It's beginning to look a lot like the 21st century

We have been very busy lately!

We got four new windows for the front of the house! So last Saturday Eric and his dad installed them while I painted the bedroom...

 

The color is Valspar "Homestead Resort Spa Aqua."  I decided this time around that I would not belabor the paint-selecting process, but rather just choose from Lowes' Valspar selection.  Our experience with selecting our living room color was not in vain, however...it allowed me to feel comfortable just going with the lightest shade of whatever color struck my fancy.  But back to the windows...

 Here are the before shots:

 

And here's after!

 

 

 

As you can see, I also painted the trim.  All of the trim in this house is yellow/brown and once we put those new window it looked even worse!  The windows are wonderful and once I got the trim painted....well, it just totally transformed the living room!  Looking at those windows, I can actually visualize this house looking fresh, clean and modern.

 

Here are some before shots of our bedroom:

 

 

After:

 

 

Notice anything funny about the "after" photos?  Other than the horrible ceiling fan and the yellow trim, I mean?  The ceiling is PINK!  So one of our next tasks will be to paint the ceiling white in our master bedroom and the second bedroom, where the ceiling is also, unfortunately, pink. 

 

Still to be done in the master bedroom:

• Paint the ceiling white
• Paint the trim (in process!)
• Replace blinds with plantation blinds (in process!)
• Install new windows
• Crown molding
• Curtains to line the wall behind the bed
• Replace ceiling fan with new light fixture
• Hang pictures/artwork
• Create reading nook on wall opposite the bed
• New accent pillows/throw blanket

Hopefully it won't take me as long to post next time! Until then!

 

Sal

 

Painting in Progress

Finally...progress! 

 

It's been a while since my last update, but there really wasn't a whole lot going on!  Two weekends ago, Eric and I had our minds set on demolishing the half-bath and installing our (free!) pedestal sink, but that didn't exactly happen.  We ended up getting sucked into yard work and cleaning-- I forget that just because you're spending all your time and energy updating a house doesn't mean you don't have to mop the floors and scrub the toilets in the meantime...bummer!  And then last weekend we had our annual Halloween weekend in Boone with my family, it was so much fun! We look forward to this weekend almost as much as Christmas!  Our traditions include the Ghost Train at Tweetsie Railroad, an Appalachian State football game, and lots of food. 

So that brings me back to the progress we've been making!  After a painstaking paint-choosing process we ended up going with the very first paint sample we tried-- Sherwin William's "Sea Salt."  Remember this picture below?  I actually have no idea which color blob is "Sea Salt" but if you're looking at the color collection behind the TV, I think it may be the third one from the right.

It hasn't been an easy process...before we even started painting we had to repair some of the messes the previous owners left for us, which included massive paint drips, spackle diasters, and how they painted right over the light switches, which made getting the outlet covers off the walls almost impossible and left some of the outlets completely non-functional! 

Seriously, who does that?!?  I hate to be ugly, but I just have to say that every bit of work that the previous owners put into this house has been cheap, messy and lazy!  There...I said it!  So, one of our major goals for this weekend is to replace all of the covers, outlets, and light switches.  I'm excited!!  Here are some before and after pictures to show you the paint color:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now if I could get my act together and straighten up before I take pictures and broadcast them to the world!  Oh well, you can't have it all.  Unfortunately, it is always very dark in our house...that is one of the things we're looking most forward to changing about it.  Because of that, all of these pictures were taken with the flash, so the color looks very blue, when in actuality it's a tie between blue and gray.  Here is a picture I snapped on my phone right when I got home from work and the natural light was hitting a wall:

 

 

And if you haven't noticed, we got new curtains!

 

 

 In other exciting news, we've ordered four new windows!  We'll be ordering them three or four at a time, and Eric and his dad will be installing them.  I think that will make a huge difference.  Hooray for progress!

Sal

Decisions, decisions...

Can you tell we're trying to pick a paint color? 

We have a total of about five different paint colors in each area, we've just painted them in multiple areas so we can see them in different kinds of light.  The problem is we don't get a lot of light in here by the time we get home at 5 pm, so everything looks so dark to me! The look I'm going for is blue/gray with a hint of sea foam...I want it to be a neutral color without having to be brown.  Sort of like this.  The funny thing is, I have the EXACT color from that picture represented somewhere in that blob of blue you see on my wall, and it looks nothing like it does in the picture!

While there's plenty of chaos going on at 100 Briarwood as we search for wall colors and specific pieces of furniture, there is also a lot of stuff going on that makes me very happy! Here are just a few examples...

 

 

 That's yummy chili cooking on my glass-top stainless steel stove! :-)

I'm LOVING our functional re-take on the space that was intended to be the dining room!  On this shelf I've repurposed a cigar box for a place to empty your pockets and drop your car keys.

