Sunroom flowers

Here's what I accomplished yesterday (hint: flowers!).

 We went from no plants or flowers in the sunroom to many!

I also did this:

Hopefully they won't all die.

Bay Window Reading Nook

When we bought the house, this was the view at the top of the stairs:

Wall. Small window. That's it.

Turn right, and you face our bedroom door. Turn left, and you'll find a bathroom and the other bedroom. 

Then, a couple months ago, Gus had a great idea! He asked Victor to knock out that outside wall with the window and build a window seat with a bay window and built in book cases.

Here's what it looked like after they knocked out the wall and framed in the new structure:

Note the two different sized windows. The short one on the right (the middle of three) was the original size Victor put in for all three windows. We took one look at them and said, "Those are too small! Make them bigger." So the next day, Victor picked up three bigger windows and installed them (starting with that left one). SO much better!

Here's what it looked like with all the woodworking done: 

Ignore the mess, please.

After that photo, we got the lights installed, blinds hung, shelves filled, carpet laid, and custom mattress made.

The only thing left was covering the mattress...somehow. I bought practically a whole bolt of fabric and planned on sewing it myself. Then I realized that both my sewing machine and my sewing skills were not up to the task.

I considered taking it to a tailor but wasn't sure that was the best option since the measurements on this thing are really weird (something like 5' x 10' with odd angles).

A couple weeks ago, I finally contacted a local upholsterer who offered free pick-up and delivery! They stopped by on Tuesday and picked up the mattress and fabric, and they returned it Thursday morning. The cover has a zipper all along the back so it's removable.

And here it is tonight!

 And in the daylight:

 Next up, I need to use some of the leftover fabric (plus complementary fabric) to make throw pillow covers. Those I *will* tackle myself.

Entertainment room makeover!

At long last, here are photos of the new entertainment room. :)

(Note: Click a picture to make it larger.)

It used to be a bedroom. This is what it looked like when we moved in:

 Pepto, anyone?

That open half-door leads to the attic.

Double doors on the left wall are closets.

Then we painted it white and didn't really know what to do with it. It sat like that for a long time.

Then: White and empty

Eventually we moved the TV and two recliners in, and put the TV along that non-closet wall in the photo above.

A couple months ago, Gus and I decided to rip out that closet (left wall in photo above) and have Victor build in shelves for our TV and DVDs, and have space for Gus to display all his fun nostalgia toys.

Here's that same view now:

Now: Built-in entertainment center, wainscoting, 

DVD shelves, new paint, new ceiling fan/light

And from a couple other angles:

Then: White and empty

Now: Home-theater chairs, ductless AC unit, more shelves, 

mini-fridge to the right of the chairs

 

 Now: View from the back corner.

It's so nice! Such a great upgrade from that old pink mess.

Neato Bandito!

We had a visitor tonight. :) 

Hanging out with Hector.

 He noticed me through the window!

 Peeking through the cat flap.

Halfway in

 His target - the cat food dispenser!

He didn't find any food, so he took a few steps forward to explore...

until he saw my feet and looked up!

He quickly made his escape!

 

Here's a picture from the next night - caught red-handed!

Den: After!

Note: I've updated this post with a few pictures of my decorating attempts.

About the same time the kitchen was finished, the den was done. As a reminder, here's where we started:


And here's how it looks now!

(Actually, right now there is a Christmas wreath
hanging above the mantle.)

Fall 2012 decorating attempt

The other view, before:



Aaaand after (slightly different angle, but same idea):

 Decor #1

 Decor #2: Fall 2012 decorating attempt

 
The work's done; now I just have to figure out how to decorate!

Kitchen: After!

When we bought our house in March '11, the kitchen looked like this:

(Click photos to see larger versions.)

 

Note the brown cabinets and paneling. Also, note the geese-ridden wallpaper below the floral wallpaper adjacent to the checked wallpaper! 

 

In the picture above you can also see that the range was an electric cook-top, and the gas oven was set into the wall to the left of the fridge. What you can't see is that the range hood was broken.

Breakfast nook

You can see the brown rubber "baseboards" in this picture.

The view from the breakfast nook back into the kitchen. 

Those cabinets above the range really blocked line of sight and light. The kitchen felt very small, dark, and cramped.

About two weeks after we moved in, I spent my Spring Break following the tutorial on YoungHouseLove for painting kitchen cabinets (so very helpful!) and put on all new hardware (hinges and door/drawer pulls), and we ended up with this (forgive the mess):

Definitely an improvement, but there were still several things I wanted to change!

