Continued Home Renovations

February 19, 2010

Oh my goodness. My house is tore up! A few home decorating thoughts have turned into a month project already, with no clear ending date!



What started as a continuation of our hickory hardwood floors, that we laid 3 years ago in the kitchen table area and hallway, has turned into a larger project. Now spreading into the living room/dining room area, we also spread our renovations into the bedrooms. I’m not complaining, as I am going to love how the house is going to look, when it’s all done!

Right now, new natural cherry doors hang on the bedroom and bathroom doors where old, hollow, walnut stained, dingy and dented doors had hung. And cherry doors now hang on all of the closet doors and in our 2 pocket doors in our bedroom. The light wood has already lightened up the spaces. I noticed that lightness, as when I go into my bathroom area, I look to see if I have turned 2 lights on as the area is so much brighter.

Why stop with doors? We moved on to trim work. We are lining all of the bedrooms with cherry floor trim, and framing out all of the windows, and the 1 window seat in our bedroom. We are also trimming out the living room/dining room windows.

Did I miss anything? Oh yes, we are installing a ½ wall in place of an iron railing. We were going to put in a wood railing, but we decided that with noise from watching tv downstairs traveling up an open stairway, a ½ hall will decrease some noise.



We are repairing a large hole in the dining room floor! We had a roof leak about 5 years ago, maybe longer. We had the roof repaired, discovering that it had hail damage at the time. Leaking stopped, so we didn’t look further for damage. Then when we pulled the carpet up, this is what we found, dried but damage flooring from that water. The water had come in from the garage also, getting between the 2 walls and getting the drywall and floor wet. Even though it had dried, the damage was already done. We are lucky the floor dried and only a small amount of area was damage.

March 6, 2010
Where has the last 2 ½ weeks gone? It only seems like yesterday that I started this blog, and I haven’t posted since February!

We had the weekend of the 20th and the following Monday to continue to get ready for the flooring, then we were gone to Florida the following week for Tom’s work. We came back late on Saturday, 27th, and had Sunday to recover from a very tiring working vacation. We can’t do late nights and early mornings any more!

We pushed on Monday, March 1st, to get as much done as we could. The electricians were there earlier in the day, installing 6 recessed lights in the family room, which lay below the living room. The family room had no lights, and no windows. We had 1 large doorway that brought in some light, but not nearly enough. With the upstairs room tore up, it was time for lights. And what a difference. We love our room. 6 lights, 2 lights on 1 dimmer switch and 4 lights on the other dimmer switch! Movie night will be every night! I am really pleased with the family room. With a new sectional, with 4 reclining seats, 2 of which heat up and vibrate, no one will leave that room!



Relatives from Colorado, with 3 little boys under 6, arrived at 1 in the afternoon as my contractor was building the half wall. Construction was put on hold as we visiting with Tom’s nephew and family until Thursday morning. Family was leaving as the contractor came. He finished the half wall and repaired the flooring. On Friday, we had the dry wall work started. Did you know that this is a 3 day process? Mudding, drying time and sanding, every day for 3 days. We skipped Sunday, as we all need a rest.



But, no, I didn’t rest, as the hardwood floors were going in on Monday, so that only left Saturday afternoon and Sunday to paint the living room. The ceiling was painted with bright ceiling white paint Saturday afternoon, after I came home from the store.



I started the south accent wall Sunday morning, painting it a deep burgundy. The color I had picked out for the other walls turned out to be a light baby blue, so I had Tom pick out a light blue grey to bring home. He brought 2 colors to choose from, and the one works perfectly. I love the color of the room.



Now to finish the floors!