D O N E !

Hi!  After 4 months, it looks as though we are finished with our remodel!  Hallelujah!   I am so ready to move on!   We still have some furniture to purchase and I need to decorate the walls etc...but that will come with time.  I'm not too worried about that.   Well, here ya go.... remember how it looked before:

the range is now on this wall

over view...oh how i hated those floors! when i washed the floor the
grout would smell like lake water!  nasty! 

this wall was opened up and the fridge is now here

this is now the "butlers pantry" beverage area

looking into the mud room.  this doorway is now opened up
and at the same height as the other doorways 

new mudroom

opening up the doorway made a huge difference.  

girls artwork went back up!

mudroom sink

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

bad lighting...gloomy day but the space is so much brighter now!

Add caption

Add caption

Add caption

opened up Terry's office.  (we need furniture in this room too)

need wall "shtuff"  

bad picture...but front door.

Add caption

looking from front door. to left is the front room and far right is dining room.
(the chair in the pict. is a 4.99 Goodwill find that I repainted and recovered.) 

we didn't do anything in here....just added new base trim for now.  need to paint
(bad photo, the flash went off so there is a funky shadow on the right) 

dining room....need curtains to soften the space. 

 I didn't take photos of the front living room...we have our old dining room set in there for now, until we sell it.
So, there ya have it.  I couldn't be more happy with how it turned out.  It's definitely a challenging process to go through.  It will test your patience and sometimes your relationship....but it was so well worth it!  
Thanks for letting me share this process with you!  It's been fun documenting the ups and downs along the way.
Hugs~

Held Up & Just Our Luck!

Good Morning~  Thought I would pop in and give a quick update....I haven't posted new pictures of our progress because there really hasn't been much progress!   Well, let me back up.   There has been progress just not quality progress!   We finally had the tile installed prior to Christmas.  We are very disappointed in how the tile was installed!  I'm not 100% convinced the guy who installed our tile does it for a living???   When someone is hired through your contractors you would think they would make sure to hire someone who is going to do a good job!  From the second he walked into our home he seemed very unsure of himself.  (maybe he was just shy, I don't know?)   He didn't come with the proper tools...ie. wet saw!  But rather a small hand held saw, probably appropriate for some tile jobs.  The tile we chose for the majority of the backsplash was a natural stone, gray tones in a "subway tile" formation.  So, the tiles came on a 12x12 mesh sheet BUT the tile shop still suggested the need for spacers in order to keep the tiles level and even etc.... We bought all of the necessary supplies for the job.  Well, low-and-behold the tile guy didn't feel the need to use the spacers.  Evidently he felt he had "skillz" and it was beneath him to use spacers.  Guess what....Joey should have used the spacers we provided!  I have roughly 80 pieces of blue tape marking the areas where our tiles are not evenly spaced or crooked!  Above the ranges we used the glass tiles (pictured in a previous post) and a 2" framing tile.  He pretty much messed that up too.  The frame is not evenly spaced.  The corners are not mitered nicely (he used his handy-dandy hand saw).  This area should have been a feature rather than a cluster *&%$#!.   We ran out of tiles, so he was unable to finish the butlers pantry area....the tiles that are installed have not been grouted yet, which is a good thing because the way it looks now, is not acceptable!  So chances are they'll be ripping it out and replacing it.  Which, I dread and wish did not have to happen BUT I think by adding grout is only going to make those uneven/crooked areas look even worse!!!!  
I'm still trying to get our house in order.  The holidays threw me off.  And now not having the kitchen complete I just don't feel I should decorate anywhere.  The office area, front room, dining room, 1/2 bath and mud room all need to be decorated.  But I need to take down the Christmas decorations first before I drag with anything else.
Still waiting for our faucet.  It's been a month now!  They installed it but it leaked water from the hose so they had to re-order that....well, guess what....when it "supposedly" came in, it came in the wrong finish.  Keep in mind our sink arrived and that "supposedly" came in scratched so they had to re-order that....which held up the install of the granite.  Are we seeing a pattern here????
Anyway....that is where we are at right now.  Unfinished & Unhappy with the way things are panning out!   You pay an arm-and-a-leg for labor, products and "contractors" fees and you end up with unsatisfied customers!  Makes me crabby!  
I'll post pictures....soon, I hope!

So Close....I Can Taste It!