Just to the left of the oven was the pantry:

That pantry, while better than nothing, was cramped. However, I wasn't sure what we should/could do to use our allotted space more efficiently. (In this picture you can see our walls after we hired a company to come in and remove the 3 - yes 3! - layers of wallpaper we had failed to budge, fix the damaged dry wall, and paint.)

After living with the kitchen in that state for about 6 months, inspiration struck. I told Gus that I wanted to rip out the cupboards above the range to make the kitchen feel more open; rip out the electric cook-top and replace it with a gas range/oven combo; rip the gas oven out of the wall to the left of the fridge and expand the pantry into that space; repaint; get real baseboards; and get new counters, a deeper sink, a better faucet, and a garbage disposal. Just a few tweaks, really. ;)

In November, we hired a local handyman we knew to do the renovations for us at a steal of a price. 

Here are the results: 

Granite Uba Tuba countertops with Travertine tile backsplash

New island range hood, gas range, deep sink, awesome faucet, and garbage disposal

Breakfast nook

View from the breakfast nook through the kitchen

No more cabinets over the range!

 

Pantry after:

There is 3x the storage space now!

So, there you have it - our new and greatly improved kitchen! What do you think?

Kitchen: More progress!

Here's how it looked last night:



Note the awesome under-cabinet lighting! It's on a dimmer switch. :)


And the paint swatch sitting on the window ledge is probably the color we'll be going with for both the kitchen and den walls. It's Olympic's "Gray Beige".

Kitchen: Mid-renovation

If you recall, this is what the kitchen looked like when we moved in:

Note the geese on the wallpaper in the background.

Over Spring Break, I painted the cabinets:


After failing at removing the wallpaper ourselves, we had a company come in and strip, repair, texture, and paint the walls. We also hung new blinds, and we bought a cool bar-height table and four tall chairs for the breakfast nook. It's been perfectly fine and functional.

But this week, along with having the den re-done, we're having the kitchen updated! The impetus behind this was the need for more pantry space and the desire for a gas range and oven. For the last 8 months, this is all the pantry space we've had:

Next to the (very shallow) pantry is an unreliable wall oven. The cooktop lives on the peninsula that separates the kitchen from the breakfast nook (as can be seen in the first and second pictures).

I've had a vision of replacing the cooktop with a gas range/oven, and using the wall space that would be created by removing the wall oven for an expanded pantry.

So on Monday, this happened:


And by this evening, here's what we had:


The builder is going to build in shelves and (at some point) hang doors. It can't really be seen in this picture, but he also ran wiring for an overhead light in the pantry!

And since we're going to all this trouble, this is also happening:


No more cooktop! We've ordered a gas range/oven from Sears, and it'll be installed tomorrow. We also had him tear down the hanging cabinet from above the cooktop. Having that monstrosity out of the way has really made the room feel much bigger and lighter. (We'll have an island-style range hood installed over the stove next week.)

Note, also, that the old white peeling countertop is gone! And what do we now have in its place?

Ubatuba granite and a beautiful, deep new sink!

Tomorrow the builder is installing a travertine tile backsplash. It is going to look so beautiful when it's all done! Oh, and since the blue walls look terrible, I need to pick out a new paint color for the kitchen. Any suggestions?

I'll post more pictures as things progress!

Den: Mid-renovation

Gus found a guy who renovates houses and knows how to do pretty much everything we could ever want to have done to our house! Over the past few months, we've had him do a little work here and there, such as installing bathroom vents, moving and extending our fence, and removing the pool. Last week, we gave him the go-ahead to work on our den and kitchen. (The kitchen will be in another post.)

Our den has west-facing windows, so it gets light in the late afternoon, but it had fake wood paneling along with its unusual brick floors, so it would just absorb all light it came into contact with. I've long envisioned ripping out (or painting over) the paneling, in hopes that that would make it brighter.

Here's what the den looked like when we bought the house:

Facing south

Facing north-ish, toward the kitchen and breakfast nook.
This picture was taken mid-day with all of the lights on.

On Monday the contractors ripped out the paneling:

Looking better already!

Wednesday the hung the dry wall, taped, and spackled:

It's so much lighter!
This is at night, with the same lights as the pre-move-in pictures.

Thursday they returned to texture the walls.


Tomorrow (or maybe Monday?) it'll get primed. I haven't figured out what color to paint the walls yet, since we still have brick floors (under the protective paper) and a brick hearth.