I think it's important to decorate and make things pretty even if you're planning on completely changing everything because it's keeps you sane amongst the chaos!  While Eric was becoming an attic addict (see what I did there?) and trying to get me to store away the decorations, I was begging him to take them down! 

Today we got a FREE pedestal sink for the half bath off craigslist!!  Since that room is so small and we're planning on replacing the sink in light of our new find, we decided to go ahead and replace the floors too! So that will begin this weekend, and I'll give you the whole story then! Get excited!



Sal

Landscaping Fun

There's nothing that makes you feel more like a grown-up than treating your lawn with mole/gopher repellant.  Especially when you shake your fist yelling, "And stay out!"  In addition to implementing Phase 1 of de-mole-ing the yard, Eric and I began what will be the long and arduous process of landscaping!  I didn't include an outdoor to-do list in my last post, so here's what I left out:

• Kill the ivy!!
• Today we clipped the ivy at the root, but we didn't pull it off of the side because we didn't want to hurt the brick.  Once it was all severed, we sprayed the roots with herbicide.  When it dies we'll yank it all up!

 

 

 

• Contain the gravel drive way, get rid of the weeds growing up in the rocks.  While the gravel driveway seems innocent enough from the front, in the back it is covering the entire yard.  We'd like to take up the gravel in the back and plant grass. 
• Border the driveway with brick or some kind of paving stone
• Build a carport next to the house.  Ideally, we would like this carport to look similar to the house (same roof and style).  We've even thought about somehow connecting the two so that you can walk straight from your car to the back porch without being exposed to the elements.  We would love to incorporate a shed into the carport as well.

 

 

 

• Pull up ugly/unnecessary plants and bushes.  We would like the yard to be as flat, grassy and uniform as possible, with clean and simple bushes/flowers closer to the house/back patio

 

 

 

 

•  Make the back patio a comfortable space to entertain and enjoy! I don't have much of a vision for outdoor spaces, so I'm going to let Eric and my brother take the reins on this one.  All I can see in this space's future is a grill, a fire pit, and some benches.  How bad could that be?!
• On the right side of this picture you can see the back "stoop" with the stairs on the left (you can't really see those) leading up to the back door.  We would like to enclose this back porch with a railing and build stairs going down the right side that could eventually lead to the carport.

 

 

Here are a couple of before and after pictures to show you what we did today!

 

 

Although it's hard to detect in these pictures because of the way the light is hitting in the first picture, we removed 4 huge rhododendron bushes on the left side of the driveway plus tons of ivy and brush.  Here are a couple play-by-plays...

 

Eric sawed while I hauled the branches to the side of the road, where they will magically disappear on Thursday, thanks to the wonderful City of Hendersonville!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also taped up samples of a range of colors we are considering painting the exterior:

 

 

We tried getting a sample can of our beloved "Spanish Moss" (we talked about that here), but we found out that the smallest amount of that particular color we could get would be a whole gallon.  And at about $40 per gallon, we just decided to pick out a paint chip that was pretty close (the one on the top).  We like it!  We also picked out 2 lighter colors to compare.

What paint color do you like the best?

 

-Sal

 

 

Getting Settled

We're in!  We moved in yesterday in record time with the help of some of the high-schoolers from our church's youth group.  It was a great day!  Here are some pictures along with commentary describing some of our future plans...

 

I know I've already posted this picture, but here is the rundown on our plans for the outside:

• Paint!!  We'll keep the brick and change the 90's hunter green.  We spotted a house in Hendersonville that is painted the most beautiful combination of brown and gray.  Well, last week we knocked on their door (are you sensing a pattern here?) and found out the first color on our must-try list:  Cabot Spanish Moss.  We'll compare that with some lighter sand colors and see which we like best.
• New energy-efficient windows-- This will be our first major project because winter is coming.  No, seriously, winter is coming and it will wreck your utility bills if your windows aren't up to date.
• Landscaping-- We'll clear out the jungle running along the side of the house and go with some simpler and cleaner bushes.  We also need to deal with that ivy growing up the front.
• Redirect the staircase-- You can't see it in this picture, but the only staircase on the front porch goes up the side.  It's narrow and awkward, so we'll get rid of those and build a wide, attractive brick staircase on the front (right between those 2 posts on the right of the porch).
• Build a railing to enclose the porch
• Build a pergola that will run along the right side of the house over the 2 windows on the right.
• New roof-- Currently the roof is doing just fine, but when we get closer to selling, I think a new roof would go a long way.
• A bench to go under the windows on the left and some potted plants
• Paint the front door red

 

This is what you see right when you walk through the front door.  Attractive, right?  This is by far the largest project we have planned.  Here's the rundown:

• Get rid of those ugly doors! Spoiler alert-- New doors will only be necessary for the right closet, so we'll get some cool looking doors to replace the 1970's hollow doors that are on there now.  Maybe something like this.
• An energy efficient stackable washer and dryer for the closet on the right is key
• With the washer and dryer taking up half as much space, the water heater will then be moved over to live next to the washer and dryer in the right closet.
• If you look really hard, you can see an electrical panel peaking out from behind the door of the closet on the left.  We'll have to get an electrician to move those electrical panels to the right closet. 
• With the left closet cleared out...BOOM! Knock the wall down.  What's on the other side of the wall?

