Big Progress in October

Lots of planning around here for the last year or so... And suddenly this month there is so much activity and progress!

1)  Kris has almost finished the fence.  It's like 95% done.  In September we finally got a payout from the guy's insurance, one year after the accident with the fence.  Kris has just some tweaks to do on the fence panels at the back of the alley, and then we need to put up the chain link at the back of the property.

2)  Broadway Street was repaved this week!  And became a 3-lane instead of the dangerous 4-lane that it's been for who knows how long....  The very day that our fence was run into was the first meeting of the Broadway St Task Force.  I showed up kinda shell-shocked and said, "My fence was hit by a car this morning."  "Ohhhhh, that house!"  Everyone in the room knew about it. 
For the last year, the task force worked with the transportation departments from Hennepin County and Minneapolis; held community open houses for information and feedback; surveyed as many commuters, business, and residents as we could; ran websites for additional feedback...  And came up with a 3-phase plan for the road.

Repaving was already scheduled, like years in advance, so this week that happened.  And when the new asphalt was on, the new lines were painted for one lane traveling each direction + a turn lane in the middle.  I am so flipping happy, I can't even explain!
Grinding down the previous layers of asphalt also uncovered our curbs!  For the first time in 7+ years of owning this house, we have curbs in front of like half of our house.  Something so simple.

3)  We finally got our roof replaced!!  It was in ugly condition when we bought the house, for sure.  For years we debated if we wanted to add dormers off the top floor or maybe build an actual 2nd story...  And eventually we decided to just leave it as is.  We got a new roof put on a couple weeks ago, and a crew is here at this very moment putting on our brand-new gutters.  :-)   We also got a new mailbox because the demo crew trashed ours....  
And Kris pulled off the lattice and wood where the chimney used to be, so that the soffits and gutters could be put in as one solid piece, instead of taking those little jogs like they used to.  So now there is a gap in the siding... one more thing to repair.

Fence Post Progress

After the busy holiday long weekend, with family visiting and a lot of prep for the fence-- K got all of the remaining fence posts ready for the wooden fence!
Wednesday and Thursday were both really hot days, in the low 90s, but she worked right through it.  On Wednesday, I was able to help her set a few posts during the kiddo's nap, but she kept going after and did at least 20 more.  In addition to the posts her father got set over the weekend, we now have them all set up and ready for the boards.

Cement bags and poles waiting

Almost-Complete Bedroom

Our bedroom is one of my favorite places in the house.  It's so calm because there is very little in it.  Four pieces of furniture -- bed, bench, and two nightstands.  And I love all those pieces, so it looks so simple and lovely to me.  Our bed frame is from Ikea.  The nightstands are from Target and I love them because they look so much like the ones I really wanted from West Elm.  But these nightstands saved us $300! The bench is also from Target, and was a wedding gift my my sister and brother-in-law.

The bedside lamps are from JC Penney, the Jonathon Adler collection.  The navy blue curtains are from... Bed, Bath & Beyond, I think?  We've had them for quite a few years now.  The gray and green bedding is from West Elm.  The new decorative pillow was my gift to K for our 2-year wedding anniversary, and it's from Etsy.

I think of this room as complete, but there is nothing on the walls!  We should probably get some art and photos in the room, and we've talked about it quite a few times, but it's just so simple and relaxing in there right now without anything...  I'm not sure I want to change it.

Complete Bathroom

Our bathroom....  is done!  We have a tub.  We have a huge shower.  We have a new vanity with two sinks and a big, mirrored medicine cabinet.  K is so relieved, and we both love this room. Baby V is also thrilled about the tub.

Storage on the left

Deep tub with storage ledge and spacious niche

 

Shower Tile

K has made huge progress on the bathroom tile in the last few days.  Most of the tile wall behind the vanity and the tile in the shower is in. 

Vanity wall

I chose a marble tile for inside the niche, and K wasn't sure about it.  But now that it's installed with the aluminum edging, I think she likes it.  I really like it-- there are little hints of purple and blue and yellow in the stone and I think it coordinates with the floor tile and the wall paint.

After K cleaned up for the day, we showed Baby V the nightlight on the ceiling fan and let him crawl around and explore the room.  <3

Looking at the blue nightlight on the ceiling fan

Bold Bathroom

We're going really bold with our main floor bathroom.  We're using a vibrant green-blue paint and some interesting floor tile.  It's really fun!

The paint is similar to our blue kitchen paint, but more green.  The two colors actually look really nice together.  This Swedish seaweed soap was sort of my inspiration for the color-- I have always loved this package.

