Bathroom Remodel

So Marc and I are making EXTREMELY slow progress on our home renovations.  Not quite done with the guest room floor (almost) and then we are starting to work with architects on designing a family room/kitchen remodel with hopefully a mudroom and then upstairs addition for a large master bedroom and additional bath upstairs.  How the previous owner had 8 kids and only one upstairs bath is beyond me.

Marc and I did do some tile searching this weekend and had SOME luck.  Here are our plans, but first, remember this lovely rainbow of yellow tile?

Marc and I want to keep the original floor tile to keep some character in our 1939 home.  We found some white glass subway tile to use in the shower with some black accents--like a small pencil line to tie into the floor somewhat.  Marc is planning on tiling the shower himself.  We will see how it goes.

Then we will be ripping all that yellow wall tile down and putting up some wainscotting.  Like this:

We will also paint the walls a yellow to match the tile.  Still to do is 

1) order the tile

2) do the wainscotting

3) find a new vantity

4) Bath fan

Overall to do list is very long, hopefully we can start crossing some things off.

1) lots of curtains to hang

2) finish guest room floor

3) paint guest room

4) get electrician over here for LOTS of re-wiring.

it is depressing even to continue this list.  We need inspiration!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Marc and I were by ourselves for Thanksgiving this year.  We both had to work on Friday.  It was a lot of firsts for us this Thanksgiving--first Thanksgiving in my whole 26 years that I didn't celebrate with my family, first Thanksgiving in Minnesota and first time Marc and I did not have the day after Thanksgiving off.  I guess I was lucky just to have Thanksgiving Day off.  Marc and I didn't know what we were going to do to celebrate (if anything) so we ended up deciding on Wednesday night that we'd have a mini Thanksgiving.  Now it is really difficult to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for two, especially when only one of you eats turkey.  We ended up just cooking some favorite dishes, broccoli-rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese and for Marc instant mashed potatoes and a frozen turkey and dressing dinner.  I also made a pumpkin pie and Marc had a store-bought cake for dessert.  For some reason, Marc doesn't mind, and often prefers the meals from a box--Stove Top dressing, instant mashed potatoes, etc., and I love cooking and enjoy all the good "Southern" casseroles I grew up with. Here are a few pictures from our mini Thanksgiving...

 Homemade pumpkin pie.  I love my leave pie cutters that Meredith and her mom gave me for one one of our wedding showers.  Thanks Mer!! :)  I miss baking with you!

 Our dining room.  This picture reminds me that I need to re-cover the dining room chairs...

 We had fun using our formal china, crystal and silver.  Makes me want to use it even more.  We just have one charger to go with our china, which Marc got me for Christmas last year.  He had to use the plastic gold charger.  He kept joking about how the Diet Pepsi tasted better out of the Waterford.  He likes to give me a hard time about having formal china, crystal and silver that we use for special occasions, but I love it!

 Better view of the dining room...again we still have work to do--window treatments, hanging things on the wall and also recovering the dining rom chairs, but technically the dining room furniture is on loan from my parents. We have their second dining room table and chairs along with my cousin Jane's china cabinet, so I don't want to alter anything too much!

 A view of the food

 Marc lighting the candles..notice the diet cokes...so festive. haha

More food.  

We had a nice Thanksgiving, just the two of us, but hopefully we won't have to celebrate too many alone.  We are hopeful for visitors for upcoming holidays, and who knows what next Thanksgiving will be like.  We've had so many changes in the last year, perhaps there are more to come in the next year!

Decorating Inspiration

Marc and I have made very little progress on our floor project.  We have used 2 (yes two) round of 36 grit and 1 round of 50 grit sandpaper on our floor, but have at least 2 higher grit sandings to go.  I had REALLY hoped to have our floor done last week, at the end of my vacation; however, that did not happen.  Rather, I came up with a decorating scheme for the room and today, our drapes came in.  Perhaps that is the inspiration I needed to wrap the project up, but on a q3 call month, I don't know how that will happen unless Marc does it alone!  In honor of the drape arrival, I will share our plans for this bedroom:

Bedding (already purchased) is Camilla from Pottery Barn.  I recently told my mom that perhaps one day, I can still doctor while working a few days a month at PB or Williams-Sonoma to get the discount they offer their employees.  I think it would be TOTALLY worth it!

