New Flooring!

What a project! Whew!

 

Well, at least that's what my parents are saying, since they are the ones who handled the majority of this project while we chipped away at some smaller (though still labor-intensive) projects.

 

This tile job was a big one and I'm so thankful to have the help of my family for home projects such as this. Sure, we could pay someone to come in and get it done, but I think there's a lot to be said for your own hard work, sweat equity in your home, and cranking some good music with your family.

 

Here are some random shots I grabbed over the course of the last couple of weeks.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the frustration level with the smaller projects ran fairly high, lol!

 

 

 

 

 

And sometimes during a remodel, your living room looks like this.

 

Or this.

 

Towards the end of the tile project, we also had new carpeting put in throughout the living room, family room, and downstairs office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end result was absolute perfection. I really, really like how it all came together. There are several more small projects we need to complete before it's truly DONE done, but we'll just tackle those one at a time and enjoy having the house put back together.

 

Mom and Dad: we sure couldn't have done this without you and we really appreciate all of the back-breaking work you guys put in for this project. We owe you big time!!!

Happy 11th Carter!

11 years old - holy moly.

 

With as much as we challenge each other at times, I'm still getting voluntary hugs, snuggles, holding hands, and "I love you's", so we must be doing something right. Love you, bud. Happy Birthday (2 days late)!

Those Kids

Back in August when we were up in the mountains, I decided we would grab some updated pictures of the kids. They sure are getting big!!

Cue the Insanity

Home remodels are WORK. Let's be honest. But home remodels in the middle of school, work, baseball practice, football practice, softball practice, and life in general? That's insanity.

 

We have a couple different projects going on right now, all in various stages. We have painting going on, in the entry way, living room, dining room, and kitchen.......walls, ceiling, and some trim. We also have flooring removal going on to set up for tile and carpet. The tile fun starts today, and the carpet goes in in a couple of weeks.

 

Our house was built in 1989, so that means that the majority of the stuff in the house dates back that far. Especially the old wood trim and doors. It's the typical 80's coloring. Most of the stuff around the windows is in great shape, so we are simply painting that stuff a bright white. The floor trim was totally destroyed by the previous owners, so we decided to just rip all of that out and start over. The living room has six awesome windows that are excellent for diffused, north-facing light.

 

 

 

 

 

All the walls inside the house are being painted. We did the upstairs right when we moved in, so that section of the house is totally complete, as is the family room. Now we are tackling the remainder of the downstairs. The kids LOVE to paint, so I always include them in the first coat.

 

Side Note: I'm not sure what the hell the previous owners did in this house, but the walls have a crazy amount of dents, nail holes, etc. and I have spent more time and money on spackling and texture spray just to bring these walls back to looking 100%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also ripped out all of the old flooring that covered the entry way, into the dining room, and the kitchen. I really dislike anything cherry wood colored, so I knew the second I saw this house that the flooring would be one of the first things to go. So we had Dana and Veronica (and boys) over to rip out the flooring. It was a faux wood, floating floor, so a project that we figured would take a couple hours ended up taking 9 minutes. Score! So we sat around eating pizza and having a few drinks for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

 

 

The last thing we did to clear the floor for the tile was scrape out the old vinyl flooring that was in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen area, and get rid of the blue underlayment (??) that was under the wood flooring. All of the tile is being picked up and delivered today (thanks Dad!!) and we'll do a preliminary layout (or two) to determine how this tile is going to go. Very exciting, and so thankful to have family that doesn't mind jumping in and getting their hands dirty to help out.