I'M GOING IN..........

Well I didn't want the house renovations post to be 15 feet long, so I did the outside, now i'll show you some of the inside, some pics of the girls rooms I do not have on file in my computer, i'll scan them in someday, have to find which box and album they are in!

Anyway, we had to gut every room, no insulation, a lot of studs replaced and set to code! We also are pulling out HUGE SOLID aged OAK wood planks behind the lathe and plaster (we are going to reuse as much as we can for shelves, wainscoting, and i'd love to make a harvest table for the addition!).

Let us start with the kitchen ..... first of all our kitchen is BIG it's 14 x 20 and it took us 8 months to finish (well almost finish, never did get my bench done for my nook....yet, but table & chairs work for now). Oh and THIS WAS NO FUN AT ALL!!! I had an electric single burner for a stove and a microwave on a work table for meals, lots of pizzas ordered in those days and washed dishes in a tupperware container in the tub!! GRRRRRR

anywho... so before we started it was FREEZING in there, no heat runs, not a lot of natural light, only 2 windows, one facing the garage (DUH, we changed it to overlook the backyard's beauty), ugly old white metal cabinets (there were only like 3 or 4 - reminded me of our old apt...shiver at the thought- so it wasn't hard knocking them down, sheesh!) oh and the decor was 1960's HIPPIE, flowered decals, peace love signs in BRIGHT colors, there was an old floor freezer with it's motor attached to it from the basement underneath (it was so heavy my dad SAWED it in half so we could get it out of the house!) and the floor had 8 layers to tear up! BUT........ we did it

I lucked out and got a deal on 26 honey maple solid wood cabinets, my late brother-in-law Larry boxed in my microwave with some birch....

and he did the same to the fridge distributing the weight, I didn't get a pic of the island in the center, but he customized it for me, and it's a great baking center!! He also matched the line of my hutch to the valance above my sink (which I didn't get a good pic either , sun was too bright! We added french doors which I LOVE, I chose Lodestone for the color, kind of bluish-gray and we made an archway to the future dining room....

and now on to the master suite....or I call it 1/2 suite since we added a 1/2 bath upstairs! This room was actually 3 tiny rooms, we had to knock out all the walls and there were 2 slits for windows which we promptly removed and instead put a huge 4ft window at the end of the room for more wonderful views. We added a closet too, since there weren't any in the house at all (these old houses never did, they used armoires instead)...

I had my husband paint the room with a Peruvian Violet base(which he whined and complained about the whole time, said it looked like a pimp's room LOL) then I took Candy Apple Red and made a glaze (1/2 paint to 1/2 water) and dipped a flour sack (walmart sells them) in the glaze (working about a 4ft square at a time). I dabbed and wiped randomly over the violet allowing some of the violet to peek through, using one wet, then dabbed it with a dry sack immediately to catch any drips. It took about 2 hours for me to finish but I loved the result, it has an old world textured look in maroon (i'm going to have my daughter print phrases (dream a little dream...etc) in gold on some of the walls and stamp fleur-di-lis in gold in a few random spots). My husband did a custom floor base with top and bottom shoe molding and the result is....AMAZING, I LOVE OUR ROOM!!

The crawlspace needed an entry so Gary took one of the old bedroom doors, cut it in half, removed the umteen layers of paint and stained it, added brass hinges and a hook trimmed it with the same floor molding, and it looks like it's been there 100 years! I am so happy that he does such nice work (even if he complains about it)!

well it's time to end part 2 of my house renovations......

TO BE CONTINUED.....