Finished bedroom pictures

...And a couple more from the past week:

     

Andrew hamming it up as usual

Harper at her 4 month checkup.
Stats are: 12 lbs, 9 oz (25th percentile)
23 3/4 inches long (25th percentile)
                                             

Hiking at our favorite Saturday spot, Bernheim Forest. Andrew is getting pretty good at going about 1 to 2 miles.  He could go further with his energy level I'm sure, but we'd be there all day as he stops to pick up every. single. rock.

Loving the sunshine!

The boys all together again at our friend Danny's wedding...such a fun weekend with friends!

 And finally....our bedroom is mostly done! It's been a loooong six months since we started this project and Nate has worked so incredibly hard on all of it. Our contractor did everything up to drywall and then we took over from there (which I believe makes us crazy!).  It has taken a long time to get this room finished as it has 3 closets, a bathroom and of course all those windows Nate had to trim out but we are finally moved in and it's been great to have some space again. Here is the tour as best I could capture it:

 This is the view looking from our current hallway into the new bedroom...there are 2 closest on the left, a linen one and the HVAC/Utility/Storage closet (as we call it).

When you walk in and turn to the left, her is what you see! It's nothing fancy but we like it...I still have to put some pictures and things up on the wall but I'm mostly planning to keep it simple. My dad built that headboard for us and Nate and I covered it with fabric...way less expensive than buying one. Paint color is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter which I love!

 I love that sweet little baby girl on the bed too:)

 Here is the view looking back into the entryway into our room...the door goes to the master bathroom which is not finished yet (but getting closer!).

 And from the other corner of the room...the door to the closet.

 ...which might be my favorite part so far...Storage! We've had all of our clothes and shoes in plastic storage bins for 6 months, so it is wonderful to have it all organized again (and I do love organization:).

 No more searching through stacks of wrinkled clothes for one shirt and Nate can get ready for work in the morning without worrying about waking up Harper or trying to get dressed in the dark (which is not fun!)

So there you have it...we still have a lot of work to do on the bathroom, family room and screened in porch (which doesn't yet exist!) but we are getting there. I'm just so glad that Harper finally has her own space (and is no longer sleeping in our room) and that Nate and I do too. I'm so thankful for all the hard work he's and my dad have put into our house. I know I've mentioned it before, but my dad did ALL the electrical work on the addition and has installed all the light fixtures, built closet shelves, and helped in so many ways.

Finished House pictures!

Well, our computer officially crashed and died last week so I haven't put up any pictures lately because of that. After Nate and I got back from Guatemala, we were able to finish up most of the big projects in the house, specifically the kitchen. It's definitely not easy living without one, that's for sure so I'm so glad it's finished! To the left is the before picture...ugly linoleum and one cabinet!





Here's the "after" picture....Nate and his dad did a great job tiling the floor, we put in new cabinets and appliances, and granite countertops. There are still a few things such as cabinet hardware and all the trim work that needs to be finished but I'm just happy that I can cook now!









Here's another angle I took of the kitchen before, prior to knocking out the wall for the breakfast bar/counter space (whatever you want to call it!)
















Here it is after renovations! Quite a bit different with the wall gone, and it makes the kitchen seem much bigger.
















Now while most people don't get excited about a hallway, this is the room/area of the house that gave me the most trouble. So I'm pretty happy with the results! LOTS of wallpaper scraping, pulling up that hideous carpet and then removing all those nails and staples from the floor....we also put in a light so you can actually see when you walk in the door!

Here's the after picture....luckily the wood floor was in great shape under all that carpet





The guest room "before"....pretty boring with the white paint on the wall and dark curtains.









So now it's ready for anyone who wants to come stay with us! Nate's mom made this quilt as a wedding gift to us...it went perfectly in this room!

More kitchen pictures...

I'm still figuring out how to post pictures in some sort of order here...These are more recent ones. Here's Nate after the drywall was hung....and the real fun was mudding and taping!
I did my part and painted...the entire house twice over at least!
Nate and my dad hanging cabinets.
And Nate putting the backerboard flooring in so we can tile over it.