For the floor tile... I had my eye on this pattern for a while.  K and I talked about going bold with either a fun wallpaper or a bold tile on the floor.  The bathroom is fairly small, so it seemed possible to splurge on something fun in there.  And the pinwheel floor tile was what we decided on.

We decided to stay with white tile on the vanity wall and in the shower.  K decided she wanted the vanity wall to be all tile, and we chose to have them stacked instead of staggered, like she did with the tile in the kitchen.  On the vanity wall we chose a fairly basic subway tile.  And in the shower we have a larger subway tile.  K made the call to use aluminum edging with the tile, too.

She's been working on this non-stop.  She took a bit of time off work so that she could "knock this out."  The tiling is hard work, physically, but I know it's been satisfying for her to see the changes happening each day.

Bathroom Sheetrock

The bathroom is coming along, with most of the sheet rock up and framing completed around the new medicine cabinet and niche in the shower.  The bathtub is in, and the new ceiling fan has been installed now for a while.

We decided to put the niche off-center, we thought it looked more interesting and was easier to reach.

New storage cabinet, and there will be a light right above it

Running Water in the Kitchen!

K got our faucet and our dishwasher running today!  It's going to be so nice to have a working sink on the first floor again, and not have to always go down to the basement to get water.  And we can probably start using the dishwasher, instead of washing our dishes in the utility sink, too.  What a luxury!

Our faucet is the touch-on kind, which is really cool.  And we have a disposal, too.  I don't think we've ever had one of those in any of the places we've lived.  There's a cute little chrome button on the counter to turn on the disposal.

The overall view is just so nice when we come into the room.  And it's just going to get better--  Tile, paint, trim, and light fixtures to follow.  And installing the chrome pulls on the cabinets.

We're almost there!

Countertop Progress

Huge progress on the countertops on a gorgeous day.  K had gotten a great start on them in the past week or two, but got SO much done today.  Got the edging onto the island countertop, and got the sink and faucet installed into their piece.

The edging looks so great with the chrome cabinet pulls!  Can't wait to see these on the cupboard doors.

The countertops were light enough that I was able to help her carry the sink piece and the island piece into the kitchen before I ran off to work.  So I was able to see them in place and they looked fantastic!

Kitchen Mudding

K's least favorite job is mudding.  But she needed to get it done so we could keep progressing on the kitchen.  Cutie worked on it all day and made tons of progress.  Visually, it made a huge difference to see all the seams gone, and have everything be one color.  Even though there's more to go, it just feels like things are coming along.

The Start of an Actual, Real-Life Living Room!

Since we bought this house, we have never had a living room for more than a day or two.  We started scraping the popcorn ceiling pretty quickly after we bought it, but then never finished.  I can think of a couple events -- a holiday party in 2012, and Thanksgiving in 2014 -- when we made it presentable enough.  But underneath the sisal rug, there was still Ram Board, and storage items were covered in drop clothes against one wall.  And it was always temporary.  For most of our almost 3 years here, the living room has been a storage space.

Today, that finally changed!  K was offered a free couch at her current work project, and we decided it was a great idea that she brought it home.  The room was close to being done-- ceiling and walls all done, floors too, of course.  Just the baseboards and trim needed to be added.  So we picked up the drop cloths on the floor, moved the tools and projects into the baby's room, vacuumed the floors.  K added the base boards to most of the room.

Baseboards in progress

The couch is a simple one from Ikea.  The cushion covers had been spilled on by the previous family's children, but I got them washed up and they look much better.  Ikea sells them separately, too, so we can replace them sometime soon.

Someday we'd like to get a nice couch from Room & Board, but for now, this one is perfect.  Durable, and the cushions are not new, so they've off-gassed already, and not so old that they're not falling apart.  The color is perfect, and we'll probably replace the legs with something more mid-century-looking.  K has already found some legs online that we can order.

New-to-us couch on our pretty, pretty floors!  <3

BIG Progress in the Kitchen

Over the past few weeks, we have made some serious progress on the kitchen.  Plumbing and gas are rerouted, as needed.  Electrical is updated to make more sense with the fuses, and to run the new switches. outlets, and light fixtures.  We have 3 recessed lights, and we'll be putting in 3 pendant lights-- 2 over our new island, and one over the dining table.

New sheetrock is installed, and our cabinets were delivered on Friday.  K got our pantry and one wall of cabinets installed on Friday.  And she and I got the other wall installed on Friday and today.

Our boy cat was having a blast climbing up the ladder and watching us work.  Such a good little assistant...

