July 2011

East Side

       It has been a very long time since I have updated my blog.  A few folks from the class reunion asked if I would add some new pictures-so I thought that I would take the opportunity today to do so :-)!  The inside of the house is almost finished, we only have painting of the moulding and doors to complete and install and Alan is building some shelves on both sides of our fireplace.  A few odds and ends and that should be it!  I will post some inside pictures when we are finished (or at least close to being finished)!  Is anyone ever really finished?
     In this picture you are looking at the East side of the house!  Alan needs to finish the elephant ear on the right side and you can see that he has some trim work to take care of around the siding.  It may be hard to see-but the siding above the window on the left side of the pictures has a shingle look to it-we are going to place this same siding on the dormers in the front as well.  As you may know, a lot of old homes had this kind of treatment (of course in wood), so we thought it would add a little character to the house.  If you remember from earlier pictures, there was an airing porch above this window with a door from the bedroom above going out onto the porch.  Although I would have loved to keep this porch-it was a wonderful place for leaking-so we decided not to keep it.  

      

Garage

 This view shows the garage facing towards the south side of the property.  You may be curious as to why we placed such large windows in our garage.  Well...my hope is to use this area (Alan found a clearance countertop at Menard's which is placed below the window) to start plants.  This is an ambitious goal for me as I have not been much of a gardener-but something that I really hope that I can accomplish!  As a kid, we often had a garden or I would go to my Grandma's house and help in the garden and I remember how much better the veggies tasted that came from the garden.  Also, since we don't have so much of a yard to keep up-it will be much more manageable!  In addition, we were able to get these windows on a super deal from a local glass business!  Towards the back you can see our new rain barrel that Alan is very excited about-me too.  Below the window-we planted a couple of raspberry and blueberry plants.  Almost all of the wood used to frame the garage was from the rafters of the old house.  Yay!                                                                                      

     Just another picture of the East side of the house.  We planted a Mountain Ash tree and added some perennials at the base.  Towards the back you can see a basement window-Alan needs to add some trim to that.

East Side

 Obviously this is a picture of the front of the house which faces the North.  We really enjoy sitting out on the front porch-it is nice and cool.  I have scraped and primed all of the wood on the front and the front porch has received it's second coat-I just finished that today.  The rest of the trim on the front needs a second coat of paint as well.  I love the creamy color.  On the second floor you can see the dormer area and this is where the shingle siding will be placed.  We also installed a new screen door in the cranberry color.  The front two large windows will remain-however Alan will be installing sash kits in each of the sections so that we can open the windows-I'm still baffled that not one window in the Dining Room or Living Room was operating.  Strange!  Although you can't see it in this picture, Alan has added an awning window on the West side of the house and will add the other awning window soon.

Perennial Garden

     This is my new perennial garden-located on the south side of the property.  You can see our neighbor's house in the background.  They are terrific neighbors....Robert and Denise :-)!  I have to brag a bit regarding these perennials-several I picked up at Fleet Farm on clearance for a .05/each.  I'm also appreciative of all of the offers for free perennials to add to the yard-and I promise I will ask you for these "freebies".  Thanks!

 From this view you can see a bit closer the front of the house.  The gutter on the house is temporary and will be replaced by a cream color gutter as soon as Alan finishes this side.  On the right side of our house you can see another neighbor's house-Sherry-she has been so inviting as well.  We appreciate her and her family.

Petunias in the window box-original window box minus the broken birds that were attached.

      Here you can see a picture of the garage.  I am so proud of my bricks that I cleaned.  I think that they look terrific!  It is nice that we were able to match the brick.  The mortar is as close as we were able to match it.  We have some lights to install on either side of the garage door.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!  Our goal is to complete the outside and get the grass planted in fall.  Keep your fingers crossed and then it will be time to focus on finishing the inside.  I really love our Little Brick House in Manitowoc-it feels like "home". 

I'm loving the floors!

This weekend I hope will be very productive.  We plan on painting the kitchen and the laundry room.  The floors for these room will be in next week-so we need to finish these rooms first.  We have decided on all of the wall colors which seemed to take forever.

As I was cleaning the bathroom tonight-I was about to throw away a light fixture that I though was just a piece of junk....it was actually the ceiling light fixture from the bathroom that was a temporary sconce quick fix while we were working.  I realized that it was painted over porcelain.  After cleaning it up-a beautiful white fixture with two black accent rings-what a find!  We will use that fixture for the entry way between the kitchen and the garage.