Hey!  It's been a while since I've posted...thought I should check in and show the progress.  The last time I posted it was Thanksgiving weekend and the floors were being done.  I neglected to post photos of the floors!  We love how they turned out!  "Coffee" color was definitely the way to go! (Although, in the pictures the floors look kind of light....they're actually much darker than they appear in the photos, not sure why?)    So, fast forward a week-and-a-half....the appliances were installed this week along with the plumber showing up to install our toilet/sink and all of the other goodies.  There are still a few things that need to be tweaked... but I'm just happy things are finally coming together and the end is in site!

we were going to use this glass tile throughout the entire backsplash but once the granite
was installed we decided it would be too busy with the smaller pieces of glass/stone
next to the granite w/ the smaller flecks.  so we're going to use this as an accent
behind the range and use a natural stone subway tile as the main tile.  

microwave drawer.  i had my reservations about the drawer, just because you have to
push a button and wait for it to open rather than grab a handle or push a button and
have it pop open.  but i have used it a few times now and i love it so far!!!

 range

beverage fridge.  someone from the manufacturer has to come out and adjust the doors.

 the fridge (our new table and chairs in the background...although we only have 2 of the 6 chairs)

sink.... of course the handle of the faucet is defective and leaks
when you turn on the water.  so now we wait for a part or a new faucet all together!

comes w/ a cutting board, garbage tray and then the bowls for your chopped goods.  below the sink there is a
storage tray for all of the equipment so it doesn't sit in the sink all of the time.  (obviously)

the only thing that went back into the 1/2 bath was the toilet (but the handle is new. ha!)
they broke our sink when they were taking it out so we picked out this one as a replacement.
i picked up a new light, faucet and mirror.

I made grill cheese sandwiches on the griddle!   We can't use the hood yet so I don't dare make anything
that might smoke.  ha!  But I'm making a Chicken Pot pie tomorrow!  

So there ya have it!  Almost done.  But seems like we still have so many little things to fix or touch up!
Being as the painting crew we had in here was AWFUL, I refused to have them back in to do touch ups or to finish caulking the base trim etc...so I am doing that all myself.  Very time consuming but I have to say I have done a much better job!  :)  The next few days are full of people coming and going....including a cleaning crew!  Thank goodness!   I'm hosting a holiday work get together the following week so we need to be done!   It's hard to believe Christmas is just 17 days away!  Yikes~

Happy Thanksgiving! & Random stuff....

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!  We are spending this Thanksgiving without family but are so thankful to have good friends who let us crash at their lake home!  Our hardwood floors are in the process of being stained.  They started sanding yesterday and put the first coat of stain on.  We stopped by the house around 7 last night and peeked in through the windows while they finished up the staining.  I LOVE the color!   I had to swing by this morning to let them in the house.  I was in the house for maybe 15 min. and could hardly tolerate to be in there any longer!  The odor was so strong!  I opened up a few windows upstairs, hoping to keep our poor cat (Keno) from getting sick!

the view from the lake house!  :)

I only have a few new photos to share....

i finished painting the bathroom last week and have to say i did a much better job than the "professionals"!
the wall color of both the hall and bath look darker than they really are in person.  the bathroom
color is "gray owl"  from benjamin moore

just the inside of the pantries.  

grabbed my camera one morning while i took Fargo out... it was so foggy and kind of "eerie" outside!

our eat in kitchen light fixture.  (crate and barrel)  i need a different bulb for it. 

just another "eerie" picture.

I'll be back next week with lots of updates.  (I hope)  Granite and appliances should be going in.. although our sink won't be in until the 28th so that counter won't be in until that comes in.  And hopefully they'll get the bathroom put back together...I think we've figured out our tile backsplash too!

We're getting closer!

Greetings...Just thought I'd pop in for an update.  We've had painters in since last week....what a nightmare that has been!   We arranged to have painters come in ourselves rather than go with our contractors painters....HUGE mistake!!!!  We thought we would save a few bucks etc.... We hired Certa Pro, who had good reviews when I researched them on line... Long story short, everything is fixed now, after a week of painting!  
Look what showed up a few days ago...

the goods!

in the meantime, the electrician put in the new outside lights, nothing too fancy
but puts the old ones to shame!  (remember the white ones....)

soooo, this is the dining room light fixture!!  i LOVE it!  terry and i were both
skeptical and were on the verge of not getting it.  but the salesman talked us into taking it home,
put it in the space and see what we thought.  turns out we love it!
our other lights are being delivered on the 20th....

we love the shadow it casts on the ceiling!  it looks so much better in person!  (i still
have to paint the medallion on the ceiling)

the new chair rail and framing in the dining room....so glad we decided to do this!
the outlets were a pain, they had to be right in the middle of the trim.  but i think
the carpenter did a great job blending it all in.  Wall color is
Revere Pewter from Benjamin Moore, it looks dark but the lighting wasn't that great.
So it isn't that dark.  

mudroom~wall color is Ellsworth Khaki from Benjamin Moore

the holiday greens are out at Hawthorn Woods Gardens...I just couldn't wait!

i need more berries!  looks kind of pathetic!