Laying It Down

After looking at a subfloor for over a month it was a welcome project to lay down flooring. We had purchased this flooring when we first moved into the house. We chose a laminate option in a pecan color. We didn't want to try and match the original 100-year-old hardwood because we knew it would never look right and knowing that the kitchen was already going to be a style changer in the house, we didn't mind such a difference.

We got our flooring at Home Depot at a great price. We chose a floating floor system for the simple install and for the fact that it can be easily removed if someone after us were to want a change. We chose a much thicker plank than what we have in the rest of the house. The original hardwood is just over 2" and runs front to back in the house. As another precaution to avoid the potential "matching" issue, we ran the kitchen floors opposite in a right-to-left direction. 

Because nothing about this house has been simple, we had to deal with a leveling issue before laying the floor. When the subfloor was originally laid it overlapped the old floor where the kitchen addition and the original house meet. Under the walkway in the photo below was the very obvious lump. With help from my Dad, the plywood subfloor was cut in place and a self-leveling cement was poured to fill the gap removing the original lump. In the picture on the left below, you can see the seam between the subfloor and cement. 

   

We thought it would be fun to leave a note hidden somewhere in the house. What better place than under a floor we hope will be there for years to come! 

 

We started along the sink wall. We made sure to put flooring under our appliances so they could easily be pulled out. We learned that was necessary when we first moved in and had to pull the dishwasher out. The original flooring was laid up to the dishwasher and it was miserably hard to get the appliance out of its cubby. We didn't want to run into that issue again, so we made sure to complete the flooring under both the dishwasher and refrigerator. 

   

We started with a full length of flooring and from there decided on a system. We didn't want it to be an every other row pattern so we did a three row pattern instead. It's still a bit more perfect and planned looking than I prefer but overall we had very little waste and it's very clean looking. 

         

You can see in one of the pictures above what the view was from standing in front of the sink through to the front of house at this point in the project. We feel we made the right decision on floor color and layout when looking through the house as a whole. As we move forward we are working on updating the entire feeling of the house. We are going from lots of warm colors and flat paint to cooler colors and a mixture of texture!

We are happy with the outcome! It makes me say "Ooooo lala, look at that pretty, hide-all-the-doggy-dirt, flooring" whenever I walk in the room!

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More to come, as always! Check back in again soon!

Topping It Off

In continuation of our kitchen project (which we've talked about here and here) our next step was cabinet fronts and countertops. Believe me when I say that there is nothing simple about the initial process of building the cabinets. Now of course, it's doable with patience but it's not simple. Thankfully, Ikea gives some relief towards the end and makes the process of hanging and installing fronts very simple. It's almost a click-in system, with few screws for support, which at this point in the project was very welcome. Nothing like an easy finish. 

You can see above where we were after the first day of installation. By the end of the next working day we had closing doors and drawers. We waited to put the pulls on for quite a while because we couldn't decide exactly where we wanted them, decisions decisions. 

The next step was the countertop. It was a bit scary to start cutting because we had a certain amount of space to cover and only so much countertop. At first we were going to join the corner by butting one piece up to another. My Dad mentioned that because of the wood grain we wouldn't be pleased with that and so we changed our minds to the angled corner cut you can see below. In order to make sure we did everything correctly, we used some 1/4" plywood to create templates that we could lay on top of the cabinets to ensure we were making correct cuts! Way better to make a mistake on a $10 slice of plywood than a $100 slice of butcher block. Practice makes perfect after all. 

   

Hunter and I watched through the window with Star Wars characters cheering on my Dad and Rob as they made the scary cuts. Always best for me to stay away during these moments, I tend to be a gasper when things can go wrong. Of course they made all the right measurements with the help of their template. With all the pieces cut, they were laid out, screwed in from the underneath and glued together at seams.

 

Once all the counters were secured we moved onto giving them a finish. We did quite a bit of research about this. We had to decide if we wanted this to be a true working butcher block or just in appearance alone. We liked the idea of a full seal which would remove our ability to stain or make water rings on our new surface but a lot of the products that we found and read about weren't food safe. While that might work for some people, we were not comfortable with a non-food-safe surface in the kitchen especially when the kiddos are involved. We ended up conditioning our butcher block counters instead of sealing them; this is something that we have to do once in a while but it's no harder than applying lotion after a shower. It makes the counters resistant and water pools on top instead of soaking right in BUT rings and marks do form. Thankfully most of those marks are easily removed with a light hand sand (read: wiping counters with sandpaper) and another coat of conditioner. While making our choice we read that wood, because it is porous, will eventually "fill up" with the conditioner and actually become waterproof like butcher blocks in butcher shops used to! We liked the idea that it wouldn't be such virgin wood forever and it wouldn't only get prettier as the time went on. 

