Smells Like Trouble

And no, it's not those dirty dishes in the sink.  

There was, however, a very subtle yet disturbing odor coming from the cabinet under the sink.  When we first moved in, we blamed the odor on just "mustiness" that might come from a house going uninhabited for a time.  And although it wasn't noticeable to most people, the smell didn't go away like we thought it would.  It wasn't overly apparent; you probably wouldn't smell anything if you came into our house, but when we would come home after being out of town for the weekend, there it was.

So then we renovated our bathroom, and when Eric was scraping up the floor tile, it smelled to me like a freshly tilled garden (keep in mind, this is not how normal houses are supposed to smell).

So we thought, "Aha! This rotted floor must be the source of the mustiness!"  But even when the renovation was complete, the smell smelled on.

Well, long story short (I know, too late), the smell was coming from our wood cabinets.  It became absolutely apparent when a small leak under the sink got the wood wet and-- boom!  That some old smell we were all too familiar with about knocked us over.  So we sprayed some mold killer, slapped on a few coats of stain-blocking primer and viola!  No more smell!  This is a big deal, y'all! These are results you simply can't appreciate through your computer screens, and unfortunately computerized "scratch and sniff" technology is beyond the scope of this blog.

Can we talk about that trash compactor?  Your days are numbered, buddy.

And now, seeing as it occurred to me that I've been sharing "before and after" cabinet pictures without really discussing the process, here are some "progress shots" from yesterday:

I've read a lot of "How to Paint Your Kitchen Cabinet" how-tos and all of them start out with sanding and/or de-glossing the cabinets.  Ugh, sounds like a lot of work and dust.  But when I saw written on the label of our primer paint can "No need to sand," along with the fact that these cabinets weren't treated with much finish, I just went for it.  No sanding, no de-glossing, no problem. 

Nothing says "abyss" like reaching your hand into a 43-year-old cabinet that you can't see the back of.

Painting the lower cabinets was way easier than painting the upper cabinets, so that was really encouraging because we could be done painting in just one more weekend!  Then we can start framing the cabinet doors and installing hardware.  Here's the hardware we like:

Things are changing around here!  Until next time...

Sal

Bring on the Rain

Things are moving quickly here on Briarwood Lane!  On Friday Eric took the day off so that he and a friend of our's could re-shingle our roof.  A lot of people ask me, "What is your next project going to be?" and seem interested in why we tackle things in the order that we do.  Well, we like to split our goals into three sections:  Big projects which are more expensive and/or disruptive/labor intensive, little projects that are less expensive and/or can be done little by little, and extra credit/undecided projects, which we'll tackle only once we've completed the necessary goals and then decide that we still want to do them.  The "big" goals we have for this house included new windows, full-bathroom gut job, new roof, kitchen wall demolition and installing wood floors.  Small goals include, but are not limited to things like painting, crown moulding, redecorating, landscaping, etc.  There are obviously a ton of other things that could be added to these lists, but you get the idea.

The first big goal we completed was installing new windows, which was something we decided to make a priority since our windows were in disrepair and winter was fast approaching.  The next big project was the bathroom renovation, because...let's be honest, we couldn't have gone much longer with that crumbling sub-floor.  After the bathroom a lot of people asked, "Are you going to do the kitchen next?!"  I wish! Around that time was when we noticed a little water spot on our ceiling and we knew that the roof would have to come next.  So let's take a look!  But first, a before picture...

Aww heck, let's just go back to the beginning while we're at it!

See that long area on the top left of the roof that always looks wet?  We found out that was a type of moss growing.  

I don't really have a before picture of the roof in the back of the house, but here's a progress shot of Eric and Vince on the roof:

To the left of Eric's knee you can barely see the old rusted hood vent...it looked pretty bad.

While the guys were banging around on the roof, I was in the kitchen...you guessed it, painting! 

So now all of the upper cabinets are painted...whew!  Next up, bottom cabinets! You might have noticed that I did not paint the inside of the cabinet above the sink, and the reason why is because it contains a can light.  While all of the other uppermost upper cabinets will soon have glass fronts, this cabinet's face will remain solid wood because of the can light, so I figured it didn't matter if I didn't paint the inside, plus it would have been really hard to paint around that can.  

We're feeling very thankful for all of the work we've been able to do in just ten months, especially when you consider that we've been able to check 3 major items off of our "big project" list!  And in case you were wondering, we are still not regretting having bought a fixer-upper!  

Sal

Kitchen Buffering...

My cabinets are white!  My cabinets are white!  My cabinets-- OK that's enough.  Seriously though, this has made such a huge difference and we're thrilled!  These babies required 2 coats of primer and 2-3 coats of white paint.  It was tedious work, but just seeing the dark wood disappear with every brush/roller stroke kept me motivated.  We haven't painted the lower cabinets yet (7 hours of work in one day was enough for me) and you'll notice they don't have doors yet (the doors are painted, but we're still deciding on how to frame them), but you can't deny that we're a lot farther than where we started...

If you're really sharp you'll have noticed that we still have to re install our microwave and put all of our junk back in the cabinets.  So where is the junk now?

