It's Been A Long Year

Okay, so I know I promised updates forever ago. Sorry about that. A lot has gone on in the past year. It started with my husband being sent to Korea for a year and upon his return we were going to be moving. This is par for the course being a military family.
Matt helped me finish up what he could before he left and then I completed the rest and put the house on the market. The house was under contract within 24 hours of being listed. Awesome!
It was a bittersweet parting. We worked hard on the house and it paid off. But we didn't really get to enjoy the house being completed.

I did take pictures, but I have to warn you...they are pretty bad. I am going to blame it on how darn busy I was. I will try to include before pictures if I happen to have them. I am really bad about the before pictures. Sorry y'all.

Remember this?

I had made a few updates, but was still not happy.

 

Here's how it ended up!

 

I removed the cabinet doors here

I will be searching for some before pictures for the rest of the house. Until then, enjoy the after pictures!

Remodeling pics, now with more kitchen!!!

By request here are a couple more pictures of the kitchen.

Below is the area leading to the pantry/dining room/ hallway

I rearranged the kitchen moving the little desk (which I repainted green with a black top, too

cute). A perfect area for storage and microwaving!

THE REST OF THE HOUSE

Before: The dining room was ....very brown.



Retro little table and chairs



After: Painted walls and doors, new artwork

New ceiling fan, new curtains and blinds, table painted and new chair added

Before: Living room of death. I like red, really I do. But here not so much

After: Paint, cute new mirror, painted the a/c unit, and rearranged things a bit

Does this even look like the same room? I think not!

Bedroom 2 Before: What can I say? It was drab

After: Pretty as a picture

Master Bedroom Before: Blah.

Aluminum blinds that seriously needed to GO!

Water damage to the corner

After: Painted. Mirror from Kirkland's.

Another view

I found these super cute curtains at Ross for like $6.00/panel.

TA-DA! Kitchen remodel

I am finally done. It has been a long and tedious process. I am very proud of the work I have done because I did it mostly by myself. I give credit to Zach and Josh for completing the sink cutout in the plywood after I went to the ER (no I didn't cut myself with the saw, I cut myself on the stainless steel sink - those suckers are razor blade sharp) and to Josh for grouting one side of the counter top.

Before:

I don't know where to start. School bus yellow walls. Yellow and black tile. Window looking out into garage. Crappy peel and stick floor

This is an in-between pic. Note the fluorescent light fixture.

Awkward spacing left us with this little desk as a microwave cart. Are you getting sick of yellow yet? Because I did. It made me angry every time I walked into the kitchen

Everyone who saw this picture asked me why I moved the oven so far to the left. There were a couple of reasons. The first reason being that this is a gas stove, the gas outlet stuck out from the wall. When the stove was flush with the counter you could see the gas line running from the wall to the stove. When positioned like this, you don't see the line because it fits inside the back of the oven. The second reason was because I had an idea...

When I started breaking out the tiles all of the drywall came with it. I ended up installing all new drywall behind all the sink/counter top area

My Mom didn't want to replace the sink. In hindsight it might have been a warning.

This makes me want to get a bottle of bleach and a power scrubber. And BTW this is the cleanest it would come with the above mentioned.

The day before I really got down and dirty on this remodel. I had already drywalled over the window and started putting up swatches of color. I decided on Lowe's Olympic Kitchen and Bath paint in Brandied Pears (like the rest of the house) and Some Valspar mistint paint in this deep Olive color that I got for $6.00

After Pics!!! My favorite part

My goal for tiling was to eliminate the need for a tile saw. I was able to reach this goal and save myself a little bit of money. By creating this mosaic border I didn't have to cut tiles and I came out looking pretty artistic. Go me. Around the faucet I had to fit mosaic style tiles into the top left corner of each.

I got some questions about why I did not install a new faucet. Time and money. I was running low on both. If I installed a new faucet I would have to buy a new fixture and re-route the plumbing. I decided to save the time and money and say it looked retro and leave it at that.

The sink that almost cost me a nose. Not really. But it did send me to the ER for a 5 hour wait and some Dermabond.

Another view of the counters. Did I mention this was my first ceramic tile project? Evar? My idea for the bridge between the oven and counter added almost 2 feet of extra counter space and additional storage, not to mention that it is just super cute!

I know this picture came out kind of dark. But at least you can see the flooring. This is 18x18 peel and stick tile from Lowe's. I have to rave about this product a little. I chose this particular one because it was $0.88/sq ft (thrifty!). The edges are made to look like grout so it gives it a look very similar to ceramic tile. It was super easy to install.

Other things I did to the kitchen included changing out the light fixtures, ceiling fan, and cabinet hardware (hinges and handles).