kitchen projects! (part 1 of many!)

ashton and i have been super busy these past few days. we've made a lot of progress on the kitchen, but we still have a lot left to do! and because of that, i'm not going to show all of the pictures on this post. here's the deal... we're replacing countertops, backsplash and the floor, as well as repainting the walls, so we didn't tape or cover anything in the kitchen when we painted the cabinets. there's currently paint all over the place, so while the cabinets look excellent, the pictures don't do them justice because everything else looks so messy right now. i'll show you some pictures of us working, and 2 teaser pictures of cabinets, and hopefully we'll be able to show the completed kitchen by the end of next week (or maybe by the end of our spring break, depending on how much time we have).

so with that being said, let's look at pictures! :)

removing cabinets and drawers, and all of the hardware that goes with them.

our door-less cabinets.

we took a little detour and removed some of the backsplash along the way.

painting the doors and drawers in the backyard.

this cabinet is actually in our laundry room, which is attached to the kitchen. it was pointed out to us that if the laundry room door is open, we'll want this cabinet to match our kitchen cabinets. so here's your sneak peek at what our kitchen might look like!

we've gone from this...

 to this...

we have stuff in our cabinets!! the bookshelf is almost cleared off. yay! :)

ashton has also put on his electrician hat this past week and worked on some projects... got the dishwasher and garbage disposal working, as well as replaced an element on the hot water heater (we apparently purchased a faulty one). 

also, i promise i help ashton with all of these projects. i'm just more concerned about taking pictures than he is... thus, why he is in most of the pictures. :) he did take a few of me, but i'm holding off on sharing those because they show more of the kitchen. we work really well as a team (if i do say so myself), sometimes splitting up a project, depending on our strengths (i put in the shelf paper, he painted touch ups) or we work together (i screwed the hinges on to the cabinet doors, he screwed the doors back on the cabinets). 

future projects...

• i ordered our cabinet hardware on friday, so that will hopefully be delivered soon so we can install all of the knobs and drawer pulls.
• remove and replace drywall where the backsplash was.
• remove the old countertops.
• i also ordered our backsplash, so that should be coming soon too (but won't be installed until after our countertops are installed). 
• we also decided to change our door knobs and hinges for our interior doors to a bronze door knob (because we like those better and it matches our exterior door knobs). we ordered those last week, and received them on monday. our bedroom and bathroom door are the only two doors that have been painted, so we installed the new door knobs on those two and are just waiting for the new hinges (coming with the cabinet hardware) to actually hang the doors back up.
• and quite possibly most exciting of all... our countertops are officially scheduled to be installed on march 1. (why, oh why, is it leap year this year? i don't want to wait an extra day!) we were originally told march 1, and then lowe's changed it to march 31, but the contractor remembered talking to me when he came out to measure about how we were very ready to have the countertops and sink installed, so he was able to schedule us early when a day opened up. yay contractor! :)

light fixtures and master bedroom.

hello again!

i am sorry there hasn't been a new post as soon as i said there would be! hopefully you'll forgive us - we've been a little busy.

ashton was in kansas last week for work, so before he left, i asked him to install the fans in the living room and bedroom. i'm not a fan of dark, and i'm certainly not a fan of dark in a house when i'm alone. well, super-achiever that he is, he installed the fans in the living room, master bedroom, and guest bedroom, as well as the light fixture in our dining room. (isn't he great?) here are some pics of him and our new lights. :)

(also, mom - that's the ledge i was talking about in the dining room.)

i also decided that i wanted to paint the master bedroom while he was gone. i think ashton was a little bit nervous about this (i tend to get paint everywhere - floor, ceiling, and in this instance - our sheets), but he humored me and off we went to pick out our new room color.

if you will remember, the bedroom was originally painted a really dark grayish blue. 

we bought our primer to cover up the blue, and we chose a green for our new color. on saturday (ashton's last full day before he left for kansas), we taped off about half of the floor and ceiling and started putting primer on the wall. we also painted one wall with the green that we had chosen to see what we thought and... ended up deciding to change to a green that was a little bit darker. 

some little primer elves decided to do a little priming themselves. i'm just impressed that they managed to paint that close to ashton without him noticing.

so on sunday, i finished taping and priming the rest of the room, and then because i was feeling so productive, went ahead and painted two of the walls. i finished the last two walls on monday. when ashton got home, we painted the door, windowsills, and trim. i'm just going to throw this out there... our paint job looks pretty good. 