We bought a king duvet cover (on sale!) just in case one day we can fit a king-sized bed through the door, or in our case, over the porch railings of our house.  I also found some coordinating pillows at Marshalls and Target to bring out the taupe and the red in the bedding.

Drapes, also courtesy of PB, are the Peyton Linen drapes in Faded Rose.  We have 2 windows in this room, and the hardware still has to be picked out.

And finally, the paint color...Pashmina from Benjamin Moore.

Now, I have yet to paint the walls.  I wanted the floors to be finished so that there were no spills on the newly exposed bare hardwoods.  The walls in our 1930s home are plaster, so they absorb paint like crazy!  I have to do 2 coats no matter what happens or what the color is.  We tried the paint with primer in the dining room, which also required 2 coats, so I am just giving up on trying to get done in one sweep.

We still have lots to do on the room, but I am so ready for it to be done. It is actually our favorite bedroom in the house.  Large and airy with lots of natural light. 

To do still:

1) finish sanding and repair floor damage

2) Apply pre-conditioner 

3) Stain (and pick stain!)

4) Paint 

5) Find a bed...Marc and I moved from a 2 bedroom condo to a technically 5 bedroom house, although we will just have 3 bedrooms set up right now (1 bedroom in basement which we won't use until we remodel the basement and 1 bedroom upstairs that is now our office), so we just have 2 beds and must save $$ for a third!

6) Find additional furniture to go with whatever bed we pick out.

7) DECORATE!

8) Pick out hardware for the curtains!

Lots left to do.  Marc and I hope to have our house in order (including getting all the boxes out of the living room) by Christmas so we can decorate appropriately!  We will have lots of projects left, but all are long-term.  We plan to do a complete kitchen/family room renovation, remodel the basement, remodel the 3 season porch to make it an all-season room, and eventually extend the back bedroom and add an additional bathroom upstairs...seems like if we do all these things, we will make this a more permanent home!  We love this neighborhood, and if all pans out 4 years from now, I can see us staying in this house for a while.

After the floor, next project...bathroom remodel (shouldn't be too bad!)

We are going to keep the floor, rip the tiles from the wall and put up some woodwork, re-tile shower with marble tiles, and likely get a new vanity so we have some workspace, which will likely result in getting rid of the built-in make-up counter? at the back of the bathroom.  This project is next, and I really think it will be much easier than the floor. Any suggestions or ideas are welcome.  Help us!! 

Works in Progress

So, since I found out some people actually DO read my blog (thanks, Hannah!) I thought I'd post pictures of our works in progress!  We actually did start sanding the floor in our front bedroom and are making slow, but steady progress.  We had to go out and buy a handheld drum sander because the glue was so thick.  We have actually had to use 36 grit sandpaper and the glue cakes on the paper very quickly.  It is hard to believe that anyone could do such a travesty to their beautiful oak hardwood floors.  Hopefully we can get things sanded and stained and sealed this weekend.  I would also love to get to our office as well, so I can have a nice, quiet, designated spot to read and study, but we will see.  Our first priority is the bedroom and then we will go from there. The good news about the office though is that the hardwoods were already exposed.  They have a few stains, but no glue, so they should be much easier!

Here are some pictures of the progress.  I can't figure out how to put them in better order, so I apologize, for them being out of order.

Here is a comparison of the sanded vs. un-sanded floor.  Look at the difference.  Unfortunately we still have a lot more sanding to do to get things even.

This is a picture of the whole room with most of the black stuff scraped off.  Getting the light green carpet out really brightened the room.

A close up of the sanded floor along with a collection of some of the sanded particles.  We are going to use some of this to make a paste to fill the nail holes in from where the tack boards were nailed in.

Horrible picture quality (we have no overhead light in the room...another story for another post) but you can see the sandpaper and how thick that glue gets.

This is a picture after all the black stuff was scraped and before the sanding began.

This is as far as we got on Sunday evening.  We were tired and running out of daylight.

Hopefully we can complete this project this weekend.  It will take a lot of time, but we are eager to see the finished product!

Lastly, since I titled this blog post "works in progress" I will also give a small update with the dining room.  It is the only room near completion, but we still need to hang things on the wall.  Here is a sneak peak though:

This is a picture of the dining room before we moved in, so this is the previous owner's furniture.

