We're in!

So, we've finally moved in, and, although we still have some work to do and a lot of unpacking, we're settling in well.  We're both really pleased with the outcome.  Please use your best vision to imagine the pictures below without boxes...

The living room (including the new, giant tv, a housewarming present to ourselves)

Yes, we're planning on removing the rug

The kitchen

I feel like this picture just doesn't do it justice, though.  It came out really nice

The powder room, including the one-of-a-kind vanity

The hall - you can really appreciate the floors in this picture
And, now upstairs

Here's the master bath, one of my favorite rooms in the house (although I'm not sure why - my dad says it is the same as the bathroom in the house where I grew up)

The master bed - a real mess, but still home to a fantastic night's sleep

My custom closet.  Yay!

The guest room, currently housing Dupree, I mean Matt

My office and probably the best color we chose

So there you have it.  I have the idea in my head that I will fix the whole house up and take pictures and it will look like something out of Architectural Digest (or at least Better Homes and Gardens), but I know myself pretty well, so I make no promises!

As always, thanks for checking in.

B & P

next week...

That's when we're moving in...  hmmm.  Well, we don't have many big things left.  The floors will be finished tomorrow, and the countertops will go in on Friday.  Over the weekend, our HVAC will be installed and our electrical will get finished.  Then next week, the plumber installs the sinks/toilets/etc. and we're ready to move in.  Holy crap!

Here's a picture of what our countertop will look like - they templated it, then I picked the parts of the stone for each template.  I'm very excited about how that will look.  The rectangle at the bottom will be the bar.

I don't have any pictures of the floor color yet, but here's the bare floor.  It's amazing how nice our floor is!  It's 3/4 cut (or something like that) which gives each board a lot of character which is accentuated by the color.
I chose the color on the right (these were test patches), but I don't think you can really tell how nice the color is.  We saw it today, though, and it looks fantastic!!
And here's my newest nephew, Daniel Patrick Weller (although that name is still subject to change).  He is so beautiful!  He was born yesterday, but Phil and I went to see him today.  I love him already!

So we still have a lot to do at the house, but most of it (besides what's listed above) can be done after we move in.  I think it will be a while before the house is finished, but it will certainly be livable.  And visit-able.

B

color

So the painters are starting to put up color, which looks pretty good (I hope).  But you can see our colors in the pictures below.  They might get changed later on.

In the living room, we have beige.  Never thought I'd put beige in my home, but it seems to look nice.

The view from the living room into the dining room.  I'm a little iffy on the red right now, but I'm hopeful.
view from the back door into the kitchen/dining/living

and the reverse. 

and a nice shot of the cabinets.  The windows are covered, hence the dark windows and lack of natural light.  That will be fixed before we move in.

dining room to kitchen.

and kitchen to dining room.  again, the red looks a little bright, but i'm hoping another coat and some natural light will do wonders.

A closeup of the kitchen floor.  It's dusty, but you can get an idea of how it will look.

And now to the upstairs...  Here's the master bedroom.  

And the back bedroom.  We didn't paint the other bedroom because we couldn't commit to a color.  

And here's the view from the top of the stairs.

Since we're moving along I promise to try and keep regular updates.

cabinets!

Exciting few days, and getting close to finish.  We've notified our apartment building that we'll be out by the end of the month, so the pressure is on.  But the house is just flying along. 

First, we got our kitchen cabinets: 

Our kitchen appliances arrived yesterday, too, but the fridge and stove are on their way back to the store - fridge was too big and stove was the wrong color.  Not a big deal other than that the poor delivery guys lugged the stove up the front steps before we realized it was wrong.  

Master bathroom (pre grout):

Master bed, but with a special guest star.  You probably can't tell from the picture, but Jeremy had just been roped into hard labor simply because he had a truck.... I don't think he was happy about it, but he was a good sport.

