The house and yard today

Okay, are you ready for another picture heavy post?  I said yesterday when I went back and posted the almost before pictures that I would show you where we were today.  That's not exactly true - it is where we were on Tuesday.  Dan is working on a project right now for the family room - and looking to frame the bathroom mirrors next week.  So, things are changing every day.  Anyway, let's look at where we are today (or let's just say this week - okay?).

Let's start outside, shall we?  If you remember from yesterday that we didn't have a garage, nor a driveway for that matter.  A huge pine tree was removed to make room for a driveway that is straight.  All the dirt to the left of the driveway in this picture was where the old part gravel/mostly weeds driveway was.  We painted all the siding a shade of gray - Dan wants to paint the brick - I don't.  We do want to replace the front door and that might be done this winter.

 While we continue to work in the front yard there is some things that we will not complete for about another year or so - we are still planning to add a front porch across the front of the house so we are not going to spend a ton of money or time in doing things that we know will just have to be torn out.  We are going to, hopefully, get grass growing where there isn't any now, but we are not going to do a lot of landscaping.

 Here on the side of the garage we have moved some boxwoods and created a space for the garbage cans.  We have some other plans for this area but that will come in the future.

The large rock here was down at the end of the old driveway.  We wanted it out of the way and this just seemed like the perfect place to put it.  Hopefully the plants will fill in this small bed.  Dan is planning on putting a light post in this bed in the future.

 These flower pots were planted a couple of days ago and look so much better.

 The bulbs in these pots were dug up in the yard when some leveling was done.  I'm not sure what kind of plant it is - but I guess we will see when they grow.

 This area had a large concrete block wall.  We really are not sure why it was there unless they used the flat area as an extra parking area.  We don't need that as we have an additional paved area and Dan wanted this area to slope down into the yard.  So last week we worked and worked and finally got the wall destroyed.  Now to just level the dirt.

 This is the side yard looking into the back. 

Three fig trees that we had cut waaaaaaay back earlier in the year.  They were so large that the limbs covered the ground.  We are not sure if we are going to keep these trees.  We might give them another year and see what we think this time next year - but we are certainly not determined to keep them.

The back patio/future pergola area.  When we first bought the house we didn't even know that this patio area existed.  It was completely covered up in grown up bushes and the fig tree that is just to the right in the picture.  There are five more pine trees that are going to have to come out of the back yard.  There has been an infestation of pine bark beetles in our area and they have killed five trees in our yard in just the last few months.  We are waiting for the tree guy to come and take these out before we have additional dirt brought in, leveled, and then we will seed grass.

 Back porch.  We have planted a couple of flower beds along the side of the porch and new family room addition hoping to help with the splash of dirt when it rains.  There is a lot of landscaping that will need to be done back here - but it just takes time.  We have plans to screen in the porch - hopefully the first part of next year.

Okay, let's move into the house from the back porch.  As you come in you are in the new family room.  We have worked on getting pictures hung and other decorative items on the wall.  Dan is currently working on a project for this room and I hope it will be completed this weekend.

We finally got the electrician back and had the antler chandelier hung over the dining room table.

(oops, there's Jessie!  LOL)

We are still trying to figure out how to add the shelves around the fireplace.  We (meaning Dan) has come up with one idea that we both like BUT it involves tearing the mantle off and starting over.  I'm just not sure about it - that would involve a lot of work, but it would also solve a couple of other issues.  That might be a project for next spring.  I can live with the black IKEA bookshelves for a little while.  (Maybe????)

We were able to use our moose antler wall sconces that we haven't used since we lived in North Carolina.  They are not wired right now, and that would be one thing that Dan would be able to fix if he tore the mantle off and redid the fireplace area.  I don't know - but it might be done sooner rather than later.  We shall see.

Breakfast nook/ Coffee Bar area.  We are expecting a delivery today that will change up this area too.  Hopefully I'll be able to share that and the family room project next week.