Above is what it looks like without our furniture.  I tried to get most of the room painted before our furniture arrived so we could move the china cabinet (my favorite piece of furniture) into the house.  We now have furniture, but nothing on the walls, so I will update once we get everything complete.  Also, I think a new chandelier or at least some coverings for the lights are needed too, don't you?  We also need new window treatments, and I have NO idea when that will happen or how to pick those out!  We'll see.  Suggestions are welcome!

Bedroom Before

So it's been a long time since I have updated anything.  Marc and I are VERY and I mean VERY slowly unpacking and we have so much work to do on our house.  We are trying to do most of the work ourselves to save money.  It started with ripping out carpets.  There are hardwoods under all of the carpets in the house with the exception of the family room (previously a garage) and the "three season" porch.  Here are some before pictures . . .

As you can tell, the room (minus the paint samples) was pretty drab.  We have now ripped up the carpet, but still haven't decided on  a paint color!  It has been QUITE a process though, and definitely more than what we bargained for!  Under the carpet was not only carpet pad, but also this horrible linoleum-like layer with a felt-like layer that was GLUED to the hardwoods. 

Look at all these layers (and please excuse the ugly toes!)

After the carpet and carpet pad were removed, we had to remove the tack-board that was nailed into the hardwoods.

We had to then scrape the third layer off.  This was very laborious and took DAYS since I had to do it a bit at a time as my work schedule and integrity of my hands allowed.

This was after one afternoon of scraping.  It took another round of scraping to get the black stuff off, but just look at those beautiful hardwoods underneath! We have now removed all of the black backing that was glued to the hardwoods and now it is time to sand and refinish.  We are hoping that we can do it all ourselves and THIS weekend.  I am so eager to get settled!  Wish us luck.  Will update soon once we are finished!

Arrived in Minneapolis

Marc and I rolled into Minneapolis on Monday afternoon, just in time for a fun BBQ at one of my fellow intern's house.  It was fun to meet most of my fellow interns.  We have a great group and I am excited to start the year with them.

Marc and I are "living" at a hotel right now until our house closes.  It isn't ideal, but it is cheap, which is a benefit.  We stuffed our car with as much stuff (clothes and other necessities) as we possibly could and headed due north.  We tried to pack up as much of our stuff as we could prior to pulling out of town, but Marc (and his brother, Scott--thank you Scott) are going to finish up the rest, load and drive the biggest truck they can possibly drive to Minneapolis soon, and I am VERY eager to have our things, along with our wonderful 14 year-old cat, Max, who Marc and I are missing terribly!  We are glad that Emily is there to watch out for him though!

Here is how we left our house (and remember, we still need to SELL our house!)

More updates later as we get moved into our house!

House Hunting

Marc and I began our house hunting journey in The Twin Cities sometime in April.  It took us a bit to figure out when we could make the trip, but we eventually made one and have made 2 since--well at least I have made two additional trips!  It was definitely a learning experience.  We had to figure out what part of town we wanted to live in and to make the process longer we had to figure that out in 2 cities...Minneapolis and St. Paul!

We began our search in St. Paul.  This city seemed to have more of the older home characteristics that I wanted, but we just couldn't find the right house.  We loved character like this:

but this house was in foreclosure and was in very bad shape.

We ventured over the next day to Minneapolis and started looking around.  We finally figured out what part of town we wanted to be in, but that too came with other limiting factors.  We didn't want to live on a busy street or on a bus route, but wanted to be close to local amenities.

We finally found the perfect house, and by perfect house, I mean a house that will BECOME perfect.  We made an offer over Easter weekend, went back and forth a whole lot and then finally gave up. The guy just wouldn't budge on price.  We again became frustrated with the whole process.  We had some time to cool off, but were getting in a time crunch since I start on June 15th.  I made a quick trip to Minneapolis during my time off from school once some new listings popped up, again found a house that we loved, made an offer and again couldn't reach an agreement with the seller. This time, it wasn't the price but was over inspections.  They REFUSED for us to inspect the sewer and the chimneys...sounds fishy huh?  So after more back and forth, they still refused a sewer inspection, so we again, gave up.  

We went back to the original guy, he came down somewhat on his price and we reached an agreement.  Now we are in the inspection process and are keeping our fingers crossed.  I am just hopeful that I will have time to help Marc with the move, painting, updating, etc., and even more time to blog about it because home blogs are great to read.  I am sure it will be quite an adventure...as long as everything goes through!