I HEART COUCH! (My couch anyway)

I recovered my couch at long last! And I love it! My livingroom is so mis-matched right now... and this was one big step in the right direction.

She Had Dumps Like A Truck

"She had dumps like a truck... truck... truck" Do you remember the Thong Song? I never really understood those lyrics until we moved into our home. Sisco was obviously singing about our house. It has been a full time job removing junk from this house. There are little mirrors and gadgets nailed to all the walls, musty carpets, the basement was filled with old cabinets, paint cans, and ... well junk. We have started trying to burn all the wood items to avoid more trips to the dump. But, on the plus side, I think this job is almost over and we have found a few treasures too, but here is a little look at our unexpected chore:

Kitchen Paint Job

My mini kitchen reno consisted of paint, new drawer knobs and hinges. I am still working on taking down the layers of wallpaper, so try to ignore the floral picture dictionary on the walls.
I laid out my plans for this kitchen in an old post. (see here) I think the final product is pretty close to my original ideas. This is the before picture:

A Garage Full of Must.... No More!

Our garage was a terrible mess when we first moved in. It was build on dirt, so after years and years it had sunk into the ground and rotted. The front doors were so sunk they could not be opened. So we (not me at all actually... but me dad and husband) jacked up the garage and cut off the rotten parts and put new treated wood on for the base.Above are the before pictures.
I did help out with this project though. The garage had been insulated with some kind of peg board type insulation that had gotten wet and was a big cause for the smell of must I think... I pulled them all off.
Below are some progress photos:

Pouring the concrete only took a few hours. We had lots of help from Jonathen, Derek (on his birthday!) and my Dad. (Thanks guys!!!)

There is still lots of work to do, we need to replace the rotten boards at the bottom, straighten the garage (it's leaning a few inches) and give it a good paint job.... but it already looks so much better!

Too Much Floral

I recovered our dinning room chairs. When I my husband came home and I asked him what he thought it was so easy to read his face. He was thinking the same thing I thought.... the chairs look nice, but with the outdated floral wallpaper and curtains they clashed like green plaid on orange damask. That evening I took down the curtains. I am currently working on taking down the kitchen wallpaper, a task I feel will take me until December... so for now we will have to live with too much floral.

Dream, dream, dream.... dreeeeam

My last post I showed you all of our upstairs floors... minus one bedroom. The smallest bedroom has to worst floor situation. We uncovered a pretty rough patch up job in the corner and a pipe this is about a half inch above floor level. After further investigation we believe that this bedroom was once used as a kitchen. (The cupboards kind of helped in our sleuthing) So I have a new dream... I used paint program to try and explain:
An ensuite bathroom! This is the best idea. The bathroom upstairs is kind of small, so turning this small bedroom in to a large magnificent bathroom would solve this dilemma. Plus that unused hallway space would be used for more closet space in the master bedroom... then we could have his and hers closets. What do you think? I need to a plumber up there to check out the situation before I left my imagination run away with me.
Below is a picture of the bedroom and the patch job floors, most of the carpet underlay is still there and if you look you can see that pipe.

Chaos!

We tore up all the carpet from upstairs... I haven't gotten to cleaning up the floors yet, but behind all that dust the floors look pretty sweet.

A Weeks Worth

We have been in our home for a little over a week and things are already starting to change. A big difference has been made by just having our stuff in the house. Like our bathroom... we haven't done any renovations, but just hanging up our fish picture made it feel more like our home.
But we have started doing some renovations as well. This home has an assortment of different light switch and plug-in plates, so I have started to unify them. Eventually I want to change the actual switch too.

And I have been the most busy in the kitchen. I'll just show one area for now and the rest of the kitchen is still a disaster zone. The sink area was a difficult discion in our household. I really wanted to paint it all gray, my husband wanted to leave it white. After a while he said he'd be fine with the drawers being gray... and then eventually he said he'd be fine with it all gray! So I have posted the before and after picture:

if you are thinking of moving....

here is what you would have to look forward to:

All Moved In!

... well not quite, but deffinitly moving in the right direction. Moving day was actually really fun... the packing a week ahead,... umm not so much. But now we are in our new house, figuring out what actually lies beneath the carpets, which light switch does what and where every individual item will find a home. It's been exciting. I love our home, but living in it makes my mind race. Every corner of the house is dated... but has tons of potential, so I sit and think of the countless options we have.
We don't have internet until later this week... but pictures will be soon to follow.