Anyway, there's something that I'm even more excited about than our white cabinets!  Here is a picture that was taken after we painted the cabinets and before we got a second wind:

This bear of a cabinet has been the bane of my existence ever since we moved into this house 9 months ago.  First of all, it's GIGANTIC and it makes the kitchen feel like a separate room.  Second, it's so tall and so deep that it's not practical to store anything in there.  Third, if you want to walk into the kitchen and someone is standing at the refrigerator?  Forget it.  And fourth, it stinks.  Seriously, it smells musty!  So when faced with the question, "Should I paint it?", the next question that followed was, "Well, how long is it going to be before we get rid of this thing anyway?"  And I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

Goodbye cabinet!  Hello exposed sub-floor and (more??) peach-colored ceiling?!  Whatever, I'll take it! You can see in the above picture that I'm doing a pretty good job (not) of disguising the patch of sub-floor by putting the trash can on top of it.  

Here's a different perspective:

 Before

After

Anytime I get too excited though, all I have to do is look on the other side of the kitchen...

Oh yeah, we have a long way to go! 

Sal

Kitchen Update

Change is in the air.  Oops, I meant to say "paint fumes."  Paint fumes are in the air.

It's not much (what you're seeing is two coats of primer), but it's progress!  And I wanted to give y'all a little something to chew on in the meantime because it may be a while! 

Ahh the anticipation!

Sal

Afters and Before

We've been busy, huh?  

Just kidding, these pictures aren't real.  Pretty cool though, right?  Seeing an "after" picture before you've actually done any work is like eating dessert before dinner! We were lucky enough to meet a man named Dan Doughtie who works at a plant nursery in Hendersonville called "A Growing Concern."  Using Photoshop, he designs a landscape for your house and that's exactly what these pictures are.  Now we'll be able to take our design back to the nursery, buy our plants and plant them at our own pace.

Here are a few pictures of what our house actually looks like as of this afternoon:

Goodbye hunter green!  What's that?  You don't remember the hunter green?  Let me refresh your memory...

Before

After

Before

After

Now if landscaping were only as easy as Photoshop. Here's a close-up of our front porch with a new lantern and a bench:

The molding around the door is still unpainted and the rest of the trim needs to be painted too.  Let's take a look at what the back of our house looked like just 6 months ago:

Before

After

The paint made a huge difference, and check out our new light fixture!  It's still not glamorous by any means, but we have some pretty awesome plans in the works that will completely transform this space!  But for now there are more pressing matters, such as that sad looking roof.  We're in the process of choosing shingles right now (who knew picking a shingle color could be such an arduous task??) and Eric will be installing those along with some help from a friend at church who owns a siding/roofing business.

Happy Memorial Day!

Sal

Half a Bathroom, Whole Lot of Awesome

Why is it so much harder to manage your time the less you have to do? Example:  When we were gutting our bathrooms, not only were we working full time, doing our part with the renovation, and running to Lowe's every 5 seconds, but I managed to update the blog four times within that same week.  Up until today however, we have made a point to take a break from home projects and all I want to do is watch re-runs of "The Office."  Subsequently, I haven't shared any pictures of the finished half bathroom.  So here they are!

This is a far cry from where we started:

Bleck.  Let's get back to the "after" pictures.

Here's a close up of our (free) pedestal sink that we got from Craigslist and the Mother of Pearl mirror.

Like the full bathroom, we still have a few finishing touches including painting the baseboards, framing the window (not pictured) and add shelving.  

There are so many reasons we are in love with our new bathrooms:

1)  They're awesome and they look fantastic.

2)  They're clean, structurally sound and are not leaking!

3)  We can actually use the half-bathroom in our bedroom, so our house has essentially gained a bathroom.

Today we painted the house! We got 2 sides done today, and we're going to attempt to finish it up tomorrow.  I'll post some pictures when we're done, I promise!

Sal

Bathroom...Check!

"Put a fork in me, I'm done."

     -Every single high school English teacher in America.

Luckily for us we've been done for a couple weeks now, I just haven't gotten around to blogging about it until now! Let's just get on to the before and afters, shall we?

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

There are still a few things we need to do: 

1) Shorten drawers of the vanity and put them back in (the vanity is currently drawer-less)--  The vanity used to be a dresser that lived in our bedroom, so Eric had to do a lot of cutting and adjusting to make it capable of housing plumbing.  I'll post more detailed pictures of the vanity once that's done.  

2)  Crown molding--   Nothing about our 43-year-old house is perfectly square, including this bathroom.  Consequently we couldn't tile all the way up to the ceiling, because it would look really bad, so our contractor just put some wood to act as a buffer and we're going to go back and embellish it a little bit.  Again, more pictures on that once it's done.

3) Floating shelves over the toilet--  On which I'll probably put some white towels, baskets, apothecary jars and things like that. 

This was a huge undertaking, and we are thrilled to be finished.  The before and after pictures are impressive, but the before and after experience is even more striking.  Whereas before our bathroom experience involved spongy floors, the smell of mold, peeling walls and a leaky toilet, now I feel like I'm in a spa!  

The half-bathroom is also finished, but I think I'll put that off for another post.  For now, let's just bask in the glow of our newly remodeled bathroom.

Ahhhhhhh.