At this point we were so pleased to have a most of a kitchen again. We still had finishing touches on the cabinets in the form of finishing sides (above cooktop and in corner) and adding pulls but the overall feeling was beginning to come together. It was so nice to have a sink on the main floor again - it's amazing how much you can miss that! 

My Dad was so helpful during the countertop process, he's awesome and teaches us so much! Hunter also LOVES when my Dad comes over - he gets to have a bit of play time in his work truck and spend time with his Buppa!

Up next is flooring! Stay tuned!

the clock is ticking

As I write this (or part of it) my sweet two year old boy is napping and I can feel baby #2 doing flips and kicks like a crazy little ninja. To say that we are excited for this little one is an understatement and the time is really flying! 33.5 weeks and our little guy is growing like a weed, so much so that my Braxton Hicks contractions, which were non-existent with our first son, are definitely a real life factor! 

Needless to say, we have started preparing for our littlest boy's arrival. Let me assure you though, it's a much different preparation than we did for baby #1! With our first, we were so prepared with the nursery being practically ready by this point in my pregnancy. That is so not the case this time. We are as prepared as we can be as a family but physically this little guy's room is unpainted, obviously undecorated and unfurnished (though we have the furniture and will be picking up soon!). Last week I decided that I would at least start washing all the baby clothes so that even if he didn't have a room to call his own (were he to arrive early) he would at least have clothes to wear! Oh little brother, we love you more than you know but it's much harder to get things done now that we have a kiddo running around! 

This momma does have a good idea of how the nursery will end up though. At least I am good at making plans! Ha! We decided that we wanted another boyish room but had a hard time getting our son's room out of our head. We love the grey/wood/orange color scheme for a boy but we wanted these brothers to each have a space of their own (for now at least!) We decided to use a much, much lighter grey and a dark green tone. I was choosing between greens and when one had "Hunter" in the title I couldn't help but choose it! 

I painted a corner to see how the colors would meld together when they go up and so far so good. The dark green will only go on one wall and a window cubby while the rest of the room will be the lighter grey. I'm not usually certain about the lighter colors but once it hit the white wall, I knew it was the right choice to warm up the space. Again, this room is painted with a flat white paint (like the rest of the house) and it's so scratchy... who even uses flat paint for a whole room?? A fresh coat of paint will go a long way to modernize this room! The picture below is one coat with a paintbrush, I think that once the green is applied with a roller it should be nice and smooth! 

We are going a bit more rustic in this room than we did in our first son's nursery. A bit more texture mixing for a cozy feeling that will be different than the feeling one room over. With some wood framed watercolors, a geometric wool rug, wooden accents and metals mixed in, we are excited to see what happens as everything comes together. Below you can see the first thoughts/purchases for this room! 

After some additional decisions, purchases and a whoopsie-two-year-old-accident that landed one of those framed prints on the floor with broken glass (no worries, no one was hurt!) we have honed our design and landed on a final idea for the room. 

   

The chair was a gift from my mom and it's so comfortable! The colors needed to be taken into account for the room because it certainly isn't neutral, though not quite as dark as the photos above are showing. The rug - while neutral - is a nice fun pattern that will liven up the space while being a cozy space to play with our boys! The broken glass was removed from the frame (which is harder than you would think!) and we are going to put this little one's name over it. We didn't want to give away any spoilers so I laid out "BOY" for now to give the general idea. And who doesn't love a little stuffed taxidermy creature, man oh man they are so cute! 

We also have a couple DIY projects for this baby's room. We wanted to make a few things with our own hands since we did that in our first son's room with the arrows above his crib and his side table! We are going to once again make the wall decor that will go above the crib and instead of a side table, since the space is configured differently, we are going to make a shelf that will hang on the wall to store the necessities of rocking chair time! 

   

These photos will serve as our inspiration but we will be making them our own based on color and size requirements for this room. We like how the yarn wall art is rustic but soft which will reflect well on the watercolors and other art we have ready for this room. The shelf is far from traditional and adds a little flavor while being completely useful! 

We will be starting on this room little by little in the next days! Hopefully at the end of the next five or six weeks when this baby is ready to meet us, we will have a space all his own that he will live in and love for years! 

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For those of you who have been following along, here is a sneak peek of the kitchen. Yes, we are still putting in the finishing touches so the full reveal is yet to come but we wanted to give a little glimpse into the kitchen we are daily living in (and loving)! This photo was taken weeks ago so it's a few steps behind our current situation, but the counters are so clean and pretty so I had to use it! ;) 

You spin me right Round Room, right round

After almost two months of walking by the paint swatches I had tested on the walls, I finally buckled down this past weekend and (nearly) finished the Round Room. We will come up with a better name for it at some point but for now, we'll stick with it. 

