More changes

Ceiling is finished in the breezeway, and I'm doing a bunch of painting in the kitchen/dining room/foyer. Here's some updated photos....

Drywall

Removed Kitchen window

The breezeway is dried in, so Bryan surprised me today by having taken the window to the kitchen out before I got home today from work....Here are the photos to prove it.

New flat-screen TV and cleaned up Breezeway

A few plants and a flat-screen TV, and the Breezeway is almost done. All that's left is to drywall and paint the ceiling and acid etch the floor.

(For comparison's sake....)

Here's what the breezeway USED to look like

More breezeway photos

Progress in the Breezeway

Bryan got the doors and windows installed in the breezeway today. So, the room is now "officially" part of the house, as it is dried in and sealed from the outside. We still have to drywall the ceiling and the areas between windows, and we need to finished the flooring. I think we are going to do the acid etching of the concrete, and get a big area rug to finish off the area. So far, I think it's looking pretty good. It certainly has a lot of light.

Dining Room and Dogs

I got the dining room partially finished...Once the window and door are painted white, I think I will really like the yellow.

Also included a couple of photos of Kip the new puppy and Tess. They are VERY good together. I know poor Tess looks horrible again...she gets shaved a few times a year, and she looks pretty bad for a few weeks afterwards. I wish I were a better groomer.

Breezeway door

Bryan got a new sliding glass door, so we replaced several of the jalousy (sp?) windows in the breezeway. We will add a transom and some windows on either side, but I think it looks great. It will make a WONDERFUL courtyard on that side of the house!

New dog and Destroyed kitchen!

I am visiting Alabama with Katy this week...Bryan had to work so he stayed home. Several developments took place during the week. We found out that we would be getting a new puppy late last week...I have wanted a second dog for a long time, but I really wanted Bryan to be on board with it, so I waited until he brought it up to me (of course I think I waited less than an hour before emailing Tess' breeder after he had okayed the idea). It must have been destined to happen, as Leslie knew of a very special pup that was EXACTLY what I had described to her that was just waiting for the perfect home. Lucky for us, she seemed to think that we were just that home. And so did the dog's breeder, who sent us some photos of this too cute pup. Isn't he just the most adorable thing ever?

And the second development is that Bryan decided to remove our base cabinets in the kitchen while he had some undistracted time. He sent me a photo...Oh WHAT a MESS!! The only problem is that it will take more than 6 weeks before the cabinetry is delivered, AFTER I order base cabinets (which I haven't done yet). So we will be living like this for a while.

Ugh.

But that's okay. It's not like the rest of the house is nice either (right now), and at least I have a working surface. Also, Mom helped me this week come up with a plan for what I should order. I think it will be stunning....someday. For now we will manage.

A starry night and new floors

Several updates...

Here's a photo of the slate floor that we are removing in the foyer... followed by the sanded upstairs floor.

Then, there is a couple of photos of the painting on Katy's ceiling...It's a crappy knock-off of "A starry night" but, Katy just LOVES her moon, so that makes me happy.

Ciao,

Robin

Pulling up carpet and Painting

More progress...Some positive and some NOT-SO. Aargh.

The positive? I pulled up carpet on the first floor today, and moved around furniture so that you can actually see the floor. The problem is that we have all the furniture for the house on the first floor until the painting (more on that later!) and floor refinishing is completed on the second floor. The net result is WAY too much furniture in WAY too little space. Now there's still too much furniture but it's much neater now.

The painting has been a different story. I am so irritated with myself that I can't hardly stand it. I started painting Katy's room a sort of periwinkle blue....No problem, and I think I like the color. I'm including that photo just to show off the color. The problem came in when I painted our master room. The color I wasn't sure about, but it was growing on me.....UNTIL I realized that I was a complete moron and should have primed the (obviously!!!) lead-based walls as the paint started flaking off in big nasty bubbly sheets. So now I get to strip the entire room and start over. Who DOES THAT? I totally should have realized that I needed to prime those walls, and now I will have plenty of good quality time stripping and remembering that particular nugget of home renovation advice.

Aargh.

And I STILL can't decide if I like the color.

Double-Aargh.

Kitchen renovation

Here's some photos of the kitchen renovation, underway. We removed the wall between the dining room and kitchen; now we need to figure out exactly what we are going to do. Have a kitchen designer helping me with that process now...

Our New House--Starting renovations

So, we just closed on our new house last week. Here's some photos. We have a TON of work that needs to be done--the kitchen is the first project, and I will upload photos of the progress on that in a few minutes. But for now, this is our house as of the home inspection in the middle of May. We closed on 24 June 2007.