 

 

Oh yes, we're opening up the kitchen. 

• We're demolishing the top half of the right wall, so the upper cabinets on your right from about the stove and onward will be opened up to the living room.  This will become a peninsula complete with barstools and new lighting. 
• Paint the cabinets-- We're going to attempt to salvage these babies.  I'll enlist the help of my father-in-law Joseph to frame the cabinet faces with some wood and paint them white.  With some new hardware I think they'll do just fine. We'll also need to get creative with the awkward skinny cabinets on top of the regular cabinets.  See them?  I'm thinking either cover them with a decorative wood covering that leads all the way up to the crown molding or make them glass-front display cabinets.
• New countertops
• Subway tile backsplash
• Possibly wrap the countertops along the back wall
• Exposed shelving on the back wall
• Stainless steel appliances

 

We get to mark something off our list!  When we first bought the house, we weren't sure if the refrigerator came with it, so we went ahead and shopped around.  We ended up finding these beauties at Lowes on the "scratch and dent" aisle (Can you find the dent?  Yeah, neither can we!) for about half price. What a steal! We got our microwave and dishwasher (not pictured) off Craigslist. 

 

I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's back up to when you first walk through the front door.  The living space in this house is one great big room, so it was our task to figure out how to break up the room into functional spaces.  When you walk in through the front door and look right, this is what you see:

 

 

I'll use this picture to describe some of the changes we'll be making that will be represented throughout the entire house.

 

• Paint
• Replace the carpet with hardwood floors
• Install crown molding
• Replace all of the doors (you can see another hollow door on the right of the picture)
• Update light fixtures
• New windows and window treatments

 

On the other side of the room is where we've decided to make the dining area.  Eventually we'll install a light fixture over the table.  Here's another picture of the living area standing where the kitchen table is:

 

 

 

 

In the background of this picture, you can see a desk just under the window...

 

 

This space was originally intended to be the dining room, but we have other ideas to make this a mudroom/work space.  I've tried mimicking the goal for this space with some of our current furniture to start testing out the functionality, but here's the official run-down:

 

• Add built-in shelves or some kind of display/storage unit right as you walk in the door.
• Add a built-in desk underneath the window
• Add a built-in bench with coat hooks and storage baskets to go in between the shelves and the desk
• Extend the kitchen peninsula into open space
• Update light fixture

Sort of like this or this!

 

Here's a picture of our one full bathroom (located in the hallway) followed by our plans:

 

 

 

 

 

• Replace the tile
• Replace the flooring and the subfloor underneath-- Our inspection showed quite a bit of water damage in the crawl space underneath this bathroom due to a leak.  The leak was identified and fixed and the crawlspace was repaired, but we'll still need to deal with the soggy subfloor eventually
• Replace the bathroom vanity with something like this
• Update the mirror and light fixture

At the end of the hall and to the left is the master bedroom:

 

 

 

 What is it with this house and it's awful closets?  While ugly, these closets are actually a blessing in disguise because they are connected and run the length of that entire wall! If you've ever owned/been inside an older home, you know that usually the closets are very tiny.  The main project in this room centers around these closets...

• Remove closet doors
• Place bed in the center of this wall-- The closet on the left is twice as wide as the closet on the right, so when the bed is centered, there will actually be the same amount of space to enter each closet.
• Cover the entire wall floor-to-ceiling drapes-- The only part of the wall that will be exposed will be the section of wall in the middle, which will then look centered.
• Install wall sconces over the bed on the center of the wall

We'd like it to look sort of like this!

 

Here is a picture of the room once we got the bed in there, so maybe that will help you visualize...

 

 

In the master bedroom there is a half bath that sort of reminds me of the post-zombie-apocalypse-hospital from the first episode of "Walking Dead"...

 

 

To get the full zombie-effect, you have to witness first hand the fluorescent light as it slowly flickers for what seems like 5 minutes just to turn on.  By the time the light finally comes on I've usually just decided to go to the other bathroom.  This sad bathroom is in desperate need of a new light, vanity, floors, a new mirror, I could go on.....

 

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed touring our new home! As you can see, there is so much to do! It's hard to not just run around, wielding a sledge hammer while screaming maniacally.  We're making tons of progress already....but that's for another post! Good night!

Sal