This room was beat up. There were scuff marks and weird discolorations all over. It was pretty overwhelming considering the entire room is approximately 10x10. We're honestly not sure how this room was utilized by the previous owners but it seems to have been used a lot. Please don't judge the fact that we lived with it in this state for 4 months before painting; neither of us wanted to do anything twice. 

    

I painted this room using a Sherwin Williams paint that I picked up from a mom2mom sale on Facebook for a whopping $5. It wasn't a full gallon but there was plenty to paint this size room and there is plenty left. It was very close to the color I had wanted so considering I saved about $40, I went for it. As I said above, I would consider this room nearly finished because it still needs a quick coat of white on the trim and ceiling! I didn't do that this time because I wanted it to feel settled after the weekend.

   

These are opposite angles of the same windowed wall but you can still see how much brighter the whole room looks with a cooler color. Not to mention the new windows that we had installed. WOW. What a difference a whole new house of windows makes. The old ones were 100 year old original, single pane wooden windows. They had been painted over quite a few times and they were impossible to get clean. Out with the old and in with the shiny, bright and new!!

   

The view from this room to the living room is also much nicer now. The coolness in this space and the warmer tones in the living room play well together. There are some elements that we crossed over (dark wood, modern but soft art, and patterned rugs) so that the adjoining rooms wouldn't look bizarre when pictured or viewed together. I think we accomplished the general mission! 

This is one of my favorite walls in the house. I am a sucker for succulents (pun intended) and though I am pretty decent at keeping them alive, I opted for some artificial pieces for this wall. I think the geometric shapes of the planters and the softness of the print tie in very well together. There is also a small glass urn terrarium that I put together a while back sitting on the buffet - I'll post how I did that another time. 

This is my favorite room so far. It ties in nicely with our Dining Room and when the "den" and kitchen are completed (hopefully soon) there will be a very nice flow throughout the main floor of the house! 

Expanding

Apologies for our delay in posting. Since our last post on Mother's Day we took a little break from house projects (after a whirlwind weekend of work on the Dining Room) and then found out that we were going to be parents AGAIN.

We made our official announcement on the Fourth of July which was pretty fun! Good timing and a clever announcement by Rob!

From the time we found out in late May until about a week ago, I wasn't feeling so hot. Nothing as severe as some women have had (thank God and bless those sweet mommas) but definitely enough ookiness to not want to tackle DIY projects.

Now that I'm over the first trimester hurdle and regaining some energy for more than everyday stuff, we are making lists again. Oh, how I love lists!! (where's the heart eye emoji when you need it!)

Here's what we have up our sleeves and what we hope to accomplish before this baby comes in January!!

• install new kitchen cabinets and countertops
• new flooring in kitchen
• shiplap in kitchen
• paint den/desk area
• paint "round room"
• paint foyer and stairwell
• replace staircase runner (if time allows)
• paint playroom attached to Big Brother's room
• paint new nursery

We will be busy but it will be nice to get a lot of this done before there is also a big baby belly in the game as well! 

History Is Repeating And We Wish It Wouldn't

So in our first home, within weeks of moving in we had some issues with our dryer smelling like a campfire. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, just a filthy dryer vent that needed a cleaning and it was back to new. Unfortunately, history has repeated itself at our new house and this problem didn't have such an easy fix. 

The good thing was that we learned from the first house issue. When we put the first load of wash into the dryer here at the new house, we hung out for a bit and made sure to keep our noses alert and boy, are we glad that we did! After less than 10 minutes the basement started to stink like burning fibers. Not exactly what you hope to smell. 

We switched the dryer off and immediately pulled it away from the wall. Oh my, we couldn't really believe our eyes. The problem was obvious. The gas line (a problem in itself but we'll get to that later) had rubbed through the foil accordion-type tube leading to the solid vent. Because of this hole, there was a thick layer of lint on everything behind the washer and dryer. 

      

These pictures don't honestly do the thick layer of lint justice but I will tell you that I could peel the lint off the floor in 1+ inch thick sheets. Yuck!

After scraping the floor and vacuuming up what was loose on the walls and back of the machines we left both machines unplugged until the professionals could come in to look at the issue. Here's what they came up with: the dryer vent had  too many right angles on the way to the exterior vent. The more right angles in a vent, the more chance for lint to get stuck and problems to happen. We had to re-route the vent and in order to do that, had to take out some drywall and the cabinet above the washer and dryer. Rob was channeling Chip Gaines on demo day! 

   

   

Of course the first space we broke into was where the water lines were running (something you wouldn't know by the exposed pipes - another weird choice) and so we had to move over and break into the next section. The insulation came out and the ceiling also had to be exposed to move the gas line. The professionals moved the dryer vent into the space where you can see the insulation above and they moved the exit point on the outside of the house as well. Now there are only two turns (as per usual) and it's a solid pipe so there are less places for lint to get caught. The professional said that it was a miracle a fire hadn't started because it was clearly used for a long time with the broken vent. 

