10 Days 'til Christmas

We’ve been slow to post details recently so I figured I’d give everyone a brief update.  Does anyone remember those photos we took right after closing? Well the place doesn’t look nearly as nice currently. We’re in the middle of our holiday rush because my parents and my brother and his wife will be coming for Christmas. To say we have a little work to do before then is the understatement of the year. Here are a few quick current photos I just took with my phone. (Sorry for the quality.) Needless to say I didn't pick up before I took them.

The foyer floor is laid, but not yet polyurethaned... and is really dusty.

The living room / floor-staining room.

We put up the Christmas tree in the dining room, but it has since been surrounded by future kitchen stools, tools, supplies, and other clutter.

Jessica's busy laying the cork floor in the kitchen.

Where the sink used to be. It's been moved to the island. And the giant (unnecessary) hole in the wall thanks to the plumbers.

Jess warned you all earlier that the kitchen was bad! She wasn't kidding! Just over a week to go and this all should be back to semi-normal.

New Light

Arrived today...

Not sure if we should put it in the kitchen or the dining room yet... I'm afraid it may be a little too small for the dining room.

Right now our kitchen is a freaking DISASTER! The old floor is out, the counters are out, the walls are out! It's a big, ugly shell of a room... with pretty cabinets. The electrician will finish up in a day or two. Then we'll be clear to hang new drywall, lay the flooring, get the countertops installed, and get the plumber back out to hook up the new sink and dishwasher. UGH. I'm exhausted already!

Not a dog post.

So Brad has commented that I'm posting a lot about our dogs... Hehe... oops. I forgot this was supposed to be our home renovation blog. :)

So here's some super awesome stuff about our ongoing renovation!!

Right now, I'm working on finishing our drawings. We initially planned on doing a lot of the work over time, but now we're considering bidding the whole project out to knock it out in one fell swoop. We'll see just how much doing it all at once will cost us before we make that final decision... For all who are curious just what our plans are:

Plans in AutoCAD.

Interior Elevations in AutoCAD.

Ha. Okay. So you can't quite tell just what's going on from the screenshots. Basically, right now we have one 'finished' bedroom in the attic and the rest is raw space. We plan to add a bathroom and master bedroom, as well as fully updating the rest of the house. This may be better... Click the images to see 'em larger.

So, what do you think?

I betcha wanna see more...

Freakin' awesome pink paint and carpet. Only a few hours after closing that carpet was out of there. The floors beneath aren't as great as we'd hoped, but we'll address that issue later.

The house was built in 1879 (I think) but appears to have been 'gut-rehabbed' in the '50s. The cabinets rock. So does that stove. I dunno... we'll see what happens with this. Definitely some new paint and flooring. Probably new counter tops and fridge. Maybe an island... with a dishwasher.

The bathroom is all kinds of ugly.

Front stairs. Don't know what we'll do with these yet, either. Definitely needs new flooring... not that gross fake wood vinyl. The plaster walls are in excellent condition everywhere in the house, except here. They're cracked and crumbly. We'll see.

MORE LATER!