Nate and I are leaving for Guatamala on Wednesday to visit Aaron and Becky...hopefully when we get back we'll have a working kitchen with countertops and all!

Kitchen progress pictures...

First of all...I had to take this picture of Nate and Steven in their space suits as I called them. Nate was worried about asbestos in the flooring so they geared up!
Down to the studs! Danny helped SO much...he was over there a ton! Here is the wall the guys knocked out....looking into the dining room from the kitchen.
And Nate and Danny drywalling finally!

The kitchen is the slowest coming room of all...probably because we completely gutted it down to the studs and started with a blank slate. That was 5 weeks ago... As of today, it's almost finished so here are some pictures to document the craziness!

A few before and after pictures

Bathroom: Before--old pedestal sink which will go in the basement bathroom (a whole other story).
After--new sink, vanity, mirror, lighting and paint. We'll probably tile over the floor sometime later--I know some people love old, vintage type tile but it makes me dizzy to look at it! And a new shower curtain makes everything look a little better!

This is the master bedroom before...not too bad, except for the crumbling wall in the corner, which Nate fixed.
Here's the after--still don't have pictures or anything on the walls though!
One thing I love about this bedroom is it has a separate closet/dressing room type area.

Hallway and living room

This is the hallway with the gorgeous wallpaper on it...obviously very fun to remove! And who couldn't love the orangish carpet that smelled like cats? Luckily there was some awesome hardwood in pretty good shape under there (and 300 plus staples I pulled out with pliers...back pain anyone?)
Steph, Megan and Jill helped me out...thanks girls!
Jill discovered that the wallpaper was indeed on the ceiling as well...Who wallpapers a ceiling I ask you??!!??
Here is the living room (very dark picture) when it was McDonald's golden arch yellow. This room really just  needed a fresh coat of paint.
After the brown paint has gone on...what a mess our house is!

If you know how I am about disorganization and messes then you know that renovation is a lesson in patience for me. It's nice to look at all the rooms now and think, "We actually did that!" but it was often frustrating as we went along. Luckily, Nate can pretty much fix anything or build anything and if he can't my dad can! I'll post some before/afters of the upstairs bedrooms/bathroom (which are now FINALLY completed) sometime soon. Most of the pictures on this post were taken 4-5 weeks ago so a lot has been completed since then, which I will post when the final stuff is done (pictures on walls, furniture in , etc.)

Kitchen and Dining room

Before pictures:

The dining room (looking into it from the living room)...all of the red wallpaper was taken down
The dining room looking into the kitchen...this is the wall that was removed to make room for the breakfast bar.
Nate and Tom ripping out cabinets. The walls in here were not in good shape so we decided to start from scratch and rip them all out.
Danny and Tom helping to tear out drywall...Such a mess!
Jill and I even had a little fun with the sledgehammer....it's quite therapeutic!

Nate and Justin ripping out cabinets. I'm sure our neighbors loved the mess and the noise!

Nate and Tom pulling out more cabinets.

This is the kitchen before we touched it. All of the cabinets got ripped out, the walls re-dry-walled, and new floors put in. We also knocked out a portion of the wall between the dining room and kitchen to open up that space and put in a breakfast bar/countertop.

House Renovations

So one of the things I really wanted to document on here was the house we are renovating. For some reason Nate and I like to take on huge projects that are more than we can handle! This will be the second house we've renovated even though after the first I said, "Never again!" We sold our previous house in March and by April STILL had not found one to move into. One more detail I might add...this will be the 5th move in 41/2 years for us! Nate's parents were visiting us in April, and the day before they left I randomly looked on the real estate website and saw the house pictured above. Two hours later we were inside looking at it and that evening we made an offer! The reality was that the house was in an awesome neighbhorhood and had all the things we wanted but was a bit of a fixer upper (which explained how it atcually fit into our price range!). So with that said, here are some pictures, which say a lot more than I ever could, detailing the renovation. I have to say, we could NOT have done any of this without the help of so many people. My dad especially has been over there almost every other day doing something. So here are some pics to show the progress so far! (And since I can't figure out how to put captions under them, I'll have to put them under a new post).