Paint! ... and Flooring!!

As you may have picked up on in some of my recent posts, the paint is now up on the walls on the main level!  The ceilings, walls, trim, doors, etc. are all painted and ready for finishing touches. Here are some photos of each of the selections we've made for the various rooms on our main level. You'll also get to see the finished hardwood floors as well!  We went with a gray stain, but with the top coat there are definitely strong brown tones as well.  The floor reads a bit lighter in person than in these photos as well.

For the main living space we kept the wall color consistent.  We went with "North Star" for the majority of the walls in that space - kitchen, breakfast nook, living room, mudroom, front entry and the hall to the bedrooms. As an "accent" we painted the center pantry walls (outside) a darker shade of Gray.  I plan to put some artwork on the wall facing the dining room and I think it will really pop against the darker wall color.

Main Living Space Wall Color - "North Star"

Butler's pantry - "North Star" on the left wall and the dark gray we chose as an accent on the right wall (forget the name!)

Back of pantry wall on right - accent color

As we continue down the hallway from the front entry/dining room space, we come to the hall bathroom.  You saw this color in a previous post, but just for fun here's a reminder photo.

Hall Bath - "Tradewind"

One door down from the hall bath is the second bedroom on the main level. That paint color is called "Olympus White" - although it doesn't really look white at all!

Second Bedroom - "Olympus White"

The last stop on our tour is the Master Suite. First, the bedroom area in "Morning Fog."

Master Bedroom - "Morning Fog"

Then the master bathroom, which you've already seen in a previous post as well. The color is "Conservative Gray."

Master Bathroom - "Conservative Gray"

So that's the paint colors we chose for the main living level of the house - what do you think?

Our Pantry Grew Some Walls!

In our last post about the main level kitchen/open floor plan it looked like this:

You can barely see that the pantry bottom frame was laid.  Since then, our pantry has started to grow some walls, haha!  Things are definitely coming to life with this space, and it's exciting to be able to walk around it and get a feel for how it will truly be once it's finished. 

Here are a few pictures of the initial exterior pantry walls going up...

View from standing in side mudroom looking straight on towards pantry.

View from standing in living room, towards the front of the house looking back.

Now, the pantry looks more like this:

We've added the stud walls inside the pantry that will support the backs of out cabinetry, as well as house plugs, water lines, etc. that will be needed for the appliances.  We've also finished up the electrical work that will be in, on, and around the pantry (for the most part).  We'll need to update switches and do finishing touches like that when we get more into the "putting things back together" final stages. Another thing we finished up was ripping up the old hardwood and other flooring and prepping the sub floor for new flooring.

So for now, that's where things stand in the kitchen/pantry!

Main Level Demo Party!

We definitely had quite a demo party on the main level this weekend!  Lots of tools, drywall, trim and tile were flying around! Frank and crew had started tearing out the smaller dividing walls before we headed up to NJ (prior to Christmas).  Here's how things looked post mini-wall demo:

This is a view from the current and future living room area at the front of our house, looking back.



Here's a look from the current kitchen, looking towards the front of the house.

Even with just these small walls down, we could already see how things might look when we open up the space... so exciting!!

This past weekend, we went wild on the space and tore down the rest of the drywall and trim in the current living room and dining room spaces.  The light flooded in once that wall was open and you can really start to see how it will look once we're done now...

Looking from the living room towards the side/back of the house.

The current dining room space, which will be part kitchen, part living room in the new layout.



Standing in the current dining room and looking towards the front of the house and living room space.

We still have to move wiring and the central vac in that wall above, so for now the studs will stay until we can take care of those things. 

Since we were feeling ambitious, we also started some demo on the kitchen.  For now, we're leaving that one wall of drywall between the kitchen and dining room.  We're trying to keep dust away from the refridgerator until we have it moved/sold.  So, we moved onto taking down cabinets, countertops and removing tile floor. 

Frank loved it!



This is the wall between the current kitchen and dining room... we ripped out the cabinets, countertop and cook top from here... the wall is next!

 The tile in the kitchen had lots of mud and adhesive underneath, but luckily it wasn't too bad to take out.  We got 1/2 of it out in about an hour. 

Chipping away!



1/2 the tile is out! 

 So that's where things stand after our weekend demo party!  Lots of progress for a few hours of work.  We'll be getting a dumpster soon so we can start to unload all of the resulting trash (hopefully today if they're open).  Next up, we'll continue in the kitchen and then start on the hardwood floor and hallway tile removal.  More photos to come as things progress!  Oh, one last thing... if you have any pent up anger or just feel like getting some extra exercise, all are welcome to come and help demo!!