To the right, you can get a glimpse of the tile in the master bathroom shower.  It is a black with white veining 12 x 12 tile.  We will be using a off white gray for the grout on this tile.  The base of the shower and the bathroom floor will be white with a border of black tile (2" x 2").  We also will add a sealer on the shower tile so it will look a bit shiny!

 I am LOVING the color of our "new" wood floors.  The 100 year old maple looks really pretty.  Left,  you can see the floor in our bedroom.  A few days before we move in, Joe will add a final coat of finish.

 This picture shows one of the walls in the office-I am AMAZED at how well this room is turning out.  It is the room that was in really tough shape with all of the cracks.  It looks perfect now!

This is the ceiling in the living room.  We decided to keep the patterned walls in the living room, foyer and dining room.  I think it will make a nice contrast to our new plastered ceiling.

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel :-)!

Guest Bedroom, North Window

 It is exactly one month since the last time I updated the blog.  As many of you know, this has been a difficult time for our family this past week.  Working on this blog is quite relaxing-so it is a good time to post some pictures.  The pictures for this post are from the last few weeks-and I can't wait to for you to see the changes that have occurred since these photos were taken.  Within the last couple of days, almost all of the plastering has been completed, the first floor wood floors are ready for their final coat of polyurethane and we will begin painting the walls next week.  Our move in date is scheduled within the next few weeks-I am SO EXCITED!  The following pictures show board that has been hung as well as taped/mudded areas.

Guest Bedroom-East Wall

Closet for Guest Bedroom

Upstairs Hallway-Looking at the Master Bedroom

Guest Bedroom-North Window

Master Bedroom-North Window

Most of the upstairs flooring looks like this-just wait until you see the "magic" of refinishing!

Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom Looking into Closet

Master Bathroom Shower

Master Bedroom Closet

Staircase/Landing

Another Picture of the stairs leading down to the landing

Second set of staircase-Alan cut out the wall above the black board-it is much more open from the hall to the kitchen.

Another view of the removed wall-what a difference!

 This is view of part of the kitchen.  In my opinion, it has been the most challenging part of the renovation.  The fruit wallpaper border was fairly easy to remove.  However, the 50 year old wallpaper was EXTREMELY challenging.  The wallpaper had been painted over; so after using the warm water/soaking method, I tried the liquid fabric softener-neither worked.  So, I tried a hot gun which melted the paint and loosened up the wallpaper-but it still came off in chunks.  The best method.....score the wallpaper, soak the area with the liquid fabric softener, let set for about 15 minutes, heat the area-and easy pleasy (yay right)-the wallpaper came off.  You will notice the lovely remains of years gone by.  Yellow paint with a lovely blue scalloped boarder, below that -pink paint, green paint, white paint.  What a mess! 

Another view of the kitchen!

You will notice on the left that there was quite a bit of glue left on the wall from the removal of the old tile backsplash for the stove-all of this is now neatly plastered over-check out my next blog for updated pictures.  No, we are not keeping the water heater in the kitchen.....we have a new energy efficient tankless water heater-immediate hot water.

New Windows above the buffet.  You will notice on the right one of my two Christmas decorations I hung on the wall.

Dining room-I tried this color on the wall-I don't care for it.  I'm going to try grey next-hopefully that will look better.  On the right side of the arch you will witness my second Christmas decoration ("Everytime a bell rings-an Angel gets her Wings!"

Dining room-playing with the paint.

Same picture-better view.

Trying different stains on the floor.....and the winner is:  the second from the left!

Other options for floor stain.

This is the doorway for the front closet door-we have plastic on it now to keep the cold air contained.

Fireplace....well-right now-a hole in the wall!

Living Room

Living room

Looking down the hall.

Office-this is the room with the most issues.  There were quite a few cracks in this room (not from the move-but previously).  Also, the floor in this room looked in tough shape.

Another picture of the office.

Another picture of the office.

Again....the office.

Downstairs bathroom-pretty easy to remove the map wallpaper from this bedroom.  Do you like the dark green painting with the black and yellow wall tile and the blue and salmon floor tile-ummmmm......

Another view of the bathroom.

And another view....Kohler sink here and in the kitchen!  Buy local/salvage local!

Can't wait to have coffee on my front porch with relatives, friends....myself!