after a few trips to target looking for two more panels to match the curtains we had in our old room, (which i finally found in separate trips, of course), and installing new curtain rods, our bedroom is pretty much finished. we still have a few blank walls, but we don't have anything picked out to go up there yet, so they'll just have to hang out until we get some good ideas. 

don't mind that trash on the chair. ;-)

a perfect example of one of the blank walls i was referring to. also, i have no idea what that white dot is on the wall in this picture. i promise it's not like that on the actual wall.

projects in our near future:

• paint cabinets in kitchen - should be happening this weekend. we both have monday off, so hopefully we'll get a lot done!
• paint master bathroom.

that's all i have for now! i'll post pics again once the cabinets are done. i'm soo excited about those getting painted, just not as excited about actually painting them. :)

anne

first stage of projects.

ashton and i have been working hard to make our house liveable. i mean, we've been living in it the entire time, so i guess we're trying to make it more comfortable to live in. :)

1.) hot water heater. if you know me (which you should, if you're reading this blog...), you know how important hot water is to me. the hot water heater wasn't working when we moved in, which we knew beforehand, so with some helpful info from my brother-in-law, we decided to just replace the elements and thermostats rather than purchase a new hot water heater. after a purchase of a special tool to remove the elements, and a few showers at other houses, ashton was able to get the hot water heater working. and i was extremely thankful! (fyi... the total cost of fixing the hot water heater was $50, which included 2 elements, 2 thermostats, and the tool. the cost of a new hot water heater was $250.)

2.) our appliances have been delivered! the fridge and stove have been plugged in and are working. the dishwasher is still in progress. and the microwave/vent hood is just going to hang out in the box until kitchen remodeling is done. we figured there was no reason to install it just to have to pull it down soon.

(OH... and you may notice the hole in the counter where a sink should be. yeah, that wasn't in the house either. however, one is included with the countertops. see below.)

3.) we ordered our new countertops over the weekend. lowe's is coming out to measure the countertops next week, and the projected completion date is march 1. which can't come fast enough. the countertops also come with a free sink, so we'll be kitchen sink-less until march 1. 

4.) ashton has installed new locks on our doors, which i greatly appreciated! he has also installed smoke detectors throughout the house. there were some already installed, but when we had the house inspected, the inspector told us there had to be detectors in all of the bedrooms. so we did that... and threw one up in the living room and kitchen. we like to be safe. :)

5.) because we are painting the kitchen cabinets in the very near future, we decided to not unpack everything into the cabinets yet. so... we are using a linen closet and a bookshelf that we moved into the dining room area as our kitchen pantry and storage. this is definitely a lot easier than trying to dig through boxes. 

hmm, what else have we done?

ohh... 6.) shower head! they took the shower head out of the master bathroom, which makes showering a tad bit difficult. soo.. we bought a new shower head and a little curved pipe, and now we have a fantastic shower!

future projects over the next week:

• install lights/ceiling fans in the master bedroom, living room, guest bedroom and dining room. yes, they took all of those too.
• sand and paint kitchen cabinets. (this will probably be done next weekend, so it'll be a while before you get to see those pics.)
• install a door between the laundry room and garage.
• whatever else we come up with/have time for! :)

have a great weekend! i'll check in again when we have more projects done to show you!

anne

our new house!

hello everyone! i'm sorry for the long gap in blog posts, but our lives have been a little crazy this past month with holiday travels, getting everything finalized to buy our new house, packing and cleaning the old house, etc. and let me just tell you - the process to get everything finalized to buy the new house was far from quick and easy. i have always heard usaa is supposed to be the best bank, but their mortgage department is less than impressive. and i'm just going to leave it at that. as i told my friend, tara - i refuse to blog about the mortgage experience because i don't want to relive that in the future. it was miserable.

we bought a house that was a foreclosure, so we got a really good deal pricewise. however, there's a lot of work that a.) NEEDED to be done just to live in the house and b.) we WANTED to be done just so the house is nicer. i'm going to try my best to keep up with before and after pictures and keep you updated on our projects.

with that being said, here are some pictures of our house before we even moved in. enjoy! :)

Kitchen. They took the appliances with them.

We'll be redoing the cabinets, countertops, backsplash, and floor. Soo... pretty much the entire kitchen! :)

Dining room - connected to the kitchen and living room.

Living room.

Entryway.

Bedroom that we'll use as an office/study

Guest bathroom.

Guest bedroom. (Exciting picture, I know!)

Master bedroom.

Master bathroom.

Master bathroom.

Our new house! :)