Spring Break...

We just spent ten days out in Florida for Luke's Spring Break. My Aunt and Uncle joined us for a week. Didn't get much work done on the house but had a nice time relaxing and visiting with them. Chris and I took a stand up paddle board tour on the inter coastal. I ended up buying a board and am looking forward to doing more of that. Reed, Luke, and I went back again the following day for another tour. We saw dolphins jumping in the water on both days which was amazing!

We also spent some time at the beach. It was strange weather with fog rolling in every afternoon. Being Spring Break, it was crowded but I'm not complaining.

We also have a new addition...
Reed found another turtle in the yard. We put her down with the boy turtles and within an hour they were chasing her around the yard and "other things." Looks like our turtle family might be expanding.

Dan and Chris left on Friday and Reed and I put up the upper kitchen cabinets. Jimmy got the cabinets put in last week. My kitchen floors had also been done but are going to have to be redone this week. The color is beautiful but there were some really rough spots in the finish.

The granite counter tops will be installed next Monday and the sink and dishwasher will be installed as well. Yay! I will paint the island and upper cabinets when I go back out next week. It's starting to look like a real kitchen! We finally got the permit approved to replace the wall along the back of the property so that will be starting in the next week or so. I am looking forward to getting our privacy back.

That's all for now, I'll post again when I return.

Long time no see...
So it's been awhile but there have been so many little projects going on but none of them finished, I just didn't feel like I could do a descent post. The biggest thing that has happened is that we had a asshole   new neighbor move in behind us. He immediately called code enforcement to complain about our leaning wall. It has been there for eighty eight years! Long story short, we had to remove seventy five feet of wall and are now going to have to remove another seventy five feet and replace it all with a new wall. Yes, the wall was leaning but it had never been a problem with any of the neighbors before so just a big surprise, (and a ton of unexpected expense). It was horrible watching the wall being torn down and it still makes me very upset every time I am there. I am just ready to get the wall back up and not have to look at him anymore. 
Here are some photos of the demo...

Aside from all of that, good things have been happening too. The front porch was really dangerous. It has been torn up, re-framed, leveled, and tiled. So much better than the fake Spanish tile that was on previously.

Before:

I painted the master bedroom and adjoining sleeping porch. I wasn't sure about the color but the room is so large and bright that I was able to use this really dark charcoal and I just love it.

Before: This room wasn't bad, but I wasn't liking the green with the rest of the house.

After:

Both of the upstairs bathrooms have been re tiled and new sinks, shower and tub installed. This is the main hall bath.

Before:

During and After:

 

I finished the window bench in the breakfast room. My friend Laura had these "home away from home" pillows made for my Christmas gift. LOVE them!

The kitchen had tile over hardwood (who does that?) so we had the tile taken up. The floors underneath were in pretty rough shape and it was going to cost more to save them than to just put down new wood floors. We are working on that right now and hope to have that done before Spring break.

I finished painting and glazing the kitchen cabinets and can't wait to get them installed as soon as the floors are done. It's amazing the difference and you can do this to the ugliest of cabinets.  My carpenters were watching me glaze these and thought it was pretty cool.

The sheet rock work is being done in the garage apartment this week and it should really be taking shape by the time I get back out. The wall should be going up in about three to four weeks as well. Hooray!

I think we are truly on the home stretch. There will still be many things to do but they will be small and not urgent (I hope). At least it will be to the place that all of you can come and stay and be very comfortable. We are looking forward to that very much. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Time To Catch Up (and I need your vote)

So.....I have made a couple of trips out to the house but haven't posted any updates because although lots of little things are getting done, there haven't been many projects finished. I always like to show the before and after photos but I guess I will show some before and during photos instead.
We have a new yard fellow(#3) and I think he is a real gem. He works hard and is easy to communicate with. The last two either didn't show up or didn't do much when they were there. It's going to take some time to get the yard to the place where we can do some actual landscaping but in the mean time we have to keep it under control because everything grows so quickly in Florida. So here are just a few of the many projects we have underway...

I started painting the kitchen cabinets. We bought an entire kitchen on Craigslist for $2500. Uppers, lowers, pantry, you name it. They don't look like much now but they will be beautiful when I'm done with them. They take a lot of time because I have to do three coats of paint on each side.

They will eventually be glazed and look something like this...

I also found this great copper vent hood on Craigslist for a steal! Jimmy just put it up temporarily so we could decide how high to hang it. I think it is going to be fabulous!

Every bedroom in this house has a sleeping porch attached to it. The one that the two smaller bedrooms share was in really bad shape. It had old metal tilt out windows and only insulation for the ceiling. The floor was nothing but the old planks and joists. It has all been redone with tongue and groove on the walls and ceilings, hardwood flooring and new vinyl windows. Before...

and now it looks like this...

I'm going to build a base for a twin sized mattress to make this a perfect spot for extra kids that come to visit.

Luke has always wanted a secret room so we decided to  turn a hall closet into one for him. It's not quite finished yet but getting close ...

I also built a window seat for the breakfast room off of the kitchen. I haven't had a chance to paint it yet but I'm really please with the way it turned out.  The top is on a hinge for extra storage. Sorry about the terrible photo!

I had a great old trunk that I bought at an estate sale with the intention of using it for a nightstand or end table but it just didn't work for that so I made it into our bar for the dining room...

I bought a little vanity bench and took the cushion off

and there you have it!

So now I need your opinion on something... I plastered over the ugly red brick over the fireplace and then I painted it gray. I don't think I like the color and don't know if I just want it to match the wall color or choose a different color. Let me know your thoughts please. You can either comment on this post or email me your ideas.

Here is the before...

here is after plaster...

and here is after paint???

Well, I didn't mean for that to be such a long post but I guess I had really fallen behind. I will try to keep up better from now on. We are going out for Thanksgiving so I will post again when we return. I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families!

Thanks for stopping by,