I'm Feeling Blue, But It's a Good Thing!

Time for a Hall Bathroom update! The Hall Bath is the main level's main bathroom for the main living area.  It's also attached to the second bedroom on the main level, with a pocket door. In this room, we decided to open up the space by adding a clear glass standing shower, as opposed to the opaque shower that was there before.  We also reduced the size of the vanity that was in there previously, again to add to the open space and "less cramped" feel. Here's a photo of the first steps towards a finish product...

Tile going in - shower and on the floor.

Fast forward to the tile install finishing, and we're up to paint! For this room, I wanted to keep it light and bright (again to make it feel larger), so I went with a lighter paint color in addition the white tile on the wall. "Tradewind" is the name of the shade of blue we chose to go with (hence the "Blue" reference in the post title).  here's a look at how things started to come together with some paint on the walls...

Hall Bath with tile finished, grout done, and paint on the wall! (Keep in mind there's still a horrid yellow light bulb in there.)

Now that the paint was up and the tile was finished, it was time to install the toilet, vanity and shower glass walls. Flash forward again to having all those things installed!

Vanity now in place!

Toilet and Glass Shower Walls/Door installed!

You can definitely see the difference in paint color with the light turned off in the bottom two photos as opposed to the one up above that had the yellow overhead light on.

Here's on more look at the bathroom in it's almost finished state!

Again, the paint changes with the lights on.

So that's where things stand for now.  There's still odds and ends to finish in this room, but as you can see it's really starting to come together - Wah Hoo!

Something's Cookin' in the Kitchen - FINALLY!

A LOT has happened in the kitchen over the past few weeks! Once the floors went in and were stained (more to come on that in another post), it was time to start installing the cabinetry! This was so exciting to watch and really helped us understand what the kitchen would look like in person and what it would feel like to work in that space.  Here are a few photos from the start of that process...

Kitchen space with cabinet doors stacked on the floor to the left. Some initial cabinets starting to go in on the right!

Cabinet door stack.

Cabinets awaiting install.

The cabinets came out great and we're so happy with the quality.  It took a few days for the team to install the cabinets, and I took photos throughout to capture the process.  Time for more pictures!

Pantry cabinets (inside room) and outside cabinets on back wall starting to go in.

Pantry storage being installed.

Island coming together!

A few steps further and the cabinet doors went on the cabinets.  You know what this means... more pictures!

Lower pantry cabinet storage with wood top installed!

Another view of the island from the back of the house looking towards the front.

View from mudroom, back of island looking towards wall of cabinetry.

The next exciting install came inside the pantry.  The doors went on the tall cabinet that you'll see from the outside of the room (since this doorway is open), and the addition of the upper shelving area.  The room was also repainted a lighter color than originally painted.  I think it looks awesome now!

Cabinet shelving in pantry.

Angled view looking into pantry from kitchen - tall storage closet.

So, that's it for now.  More to come on the kitchen very soon! As you can see, we're finally getting much closer to the end of our first floor renovation.  We can't wait to start cooking in our new kitchen and having all of our friends and family over for some fun!

A Place to Drop Your Things...

Since Frank and I park in the garage everyday, we almost always come into our home through the breezeway.  When we moved in, there was a step up from the breezeway into the Dining Room.  As we talked through our renovation plans, we decided it would be better if there were no step up immediately to enter the home, and if there were some place we could drop our things as we entered.  There's nothing I hate more than a big pile of mail on the kitchen counter, and shoes all over the place. 

Our solution was to create a mini-mudroom with a "sunken" floor.  We chose to tile the floor with the same tile we used in the entry/foyer, and added cubbies for coats, a bench to store and put on shoes, and even a "stuff" tower for mail, phones, bags, etc.  The mudroom entry lets us enter the side but still take off our coats and shoes right away without walking all the way to the front door, etc.  So here's how it's shaping up...

Standing at the end of the kitchen island, looking towards the mudroom/breezeway.

Mail/Stuff Tower.

Mudroom bench seating and coat cubbies.

We'll be adding hooks in the cubbies as well, but those are still in the works.  The mudroom is turning out just as we hoped, and we know it's an area we'll use heavily every day!

Red Oak

We have hardwoods!!  The flooring went in a couple weeks back (I've been bad about posting, I know!) and has since been stained.  But before we jump ahead, let me share a bunch of picks from the hardwood installation.

The whole installing job took about 3 days, so it was pretty quick for the amount of space they did.  Here's a look at the floors, pre-stain...

