so always stop back to see what we're up to. Our upstairs bathroom door and the columns for the entryway are our two current projects, and Jason is considering redoing the front porch over his spring break.

Here are a few pictures of the house "finished" and full of our things!

Lookin' Nice.....

Today we took some pics of the upstairs bathroom with the new vanity and fixtures. You can also get a great look at the tile as well. Just a bit of molding, and it will be totally complete....

The real excitement, though, should be saved for the mantle and stained glass windows! We knew our friend Shawn was a talented wood worker, but we were still blown away by this amazing piece! It is a beautiful match to the staircase and the home and we could not be happier with it. The great windows we found at an antique show are the perfect compliment.

Tile, Mantle, and Final Inspections!!!

It was a long haul with the tile in our upstairs bath. Walls, floor, and even ceiling got the treatment, and at some points Jason didn't think he'd ever finish! Even Erika was impressed by how professional it turned out! You're also getting a first glimpse of the amazing mantle our friend Shawn built for us. It mimicks the look for the staircase and will be a great focal point for the room. We're in the process of staining that to match the stairs, so more to come on that piece.

The most exciting thing are the inspection stickers!!!!! We know you can't read them and they probably aren't nearly as exciting to you, but we a thrilled! The electrical inspection was completed last week and the plumbing this week. This means that next week, we hope to have our final inspection and Certificate of Occupancy! There is still LOTS of finish work to do, but it will be great to be in the house and pick away at it as we go.

Fixtures

The plumber was here this week for final installations. You can see the kitchen and downstairs bath fixtures here. We can't show you the upstairs bath because we've FINALLY started staining the staircase! It's not even done yet and looks just amazing!

In addition to our plumbing being finished, we've also got hardware on the kitchen cabinets. Now we can open them!!

Downstairs Bath

After many painting and design mishaps, our powder room downstairs is finally finished. Those stripes were NOT easy, but ended up looking nice. We found the vanity on clearance and though it's a bit more Victorian in style than the rest of our home, we think it's pretty cool.

Kitchen (Almost) Complete

I never in a million years thought installing the granite countertop would be that easy!! Jamie H. was kind enough to help Jason and we're thrilled with the outcome. You'll notice our sink is a little different, it's a granite composite sink. We originally purchased a sink from a salvage yard that we hoped to refinish. Once we got the cabinets in, however, we discovered it was much to big for the kitchen and took away much needed counter space. The granite composite sink is very durable and looks great with the counters. We love the kitchen, and can't wait to see the appliances, which arrive this afternoon.

Kitchen Transformation

Jason is excited to be on winter break this week and have time to finish up lots of projects. One thing we're so happy to see is our finished kitchen. Saturday Jason and Jamie K. put in the cabinets, and in the next few days we'll see the granite and appliances arrive. We LOVE our cabinets and how the whole room is coming together. More pics of the cabinets to come shortly...

Shiny New Floors!

To you, these may be too many photos of the same boring floors, but to us, it's a thing of beauty to see them finally done. The pics at the bottom are before the top coat of polyurethane, while the top couple are what it looks like all shined up. They are so great and we are so happy with how they turned out. The floors are mostly heart of pine, but in our mudroom, downstairs bath and laundry room, they are maple.

As excited as we are about the floors, we're still struggling with the staircase. We're tackling that project ourselves and it is NOT pretty. Today, we finished stripping all the old wax and varnish off as of today, Erika is halfway through sanding them down. We hope to have some great pictures of our totally sanded staircase in the next couple of days.

Odds & Ends

This past weekend, we worked on some odds and ends that needed to be tied up. First, Jason's mom helped with a decorative treatment for our bedroom - an accent wall. We think it's pretty neat -tried to get a close up for you.

The doors you see above are salvage yard finds. That is the closet in the upstairs bathroom. We found these doors, once on a church office. Jason only had to take a bit off the bottom to fit them in. He added the track and now they are perfect closet doors.

Next you'll see a picture of the patched floor. Originally, there was a beautiful register in the floor right in the entryway. At least, that's what we think! When we arrived there was an area rug covering a badly patched floor. Jason's done his best to use the same wood as elsewhere in the house to make it a little less noticeable.

The last picture is of the 2 doors Erika and Carol have been stripping. The side door to the house was painted white on one side (that's the door to the back). The other door used to be on the upstairs bathroom, but has been moved to the downstairs. That also had one side painted white. We'll show you the new upstairs bath door soon.

We're proud to announce all of the painting is DONE!!! We'll post pics of the downstairs bath freshly painted soon. Other than paint stripping, Jason is now fixing up the staircase, taking off the fronts of the treads to clean them and then re-nailing them and gluing them. We're also spending this week getting estimates for floor refinishing. That is our next big project, and we can't wait to see how they turn out. Then it will definitely start looking like a home!