Oh, in the background you can see my grandfather's clock that belonged to my dad.  Dan had the clocked fixed for me right after we moved back into the house so now it chimes again.  You can also see the leaded glass window that Dan attached to the wall with a self under it.  This is right by the door going into the garage and will be the perfect spot to hang jackets or sweaters when the weather cools off (will that EVER happen????)  I'll try and get a couple of better pictures of that area in the next couple of weeks.  I don't have any pictures of the laundry room area with the "make do" pantry.

I am so very happy with the kitchen!  It just seems so much bigger when really all we did was move the wall back six inches, move the stove, move the refrigerator, and only put up a half wall instead of a full wall.  I don't feel like I am in a hole when in the kitchen and it is much more functional now.

I also haven't mentioned the floor.  We had all new flooring put in the house - the bedrooms have new carpeting and the rest of the house has this beautiful wood laminate flooring.  We love it!

I guess the biggest change in the living room since the last "after" pictures are the curtains.  I bought the material and was going to make them myself, but I have a friend here that did it for me and she did an EXCELLENT job!  They are beautiful!!!!!

We bought the entry way table at a "garage" sale.  One of our neighbors sold their house and they had a sale of furniture they couldn't take with them and this table was one of the items they sold.  It fits perfectly on this wall and is so "us".  We already had the lamp and it works great on this table.

(Oops!  There's Jessie again!) 

Maybe we should play a game of "Where's Jessie"?  LOL!!

Most of the lay out of my office has not changed.  There is some different furniture in here and there is still a lot of storage of things that maybe shouldn't be in here, but I am working on it.  The closet is a mess and that is a project that I hope will be next on the list to get done.

Yep, still have some boxes.

Guest/Hall/Dan's bathroom.  Notice the different lay out of the shower?  Yep,  we removed a window and changed the position of the shower.  It makes this room so much more functional and appears so much larger while we didn't change the walls at all.

Guest bedroom.

The night stands and chest are a couple of other furniture purchases from the "garage" sale.  They were just what this room needed.  I also found curtains for this room.  We still want to buy wooden blinds, but for now the honeycomb blinds will work.

I also want to replace this little table with something that will give us some more storage. 

Dan is actually using this chest and the guest room closet for his clothes.  Since it is only us here 98% of the time it just makes sense to us to use what we have and not have things sit empty.

Master bedroom.  We thought about a different furniture arrangement in this room, but it didn't use the space wisely.

The bench on the far wall was another "garage" sale purchase.

Not sure if you can tell but the closet in this room had a major overhaul.  Now, instead of two doors separated by a partial wall there is now one closet with double bi-fold doors.  Much more user friendly.

Also, you might notice that there is no door on the master bathroom.  When we enlarged the opening we discovered that if we put up a door it would cover up half the window.  We decided that we didn't need the door - if we want privacy in the bathroom we can close the bedroom door.  Problem solved.

I'm not happy with these pillow shams and I'm looking for some different ones, but we love the homemade quilt on the bed.  It's a queen size quilt on a king size bed - so it is more of a coverlet but it works.

This is the vanity that I wish we had purchased something different.  We were in a hurry as the cabinet man could not get the vanity we picked out at the last minute.  We needed something within a week and we found this vanity and the one in the hall bath at Home Depot in Lake City.  Maybe someday down the line we might replace it, but for now it is fine.  We will also change out the shelf on the wall - this is just a temporary fix to a storage problem.

Still a lot of things that will need to be done.

So there you have it.  Our house as it sits this week.

While so, so much has changed we still need to do many, many projects.  But that comes with any house.  Some of them are big (front porch, pergola, screen in back porch, landscaping yard), and some are small (shelves in closet, framing mirrors in bathrooms, extra shelves in top of closets, fireplace redo and shelves there)  they will keep us busy for a while.

I'm excited to see what happens next.

