...Like a Home

Yes, our little HUD house is finally starting to look like a home! (Better yet, it's starting to smell like a home) I swear, each week we pump out more work than the last and this week a few projects got completed that have really polished the place up!

First off, the floors got finished... every photo I have of them they are super dirty and have been that way even since they were done, but still, they look great!

Tuesday night we did some more work on the counter tops and finished cutting themFriday... lucky for us, a few of our helper buddies, Justin and Colt, had the day off and we all started our weekends early working on the house.

trying the sink on for size

The semi-finished product

The counter tops are all done being cut (and with no mistakes or waste thanks to Colt's skills) but there is still a lot of work to be done on them... we still need to route the holes for the "connectors" (I don't know what else to call them), glue them and finally, seal them... seal them over and over and over again!

 Next up, paint! My mom got started painting our ceilings Wednesday night...

I had to to a panoramic shot to show the destruction that was our living room

Unfortunately, after the ceiling dried it was pretty obvious that many of the spots and stains were showing through, so I had to end up doing many touch up spots (twice) with my trusty Kilz... I've coined a term, "Kilzing"... I recommend it to anyone remodeling and old house... but I recommend Kilzing before you paint.

Just part of our ceiling... so many spots!

And James also got his own layer done on the laundry room...

Friday was a big day for painting, too! Justin, James' mom, Debbie and I got to painting the living room/great room and as soon as we started, Justin immediately blew us out of the water!

I've been contemplating paint colors for months and I was finally able to decide on a paint color for an accent wall in the living room. I am admittedly a little scared of color on walls, we painted the kitchen in our last house a bright red that angered me for almost 3 years. But I took the leap and went with a muted purple (the closet "color" to gray I could find). After I finished the two walls I was relieved.. I really like the color!

Saturday, my pops and step mom, Teresa, came up to help us with a myriad of things. First off, the guys assembled and installed our new ceiling fan...

And then we were finally able to hang the upper cabinets... they've been waiting around for so long to be hung and they finally had their day... the boys did most of the work, although I did stand back and supervise!

Next up was mounting the new oven hood...

And lastly, the doors! We set up a little station for mounting all of the new hardware and hinges and they were ready in no time...

So there they are, the upper cabinets in all of their glory... overall, I am pretty happy with how they turned out! The doors look awesome but the cabinets themselves could be improved upon. These were the cabinets that I "learned" on so they are a little more rough than all of the others, but still, I love them. And although they aren't completely finished (we have some finishing touches in mind), you get the general idea (awesomeness, obviously).

With all of this craziness going on, there was another huge project going on in the bathroom... TILE! Our tiler, Tu, spent 3 days making our bathroom beautiful (something it has never been!). Here is the bathroom, pre-grout...

(I wish I could get better shots of our bathroom but it is literally too small to fully photograph)

And here is a sneak preview, post grout... I want to save the final reveal until after we paint!

 

Yet another big project happened behind the scenes, our new windows and sliding glass door... we can't take any credit for these, but they still look great. They are the most rad windows, they slide so easy, open from both sides and you can completely take out the panes for cleaning (or as my in-laws found out last weekend, to move furniture through). Anyway, I'm obsessed with them and they just might be one of my favorite new parts of the house.

James' favorite window in the kitchen, it cranks open... also note the sweet new pendant in the kitchen that Colt installed

 (and all the while, I've still been painting the lower cabinets... more to come on them)

And finally, the last project of the weekend, the one we weren't expecting... digging trenches in the rain to avoid our house from flooding! We had a HUGE storm roll through the area and with a house with 1 out of the 4 gutters in tact, we had some significant water pooling around the house. So after a very long day of work, James and I through on our coats and boots and got to digging. Luckily everything was so wet that the digging wasn't too rough but we definitely got soaked to the bone... BUT! We successfully routed the water away from our house and saved the day!!

Wow, typing out this post really made me realize that we killed it this week, but as usual, we couldn't have done it without all of the help... special thanks to Colt, Justin, Debbie, my mom, my dad and Teresa... and to Halls for our beautiful new windows and Family Floors for our rad bathroom! We've got another looong, busy week ahead of us, can't wait to get at it!