Laundry Area Shelf Project

Things are relatively slow on the reno front; HVAC & plumbing are in full swing - but the progress isn't as dramatic as it was during demo & framing :)

So, left to my own devices, I gave an old wall shelf new life today! My parents' have lots of treasures for their children to sift through and adopt, this shelf falls into that category.

Straight from my parents' attic; freshly washed.

I washed it with a drop of dish soap & water and let it air dry for several hours. In those several hours; I went shopping for pretty papers at Paper Source (love that store, love that they have a location a mile & a half from our house!).

Who doesn't love pretty papers?

After measuring each opening, I measured out the shape on the back side of the paper & cut them out. The measuring/cutting by far took longer than any other piece of this puzzle. I didn't want to re-buy the paper; so I followed the rule "measure twice, cut once" and ended up with almost perfect pieces.

All done! Now to see if our contractor will hang it up.....we're not
quite ready yet - but we will be!

Just an idea of what it will look like when in use :)

Ta da! Now we will have a shelf for laundry soap, etc in our (currently horrible) future basement laundry area. I'm hoping the rod on the bottom will be able to accommodate a few hangers to air dry clothes. We'll see how the space shapes up before we know if it will work.

Yeah, so this is what the basement looks like now. The area
on the right with the giant hole is about where the
future laundry area will be. Have I mentioned we're
not quite in need of my project yet?

Porch Progress

The exterior changes to our house have been some of the most striking. We spent the first 4 months of ownership looking at the house almost exclusively from the outside - so we are thrilled to see our planned changes becoming reality!

Last week the framers started building the back porch; perhaps some hiccup has slowed the progress because they've moved around the house to work on the side porch as of yesterday!

I'll update with more photos as the work continues.

The frame of the new back porch is on the house!

Ah the mud pit. Its beautiful this time of year.
Gives a slight sense of what the little back
porch will look like.

Don't tell our contractor we were out on the start of the back porch.....

Another haunted house photo :) Couldn't help it! I'm so excited about the start
of the new side porch! This entrance will open to our mudroom and the kitchen
beyond. This means I'll likely use this entrance 99% of the time.

Chim chim-i-ney, chim chim-i-ney chim, chim, che-roo!

As of Friday night; our chimney chase is on the house! 

What is a chimney chase? For all intents & purposes (aka - mine) it is the chimney. 

In reality it specifically refers to wood frame box that will hold a metal pipe which will be connected to our "fire box" aka fireplace and take the smoke outside, I'm almost sure the metal pipe I refer to is what is technically the "chimney". We don't have one of those yet.

. 

Blah, blah, blah you might say. (I might agree).

On to the fun, this is what it looks like:

Yahoo! New chimney chase!
Siding can't get on that yellow fast enough!

Notice the new hole for the side door peeking out toward the right hand side of the photo above? Pretty excited about it; any progress is good progress!

Also, because I have it & I love the haunted house creepy nighttime photos:

What's not to love about our new
haunted chimney??

And in case you care to see it, this is what the outside looked like last winter:

I think we've improved upon it!

Update 1/12/2016:
We went to the house last night to see what the framers were up to yesterday and look what we found:

Our new fireplace & hearth are framed!
I am so pleased with this! The firebox we bought will
slide into the cavity and be the source of many cozy
winter days & nights in our future home!

Bonjour les Portes Françaises

Translation: Hello French Doors!

Clearly I'm having a French kind of day with the post titles. I do love the language - though my great friend who has been a high school French teacher for years would likely wish I had asked her to translate........rather than Google translate :)

Our master bedroom (and the 2nd floor generally) is going to have a good bit more light now that our French doors have been installed.

Either way, here are our new doors:

Someday we will wake up & look out these doors. Hopefully that day is sooner rather than later!

Opening out to the sun porch; envisioning this in the spring
& summer is making my day.

Assuming we leave our bedroom door open,
we will be able to see out of the French doors
from the front of the house!

Au revoir Arches!

It's hard to believe I hadn't been calling them this all along, but the "golden arches" are FINALLY gone!

It is always the smallest things that bug you the most, isn't it?? Well, Chris & I were in immediate agreement that the 2 arched doorways in the living/dining rooms on the first floor had to go. There was never any question in either of our minds. Considering the scope of the work we're having done inside our house - one might think these 2 small things wouldn't even be on our radar.......but they stayed up through all the demolition until yesterday,

 January 5, 2016 - I am happy to report: those golden arches are gone! Maybe our contractor had listened to me complain about them 1 (or 100) too many times? ;)

Here are the before and afters:

Before:
When we bought the house, the 1st floor
apt was so darn cute; except that darn arch.
It mocked me every time I came in!

Before:
Even after demo was well under way....
the golden arch survived -
continuing to drive us crazy!

It appears as I flipped through my photo archive just now that I didn't take a photo of the golden arch that led from the dining room to the bathroom on the 1st floor. I did take an after though!

After:
It gets dark so early this time of year :(
Even in the dark I love the new opening!

After:
I went back this morning to get a daylight shot!
Standing in the dining room, looking into the living room.
Arch is gone!

After:
With so much of the house demolished, its hard to know that I'm standing in the
dining room looking through the squared off 2nd arch
(& the little alcove area) into the 1st floor hall bathroom.
Chris' man cave is on the left, the kitchen is on the right.
Eventually there will be drywall up that separates all of these spaces a bit more,
for now - its all wide open!

A fresh, new face!

Ta da! Our house finally got her makeover, no more black eye look here!

Don't mind the fridge & oven in the 1st floor front window........bit by bit it will become
our living room.

We love our new windows on the 2nd & 3rd floors!

Less impressive, but still exciting? The back of the house is coming along! Not pictured; the new window on the west side of the family room which lets in so much light!

Don't mind the plywood....it will be a sliding door
sometime down the line.

We are so happy!

Also, we have passed our 1 year anniversary of putting the offer in on this house (January 4)! I'm so glad that we're finally seeing major progress & changes. How quickly a year can go by!

Happy New Year everyone!

Update, January 5th:
We have the new door & kitchen window installed now!

After:
Whoooo hoooo! New sliding back door - which, looks quite hazardous since the
new back porch hasn't been built yet!

After:
The new kitchen window is on the far right
surrounded by the yellow house wrap
material. That new bit of house was
just outfitted with a new roof too!