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

Formica Has Arrived

Our Formica order has arrived, and it's gorgeous!  Charcoal Boomerang pattern.  We'll be picking up some chrome edging soon, and then K will build our counters and top them off with this pretty pretty stuff.  I still can hardly believe that she agreed to use this pattern on our counters. 

Dump Day

Today was dump day, and it was pretty interesting, actually.  The City of Minneapolis has some good programs for reusing and for properly recycling a lot of items.  As homeowners who use the municipal garbage service, we're allotted a certain amount of "vouchers" per year to get rid of large garbage, furniture, building materials, etc.

I accompanied K's employee to the waste station designated for building material waste.  Either K or I had to be with, since we are the taxpayers/owners of the property.  We had a large Bagster filled in our yard-- with the old kitchen cupboards, drywall and other stuff from gutting the kitchen and the bathroom.  It took us two trips/two vouchers, and we got it all taken care of.  They have places at the station for different materials-- building materials, metal, furniture, mattresses, etc.

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.

Clean & Calm Bedroom

We have our bedroom back!  The floor is refinished, the walls are repaired and painted, the ceiling is painted, the outlets have been replaced to code, windows painted, stained trim and base added, curtains re-hung.

New nightstands and a new bed-frame to follow, along with new door hardware and a new bedroom door.  The original door was too damaged to paint and save, so it was just easier to pull the whole thing out and get it out of the way for the floor guys.

The room is calm and clean, and after about a month of sleeping in our basement and at our neighbors' house-- the bed feels huge!  I think we both slept funny last night-- it was almost like we were sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings. 

Here is what the room looked liked when we bought the house:

We had primed over the red walls pretty soon after moving in, but that's how it stayed for at least 2 years afterwards.

I just LOVE how the floors turned out.  The color is so rich and all the detail in the wood grain shows so vibrantly.

Oh, and did I mention that our trim was FREE?  K found a bunch of it at the side of the road somewhere, pulled out of a 1950s home.  K said it was a pain in the butt to sand and re-stain, but once they were installed, we are both really happy with the results. 

Kitchen Floor

We FINALLY got to see the house's original kitchen floor!  It's been peeking through a little hole in the underlayment, where the vinyl tile was missing.  I could see a green floor under there, and it looked like linoleum.  And it was!

When we got home from vacation, K's brother had gutted our kitchen and our first floor bathroom.  The kitchen cabinets were gone, except for the small section that held the sink and dishwasher.  K and her brother took care of that within a day.  He had also pulled up all the gross stick-down vinyl tile and the wood underlayment.

This was underneath:

It was tricky to capture the exact color, but the tiles are apple green and emerald green.  And all the many spots are rusty nails.  Soooo many nails!  That's one of the main reasons the floor isn't salvageable.  It also might be unsafe (i.e. asbestos), so we're covering it back up.

I hate that we have to cover it up, though.  I love the colors.  Since we bought this house, I've been begging K to let me put green Marmoleum in our kitchen.  Pretty much the same color as this apple green linoleum.  And with the green walls, I can just imagine how cute this kitchen used to be!  Green floors, green walls, white cabinets, some kind of Formica on the countertops?  I bet it was adorable.  I'm sad to cover up this floor, so I took a bunch of photos.

The original kitchen had a slightly different layout.  Looks like a little panel of cupboards angled out here.

The border as it meets the hallway hardwood floor  

The emerald green continues into the small hallway leading to the mud room, and through the mud room itself.

I love this beautiful swirly green

And here's the bathroom!  The toilet is perfectly fine, so we're keeping that.  Everything else has been removed, all the way down to the subfloor.

The kitchen is the #1 priority right now, but we'll do the bathroom as soon as we can.  I'm not sure that we needed to gut it this soon-- if we're not going to be working on it right away-- but it's still a LOT of work DONE!

VACATION

K and I are in Puerto Rico this week for VACATION!!!  The timing worked out for her-- before she starts up another project for work.  And we both needed a break from working on our house. --We spent about a week working on our walls and ceilings, and then the week after that was when our hardwood floors were getting done, and we were mostly sleeping at our neighbors' house...

And while we are gone, K's employee/brother is demo-ing our entire kitchen!  And the first floor bathroom!

Emptying EVERYTHING!

Main floor bathroom

We're excited to see the progress, for sure.  It's not going to be an easy couple months-- I know that.  These are big remodels that we're just starting, so I'm glad we're getting some rest on vacation before we have to get started.