Living Room

Living Room, Kitchen & Breakfast Nook

Dining Room

Dining Room & Hall to Foyer

Hallway

 

 

 

Hallway to Bedrooms

You know how Tyson loves to jump in my pictures!

Kids' Bedroom

Looking towards pantry from living room.

Standing in Living Room looking towards mudroom.

We love them!  The floors were sanded, stained and sealed on site.  So here's a little sample shot of how we selected our stain...

Stain selection - samples

Can you guess which one we picked?  Which one would you pick?  I'll let you know our final choice when I post about the floors... stay tuned!!

FINALLY we have bar seating!

I searched for months on end for bar stools that were in our price range, would be comfortable and would work with my overall design aspiration for our lower level bar area.  I stalked craiglist for months, but the options there were either too expensive for something used, they didn't have enough (we needed 3-4 stools) or they were just plain ugly!  So, the hunt continued for quite a while. 

While out on a recent shopping run, I came across a bar stool I thought might work.  At first, I thought about purchasing the slate gray color.  After contemplating the purchase and going home, I realized the blue would work much better.  I showed Frank to make sure he was on board with the purchase, and he approved.  So that's what we went with, and here are a few photos for you!

From the bigger open space looking towards the bar area.

Standing in the bar area, looking down the seating row.

 P.S. - don't mind the mess in the background.  Those are the stool boxes and the stairway is tarped and taped because of the construction upstairs.

Garage Door Decor

While Frank was traveling I decided to keep myself busy with a little DIY project.  Since we moved in, we both disliked the "door decor" on the garage doors.  The design is nice, but really doesn't go with the rest of the house.  The design sort of reminds me of an Egyptian palace, haha. So, here's what the door looked like before...

Garage door with decor - Before

Garage door without decor - After

All 3 doors after!

Now that the garage doors look better, the roof is drawing my eye more and more.  It's in good shape luckily, but the tree debris stains this light color.  When it's time for a new roof we'll be going with something darker to hopefully end that issue. 

As for the garage door decor, there's another DIY project checked off the list! We're thinking about painting these doors to coordinate with the rest of our updates, and then eventually replace them down the road.  More to come on that soon!

Windowwwwwwws!

The windows are here! AND they're now all installed!! The crew's been installing this week, and since it took me so long to get to writing this post they're now all installed.  We're so excited!  The delivery came at the very end of May.  Frank and I were very busy the last few weekends though, with my half marathon, and traveling up to NJ.  Here's a glance at what the delivery looked like when the windows arrived...

Truck Delivery for the windows and sliding/glass doors!

Stack-o-sliders

Stack-o-windows

Once they all arrived, we had to wait for the window sills to arrive.  Frank and I went with a limestone will, to compliment a few other limestone installations we already had in the house (fireplace, mantle, etc.).  Once those arrived, it was time to install. 

Day 1: The crew installed the two master bathroom windows, and the side breakfast nook/patio door.

Window in mater bathroom from inside.

Side of the house - window in master bathroom from the outside, minus trim at this point.

Exterior view of the new patio/breakfast nook door!

Day 2: The crew moved on to installing the kid's bedroom windows, the breakfast nook back window, and the big front living room window -- that one was a beast!

Kid's bedroom - interior view of windows.

Exterior (front of house) view with two kid's bedroom windows in (far left and middle) and master bathroom window at the far right installed, minus trim.

Breakfast nook area - interior view of patio door and window.

Exterior view - living room "beast" window.

 Day 3: The crew opened up the new window between the kitchen and dining room, installed that new window and installed the dining room window and master bedroom window.

Back of house exterior - you can see where the new window opening is starting to take shape.

Here is the new window all opened up, and the dining room window in the back with the crew.

Interior view from the kitchen - breakfast nook window on the left and new window at the right of this photo.

Interior view from the dining room - new window on the left and dining room window on the right.

Interior view from the breakfast nook - all three windows (new on in the middle).

Day 4: The mancave window went in, as well as the mudroom sliding glass door, and the master bedroom sliding glass door! That's it for getting the windows in place!!

I came home to this! Standing in the breezeway, looking at new slider into mudroom.

Interior view standing in kitchen/living room - mudroom slider and breakfast nook patio door.

Exterior view - master bedroom slider.

View from the back of the house (prior to mancave window install).

So there you have it!  The windows and glass doors are in!  The interior doors arrived this week, along with a few other fixtures.  Things are really moving along here.  Next up, trimming all the windows and moving on to more of the finishing -- installing hardwoods, touch-ups and painting, etc.  Things are looking good for our July finish!