The Decorative Mantle

One day, before we got the house, Marcos surprised me with a decorative mantle that he came across. I think I smiled for days..

The mantle was expected to be placed in the living room below the TV. However, there was a vent and an electrical outlet that made us re-consider.










Of course, we painted it white and it made it's way into the dining room. We're going to tile the center with marble and hang my favorite piece of artwork above it, flanked by either sconces or small frame-less mirrors.. All will be decided once we find either the sconces or mirrors that we can't live without.

2nd Floor Bath; Under Construction (continued..)

blue skies, nothing but blue skies..

















Marcos is hanging a wall here. I think I may know how to do the second bathroom on my own.. just kidding!

















Papa helps Marcos build shelves next to the bathtub.

2nd Floor Bath; Under Construction

Hello new, energy efficient window!


















Somehow that purple trim is still haunting me..
(It was, after all, in BOTH bathrooms!)












Goodbye drafty, old window!














GUTTED; down to the framing.

The OLD 2nd Floor Bath

Before the renovation:

..gross..













Marcos hates this shower - apparently it's not fun moving the location of a drain for a shower to drain a bath tub.. who knew?


















The previous homeowners left us a waste basket; house warming gift?













I can't emphasize enough how bad this bathroom was - you should have heard the way this mirror(/lighting fixture?) hummed! Oh, it also flicked for about a minute and a half before coming on completely.

The Office/Guest Bedroom

For those of you who know how crazy I am about arranging bookshelves... you know the current state of this book shelf drives me crazy. (I like to group books by color, then size and some must be hidden all together, if they're ugly). This may shock some of you, but my "wrapping station" isn't even in order! All in due time, keep calm, breathe...













Leaning against the wall is an air mattress. No one has been staying over so, for now, it's not taking up any space.

The Kitchen

The kitchen on day 1:


































The kitchen as it is now:

Our new refrigerator is too large for the frig cut out in the current cabinetry. So, we placed an old kitchen table there for added counter space and a place to set the microwave.










Luna just follows me around waiting for a chance to be on camera! Look at that pose, very nonchalant.











We are using an old shelving unit to hold pantry items for now and next to that stands our new frig. Eventually we will renovate the kitchen and there will be cabinets along the farthest wall and right wall as well. The door to the deck and backyard is to the left of our favorite find-of-all-time; a mustard yellow china cabinet.

The Master Bedroom

The only room in the house to NOT have hardwood under the carpeting, was the master bedroom. Pictured below, this is still how it stands. Unfortunately, even the red paint is still on the walls. We have a decent set up in the smaller bedroom across the hall, so this is not our first priority right now.

The Medium Up-Stairs Bedroom

Before:

Hideous paper border

















Current:

The hideous paper border is GONE!
This is actually where we're sleeping until we get hardwood floors in the master bedroom.

The First Floor Bath

Yes, you're seeing this correctly; the window frame is painted purple. This isn't completely up to date; currently the walls are cream but the window frames are still this unbearable purple color.

The "Dining Room"

The 4th Bedroom will eventually be a proper dining room, as of now it has a closet and a too-small door frame into the hallway. Our goal is to knock out the main entrance coat closet and the closet below and open up the floor plan a bit more.

The Living Room

To start us off on our grand tour...

Living Room (BEFORE):















Living Room (CURRENT):

We have yet to paint the living room but we did get some wonderful new curtains (that puddle on the floor a 1/2" as they should).

Hooray the carpets are GONE!

Now exposed: pretty decent hardwood floors (that we will be refinishing in the near future).

Day 1

So we got the keys Feb 28, 2011. Very exciting but then again LOTS to do. We began by ripping up all the carpeting (entirely) on day 1 at approximately 6pm. Believe me, you all would have done the same - as you can tell by the photos, this was absolutely the most urgent project.

The House

Marcos and I decided to create a blog to update everyone on how the house renovations are coming along. Eventually we plan on having a house warming party but we'd like to complete a few necessary and urgent projects first. Above is a slightly crooked picture of the front of the house. I've started this blog a little late. We closed on February 28, 2011 and have been keeping quite busy since. So I'll start by going step by step in our advances.
-Kaitlin