We still need to have the gas line rerouted so it isn't as long as it is now (something to look forward to... ha!). This house is proving to need quite a bit of work to say the least, but we LOVE this house and are having a fun time making it our own!

Until next time, thanks for catching up!

a place to sit

Rob once again brought one of my visions to life! It was a little different working on a project with a six month old around the house so most of the construction and work fell on Rob who did a great job! 

In our small house we have to be creative when it comes to our use of space! Our kitchen is one of the places we were a little uncomfortable in because there was no space to sit while we were in there together, feeding the babe or making dinner. We also don't have a lot of storage in our small kitchen and there are some items that we have to bring up from the basement every time we want to use them (read: crockpot, griddle, dutch oven)

Out of this, came the idea to add an eat in area to the kitchen. A bench was the original idea and after looking through lots of ideas we decided to put forth a little extra effort and make it into a storage area - imagine how thrilled Rob was that my plan kept getting more and more grand haha! 

I'll post the "step by step" below but will not include measurements because each space is different anyway! If anyone would like more details - please contact us!

Materials:
- 2 sheets of plywood
- 6, 8ft 2x4's
- 1, 1x4 (poplar)
- 2 Piano Hinges
- tack nails
- wood screws
- wood glue
- stain
- polycrylic

We removed the existing moulding where the bench would be installed so it would be flush against the wall. 

Using 2x4's that were measured and cut appropriately, Rob laid the base of the bench - we laid a base instead of trimming in the sides in order to end up with the most storage space we could get. 

Once the base was laid, Rob cut one of the sheets of plywood down and installed it as the floor of the storage compartment. 

Next, Rob built in the vertical and horizontal supports on the back walls. There wasn't a great need to measure the distance between vertical supports because the project wasn't very large - we would recommend every 18-24 inches if the project is larger. 

Rob then screwed in the plywood "fronts" of the bench so the final supports would have something to be secured to.

In this picture you can see where Rob installed the cross supports behind the front walls of the bench, again this was a decision we made based on the size of the project. We decided that adding wood in the corner to make a square would create the best support for that space since the lid would not be lifting there. 

The smaller pieces of wood (the poplar that we had ripped) was cut to be the part of the lid that goes against the wall. We needed to add something that the hinges could connect to.

Once everything was cut to fit, I stained the lids and poplar back boards. I decided three coats was the magic number and gave me the color I wanted. I let it dry for 24 hours before we installed. 

Before installing the lids (while the stain was drying) I painted the fronts with white, kitchen grade paint and stained the tops of the frame with the same color as the lids so that the seams would be less visible. 

We started the the process of laying down the lid by glueing and then tacking in those poplar boards along the walls. Then we installed the corner square of the lid (again with glue and tack nails). It was all easy peasy and fitting nicely. 

Then came time for the hinged tops to be installed. Let me tell you, PIANO HINGES ARE THE WORST. We centered and screwed them into the lifting lids first because we wouldn't have been able to get to them otherwise. Can you imagine how exciting it was to hold a large wooden lid level and have someone else try to screw it in at the same time? It was thrilling. We just had to get one screw in on each end and then Rob could handle the rest - never have two screws been more difficult! 

Overall it was a pretty simple project and we are so proud of the result! Rob did an awesome job and it looks better than I could have imagined! We still need to install the finishes on the face but I'm not sure what I want it to look like so we will leave that unfinished for a while. 

It's been so nice to have baby boy's big high chair stand out of the way. Now that we are able to put that actually seat right on the bench, we save lots of space in the kitchen! 

changing as a family of three

Our son, was born in late November and we have had such a joyful 7.5 weeks with our sweet boy!

It is an amazing thing to be a new mom. I learn things about our new family, my sweet son and myself every single day. I have learned what grace and patience feel like when there is no forethought behind giving or receiving either one. I have realized that I am now filled with such pride and joy when someone shows love to my son and coos over him. Becoming a mom is immediate: physically our son came into the world at 5:03am and at the same moment he leaped into my heart.

My days are now filled with cuddles, feedings, diaper changes, laundry and gazing at our baby's sweet expressions. Eventually I will get back to days that don't include hours of Netflix, late night feedings and "first time" outings as a mommy/baby duo; but for now I am happily settled in these early days of scrambling for the camera every time a smile crosses my son's face and waiting for his first giggle and not wanting to miss any of it.

We are exceptionally happy as a family of three.

Previously, this blog was all about the DIY projects that Rob and I have taken on in our new home. We have enjoyed all the projects that we have done so far and documenting them has been a great way for us to share some tips while having a place to keep memories of our first house! Now we have new memories to add, to remember, and some that we will want to share with those of you that want to know what's happening in our little family. So this blog is changing, we are no longer just renovating our home but our whole life and we are learning fun tidbits and sharing along the way.