Front bedroom - boring picture, but shows the painted ceiling and primed walls:
And finally, the attic (with some painters and Phil's backside).  Stu made us the window bench in the back - it came out great.  He also framed out the window so it looks much improved.

I will try to take more pictures, now that things are updating at an increased pace.  The painters started the colors last night, so I imagine it will be a little more interesting now!

Hello!

I finally got out to see the house again today (after almost 2 weeks!) and it's really coming along.  Phil has been whipping all the workers into shape, clearly, because they're making progress.

First, the kitchen, from the kitchen sink area into the dining room.  Note the fancy peninsula.  What you can't see, though, is the fabulous tile floor, which is currently covered with brown paper:

Same shot, but it shows the bulk head that hangs down to cover the venting

The reverse, from the dining room into the kitchen (including Yelson the drywaller's stilts):

And our new power room.  It's all much more impressive in person, but we're very excited about it.

And the attic.  The mold treatment turned the wood white and the insulation is in.  I expect they will dry wall it this week.
We've ordered all of our appliances and a handful of fixtures - we'll have to get our noses to the grindstone soon and pick everything else out.

Thanks for checking it out!

A bunch of progress this week - you can see how the kitchen is going to shape up.

First, the view from the dining room into the kitchen.  The framing in the foreground is the peninsula/bar and a the buildout (there will be shelves in there).  The framing in the background is the wall between the mud room and the kitchen.  

And a more direct shot from the dining room into the kitchen.
And the reverse view, from the mud room, through the kitchen and into the dining room

Here's the partially rebuilt bathroom and a totally rebuilt Phil.

The upstairs shared bathroom, by way of the kitchen floor.  Supposedly, we'll have a floor there soon.

And, finally, my new closet.  I'm really most excited about that!

So things are moving along.  We got white subway tile for the master bath, a black granite-ish sink and nice faucet for the kitchen, porcelain tiles for the kitchen, bathroom and mudroom (finally!) and we think we've got the countertops all picked out.  Kitchen cabinets and appliances are ordered (including the red stove).  I feel like things are moving along nicely!

Thanks for checking in.  Hope all is well.

Betsy & Phil

Sorry for the delay, but the last couple weeks have been pretty much pluming and hvac install, and pictures of pipes just aren't that exciting...

So we finally have our rebuilt mudroom.  The wood was in such bad shape, we just ripped it out and started over.  (unfortunately, it appears we will do the same for the powder room.  did anyone ever tell you that these kinds of projects get bigger by the second?  because they do!)

So here's the view of the kitchen into the mudroom, including our fabulous new back door:

And here's a random shot of Grandma (or is it Grandpa?) with Henry Ellis:
Back to the house...

Here's Phil standing where our refrigerator will go.  The powder room door will get closed up and the new entrance will be from the mudroom:

Note the fancy new plywood floor (this might be the same picture as the first one... sorry about that):
Here's the powder room by way of it's new entrance.  Those nice walls you see will be gone soon, but I'm keeping the window:

And an outside shot.  Amazingly, our neighbors haven't said a word.  I think they are just happy that someone will be living there soon:

And a close-up of the outside handy work:

We're still hopeful that we'll get things done soon, but everything just seems to take soooo long!  I heard there's new drywall in the kitchen, now, and that's exciting.  At some point, I'll commit to a kitchen floor and that might improve the speed of things.

I'll take some more pictures at the end of the week - I expect there will be visible improvement by then.  Until then...

b

I did three new posts, so you can see mid-demo, post-demo, then the exterior... just look down.

-b

And, the best one of all - here's the house from the street, without the trees. Amazing. Both Phil and I didn't recognize the house.





And Phil, wondering what house this is!


And, for comparison purposes, here's a picture of the house, as we bought it:



The funny thing is that you can hardly see the awful red and white striped awning over the front door - that, more than the trees, made a huge difference. Of course, now you can see how unruly our landscaping is, but we'll get there.

As always, thanks for checking in!