I also cleaned up ALL of the cabinet and drawer pulls yesterday.  It took me over TWO hours to get all the paint peeled and scrubbed off those chrome pulls.  I soaked them in CLR and vinegar with a little water, and that definitely did the trick.  After about an hour, I really wanted to strangle those renters who painted over these.  So frustrating!  But at least they were still in the house-- I have to be thankful for that.

Before:

After:

Shiny chrome pulls

By the end of the day today, we had the cupboards all in, and it was amazing to see the new layout of the kitchen.  It's so different from how it was, and we think it's going to be really useful.  More workspaces and better spacing between the appliances.  And still lots of storage.

The pantry is on the left

We have the new GE Slate appliances.  K liked these because they're sleek like stainless, but darker and easier to keep clean.  I think they're gorgeous, and they perfectly match our free flooring.  We decided to use the same bamboo laminate that K had installed in her office.  There was plenty left over-- enough to use throughout the kitchen and mudroom. 

The cabinet doors and shelves will be ready tomorrow.  And after that we'll be able to decide where we want to keep all our kitchen items, and we can unpack some kitchen things that we've had in storage for a long time.

K says that the toughest stuff is done now.  What remains: the paint, tile backsplash, sink and faucets, the countertops (which she is making for us),  cabinet doors & pulls, light fixtures, touching up....       The end is finally starting to become visible!  I know for both of us, especially for her-- it felt like this project would never end.  Now we have some big, meaningful progress and it's really exciting.

Hardwood Floor Progress

As of today, there is PROGRESS on our floors!  Our hardwood floors were sanded today, and they're already looking fantastic!  Tomorrow, the floor guys will start the staining and sealing process.  We've picked a nice dark color for the stain, that will really show off the grain of the maple. 

It looks like there are 2 burns in the living room floor that didn't sand out-- they're just too deep.  (Honestly, I thought there would be so many more burns and scratches that were too deep!)  They'll fill those in, and I think once the floor is stained they will just look like knots in the wood.  I don't think they'll be terribly noticeable.

Living room

Our bedroom

Baby's room

Room Craziness

It's been a rough week.  Whew.  Poor K is wiped out...  I can't keep up, either!  We've been working on the walls and ceilings in our rooms with hardwood floors, in order to get those walls before the floor guys come in to do the refinishing on Monday.

So, patching, mudding, sanding, painting our plaster & lathe walls.  Trying to repair years of damage and neglect.  It's totally working-- the walls look 100 times better!  It's just a LOT of work.

K used a sprayer to paint all our doors and windows, which were previously all a very industrial-looking tan (which we're SO sick of!)  We figured this would be a big improvement until we replace the windows, and visually, it is definitely much better!

Newspaper & painter's tape = cheap stained glass

Living room window, mid-taping

Post-spraying

She also sprayed all our vent covers, just so we didn't have to go out and buy all new ones right now, on top of all our other expenses.  Some of them were painted weird, just like our trim, and some were just old-looking.  Now, they may not all look perfect when you look closely, but they sure look better. 

Repairing progress in Baby's room

Above, the baby's room now has a smooth painted ceiling, painted windows and doors, and wall repair is mostly complete.  This room will have painted white trim around the windows and doors.  The other rooms will have stained wood trim.

Our room has a newly painted ceiling, painted walls, painted windows and closet doors.  The door to our room was too damaged, so we'll need to get a new one.  We decided not to mess with the texture on our ceiling.  I guess the look of it grew on us over these last couple years. But it was so much dingier than we had realized-- once K got painting it with the bright white paint, it was like, "WOW!"  It looks so clean and crisp, and the chandelier looks even nicer now.  Yay!

And ohhhhh, the living room.  I'm in love.  Seriously... we've never had a usable living room, in all the time we've owned the house.  For a few days, here and there, we've set up a sitting area when we needed to, but it was always on top of a big sisal rug, on top of the ram board from when we were working on the ceiling.  And there was always wrapped-up bookshelves in the corner, and storage stuff against the wall.  So, just never an actual "living room."
But it's already so pretty.
I'm so excited!

Living room, in progress

The ceiling and coves are smooth, painted, and gorgeous.  The windows are sprayed, which is a huge improvement.  K had to do some major repairs on the entryways to the room because the plaster had gotten nicked away over the years.  She built them back up, so now the corners are sharp and crisp once again.  And the walls, though still in progress, already look sooo much better.  :-)

Rough week, true, but it's so fantastic to see this progress and know we'll have actual finished rooms SOON!