Oh, by the way, Dan and I LOVE our house!!!!  So, so happy we decided to buy this one and tackle the renovations.

Let me know what you think.

Where we began - sorta of

I know that this post SHOULD have been done a year ago - showing pictures of the house BEFORE the remodeling, but for some reason I never did.
So, just ignore the pictures posted before this or marvel at what we had and where we have come. 


I have searched and search both computers and can not for the life of me find the original pictures of the house.  I mean the ones that are pre any moving in or for that matter - before we even bought the house.  I have hard copies, but I can't find where I downloaded them on either computer.

So, I guess I'll have to start with pictures taken after we moved in BUT before any remodeling was done.

This was taken looking out the front door.  Yes, even this has all changed.

These pictures were taken after we had been in the house for about three months. (Actually, these were taken in January - so we had been in the house almost SIX months!  YIKES!!!)   I was finally here full-time and not driving back and forth to Lake Placid every weekend.  I had had enough of living like we were camping out in the house - blow up mattress in the master bedroom, no pictures on the walls, no curtains, etc.  At this point we didn't know when the remodeling would begin, so I decided we needed to have some kind of semblance of living in the house.

The master bedroom.

Dan has his tool bucket sitting on the bed because I think he was

contemplating taking out that closet (which we did in the remodel).  So, while I had had enough, that doesn't mean that everything is put away and is picture perfect.  However, I want to have a record of what it was and just how far we have come.

We don't own this comforter set any more - it was donated along with a whole lot of other stuff!

Of course, Dan could have been hanging the curtains when I took these pictures.  For a long time we didn't even have curtains up.  That could be a good guess at what was going on.

This closet area was changed.

Maybe one of the things that I wish we might have done differently is I don't have drawers in the new vanity.  It's okay and I'll deal with it.  It is just a little thing that could have been done differently.

Guest bedroom.

This was after we bought a new mattress, a headboard, and the comforter set for this room.  "A lot of changes, Max, a lot of changes".

But still no curtains.

Guest/hall/Dan's bathroom.

Of the two bathrooms, this one had the most changes done to it.

Don't you just "love" the vanity???  This was given to one of the workers during the remodel.  When we moved in we didn't even have a mirror in this bathroom.  We went to the Boy's Ranch thrift store and bought this mirror.  It's now gone too.

Still using this shower curtain.  Will probably be changed sometime in the future.

This was an area that we went back and forth on.  Originally we were going to take this linen closet out and put shelves over a dresser that we would put molding around so it looked built in.  Then we decided that would be a lot of work without a lot of storage.  So we kept the closet and just changed the swing of the door.  It no longer blocks the entire hallway when it is open.

This picture shows the six inch jog in the hallway that was eliminated when we redid the kitchen.

(It's also a picture of Jessie!)

There's a better look at the jog in the wall.  It was strange and we have no idea why it was there.

Living Room/Dining Room/Utility Room

This wall was taken out.

The far room was torn off and replaced with the new family room and back porch.

Oh my, this kitchen!  It was awful!!!  Tiny, tiny, tiny and very dysfunctional.  We had bought a new stove, new refrigerator, and new microwave when we moved in, as the refrigerator and stove didn't work.

It was so narrow that two people could not pass each other.  If I was cooking no one else could be in the kitchen.  Plus, I was so closed off from the rest of the house.  It felt like I was in a tiny little box.

This room no longer exists.

A HUGE utility room that didn't make sense.

The washer and dryer could not fit all the way in because you had to unplug the dryer to plug in the hot water heater if you wanted hot water.  Oh the joys!

My office/craft room/pantry/storage room.

And then there was the outside.

These pictures are actually older than the pictures above.  They were taken BEFORE we bought or moved into the house.  What were we thinking????

I don't have pictures of the back yard which was an overgrown jungle.  While we still need to do a lot of work, so much has changed and it looks so much better now!

Tomorrow I'll do a post with pictures taken this week.