by Heather | 1 Comment
It’s finally “done” :) I say that in quotes because he still needs to organize all his things…but the carpet, trim, paint and closet doors are finished. It’s the tiniest bedroom out of the four we have, but somehow he’s making it work. You can see the before pictures here.
And some during pictures.
Then there’s the finished ones:
by Heather | 0 comments
We heat our house with a woodburning insert in our upstairs fireplace. It’s worked great for us the past few years but there are a few problems with our little system. For one, upstairs is always 10 degrees warmer than downstairs in the winter. Secondly we have a series of fans set up around the house to try and direct hot air down to the kids’ bedrooms. And we have to leave their doors open in winter if we don’t want kidsicles. Another downside is that Andy has to haul firewood from the back of our property, through the downstairs and then all the way upstairs. Not so much fun. We had half the livingroom gated off so Ben didn’t get near the woodstove. He was really good about not touching (we even had the rule during the summer) but it’s just something you block off when you have kids anyway. Finally, wood stoves are dirty! Everything in the livingroom would get a layer of dust every single time we burned.
So we decided we’d look into moving the insert downstairs. We could tie it directly into the furnace that’s behind the fireplace, providing even heat in the house because the furnace would now pump the hot air around. No frozen children! Andy would only have to bring firewood in through the back door instead of up two flights of stairs. No gates everywhere because the kids don’t travel downstairs unsupervised. And I don’t care if it gets dirty because it’s not really a living space (yet).
Andy looked into it more and found out the size of the firebox was right and the flue was a straight shot down the chimney, it’d work out perfectly. Why we didn’t have the insert put down there in the first place, who knows. You live and learn. So Andy started to disassemble the old stuff downstairs and move the woodstove down there. We’re not all finished yet, Andy still needs a friend to come over and help him shove the new liner down the chimney and hook up a few other things (technical term)…but I’m excited! I have to think of something cute to do with the soon to be decorative fireplace upstairs. Old books, candles, mirrors? Who am I kidding, anything I put in there will be ransacked by Cassidy in a few months when she starts moving…
by Heather | 0 comments
We finally finished the hallway and master bedroom downstairs! Andy had to scrape off the old floor tile in the hallway.
And add some new drywall, this is the ceiling.
Then there was spackling. Don’t let the smile fool you, he HATES this part.
After the hallway was painted, Andy replaced the light. I’m in love with the one he picked. He had to work around the air ducts which were kind of a pain.
The hallway isn’t that big but there was enough room to put in this little storage unit. It’s right outside the bathroom so it holds soap, towels and other extra things.
View from the hallway into our new master bedroom.
It’s a cozy little room.
Our nightstands wouldn’t fit on the sides of the bed (told you, cozy) so we put them at the end and found smaller ones for the sides.
I picked the room color from the wedding quilt my mom made us.
This bedroom was originally Andy’s lair and painted what I call “painters tape blue.”
We repainted the room and rearranged the closet system so it would work better for our clothes (instead of boxes of electronics and computer parts).
View from the bedroom to the bathroom across the hall. Close enough to an attached master bath, I’ll take it!
We actually bought a TV for the bedroom too! I know, it goes against everything Andy stands for ;-) Believe it or not all the flat screens he’s found at the dump were too big for this little spot behind the door. All the wires and computer are inside the closet behind the TV.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about having our bedroom on a separate floor from the kiddos (we have two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs). But I LOVE it! All the toys, diapers and flashing things are upstairs and we have our own little adult area downstairs. You can see the before, during and after photos of the room here.
by Heather | 0 comments
I feel like months go by between house post updates. We’re doing work behind the scenes, but it’s a little here and a little there. Slow and steady I guess, we’re not flipping it to sell so it just seems to fit in whenever life allows. Andy’s dad came up to help drywall one of our bedrooms downstairs. Click here for the first post about this room.
It’s such a tiny little bedroom it’s hard to stand inside it and get decent pictures, but this is a view from the hallway. Andy finished framing out the closet (on the left), adding insulation and wiring up the room. The guys started with drywall on the ceiling.
We rented a drywall lift from Home Depot, totally worth it and makes the job easier. It holds the sheet of drywall up while you nail it in place.
Mr. Precision using his level.
It took all day, but the drywall is (mostly) up! I think we need to buy one more sheet to finish inside the closet.
What’s up next then? Taping the drywall joints then spackle, spackle, spackle and sand…a tedious process that oh darn, Andy doesn’t trust me to do a good enough job at ;-) He’s so efficient at it though, and then it’ll be my job to prime and paint. As always, we’re a gettin’ there.
by Heather | 0 comments
While we didn’t exactly get snowed in from the winter storm this weekend, all the snow certainly was beautiful. We only got about a foot, but it came down hard and fast on Friday. Thankfully Andy worked from home as the roads were terrible. The boys enjoyed a bit of time outside this weekend before it started to melt on Sunday. So pretty!
by Heather | 0 comments
We made a spice rack for under our kitchen cupboards. I moved all our spices into glass jars and glued magnets on the lids.
Then I labeled all the jars with the handy dandy Dymo label maker that Andy found at the dump ;-) It’s the coolest little device.
Andy spray painted and installed steel rods under the kitchen cupboards. There are actually 4 rows now.
Jars all lined up on their racks. I ended up moving them around so they’re farther away from the stove (and steam).
Andy had such a great idea to put them under the cupboards. They’re alphabetized, easy to access and a whole shelf of one of my cupboards was freed up. Plus, they’re really pretty…I love all the colors.
