The Yuppie Life: January 2013

31 January 2013

Man Cave Progress

Not too much that you can see happened since my last post in our temporary master/second master in the future/Man Cave, but I figured I'd post a few pics anyway. The carpet is now up, and all the tack strips are out. Electrical work has begun, but is not yet finished. We're also working on wiring a few walls so they're cable ready. It's coming along though...

View standing towards front of the house, looking out towards the back.


Opposite view, standing at the back of the house looking towards the front.

Of course Tyson wanted to get in the mix too! Apparently all this demo and renovating makes him hungry (he's licking his chops in the second picture, haha).

We'll be adding in some insulation and re-framing all of the walls next. Electrical work and wiring also continues. So, things are moving along here too!

Walls down!!!

Earlier this week I went to my girlfriend's house for a wine & Bachelor ladies night. We had a great time and a delicious spread of wine snacks to go with our beverages and trashy TV! I got home around 9pm or so, and was so happy to see all the work that had been accomplished while I was gone... Lots of walls came down!!!! The soffits were taken down in the kitchen, more flooring was taken out and the open floor plan is starting to really come to life! The space looks so open and bright, even at night with those walls down. It's glorious! We can't wait to see it come together as we start putting things back together (hopefully soon!!!).

Here are some pictures from a few different angles of the demo party that was had while I was out...

View from the side sliding glass door that we come through from the garage.

View from standing just right of the sliding door, towards the new living room looking towards the back of the house.

View standing left of the slider, at the back of the house looking towards the front door (with all the Christmas cards still hanging on it!).

Same spot, but looking along the back wall towards the new dining room space.

Standing in the new dining room, looking towards the side sliding glass door and future kitchen area.


Looking straight on at the side sliding door from the railing next to our staircase that leads downstairs.

The breezeway has really come in handy during our renovations as well! It's a great place to keep supplies clean and out of the way, but also safe from the outdoor elements. Here's how the "shop" looked yesterday...

So that's it for now... hopefully they get a lot more done today while I'm at work and school! It's a great feeling to come home to so much progress. The more they get done the closer we are to that finish line!

Temporary Pantry Installed!

Since we'll be using our bar area as our "kitchen" while we work on renovating the real kitchen upstairs on the main level, we decided that we'd need some extra room to store things. So, my handy husband and I installed our temporary pantry! Eventually we'd like to install more permanent shelving in there, change out the floor tile when we change the rest of the bar floor tile so it matches, and paint the walls a fun color. For now, this is perfect though! Here's a photo, minus the food and dishes...

We've since stocked it full with food and our dishes, but I forgot to grab a picture of that. We're very happy with the extra, hidden storage though and all is working out great so far here!

15 January 2013

More Demo Progress...

Things have been coming along with our first floor demo! There's still lots of demo to do, but we're definitely making progress and keeping the ball rolling.

Recent projects include:

Finished removing front hallway tile
Removed hearth tile in the dining room
Removed fabric and batting from walls in dining room
Removed cabinets from the kitchen
Removed floor tile in current kitchen pantry
Removed door/wall trim in kitchen

Once we finished removing the kitchen cabinets, we were also able to sell them via Craigslist! Frank and I were really happy to get those off our hands and making some extra money to put towards our renovations was a bonus as well!

Frank and I also started taping out where the new windows, doors, fixtures, etc. will be installed. This really has helped us work through some questions we had on decisions to be made and also help us get a feel of how things will flow with the new layout. We're both very excited to see things coming along, and cannot wait to see the finished product!!!

Here are a few recent pictures from our demo work...