Merrillee Whren's Blog, page 8

The Final Reveal—The Kitchen

When my husband and I purchased the house where we live, we knew that one day we would replace the Formica counter tops with granite. In the beginning stages, we also considered replacing the cabinets. Last spring we went to the local home show and talked to a lot of people and looked at a lot of home improvement ideas. Eventually, we decided if we were going to put in granite counter tops, we should also put in new cabinets. Here is what the kitchen looked like before we started.When we started our main focus was the kitchen, but when we decided to change the tile and replace it with wood flooring, we were able to change the kitchen footprint as well. That allowed us to remove a portion of the pony wall that you see in the photo above. We also went to visit model homes to get kitchen ideas and saw that many new kitchens didn’t have a raised pony wall. We loved that look. Finding the right color for the cabinets was a challenge. We knew what we had in mind, but we couldn’t find a cabinet manufacturer who had exactly the color that we wanted. In the end, we went with a custom cabinet maker. We thought that would be too expensive, but their price was middle-of-the road for all the bids we got. They were able to customize the color of the cabinets as well as the cabinets themselves. We are so happy with our choice.

The following photos chronicle the transformation of our kitchen.

Here is the final product.

Was it worth the wait?

Saluting Our Veterans

Today is Veterans Day. I want to say thank you to all the veterans who have served in so many ways. They have protected our freedoms, helped in times of disaster, freed people from oppressive dictators and tyrants throughout our country’s history. My dad served in World War II, so several years ago when we were visiting Washington, DC, we visited the World War II Memorial. Here is information about the memorial. I put my dad’s name into the registry there.

My parents were married in January of 1945 just months before the war ended. Here is a photo of their cake topper. Notice that the groom is wearing an army uniform.

Are you doing any thing special today to remember Veterans?

The Family Room

Today I’m going to show photos of the family room after our remodel. I could wait until we get our new blinds, but I don’t want this to drag on too long. We didn’t make many changes to this room other than the paint and the flooring. The biggest change is the new flooring. This house started out with three different types of tile. One in the foyer, one in the kitchen and family room, and a one in the master bedroom. The rest of the floors were carpeted. We knew we wanted to get rid of the carpet in the living room, but if we put new tile in there, it would mean there would be 4 different kinds of tile on the main floor. So we decided if we had to tear up all the tile, we should put in something we liked better—hardwood. We went shopping for hardwood and found some mahogany on sale at Lumber Liquidators. After we bought it, we began to hear stories about problems with hardwood in this dry climate. We got very nervous, but now that it is down and talked to the guy who installed it, we are quite happy. The wood we chose is an engineered wood. It is installed as a floating floor, in other words, it isn’t nailed or glued down. It locks together over a thin padding that muffles sound.

Here are two photos of the family room and the old tile floor.

Here is what the family room looked like during the remodel. You can see the padding in these photos.

The following photo was taken from the loft that overlooks the family room. You should be able to tell the difference in the paint.Here is a view taken from the foyer.

This final view is taken from the eating area in the kitchen.

Do you have a separate family room or a room just for viewing TV in your house?

The Master Bath

After a few days off, I’m ready to show off some more of our remodel. Today’s post will be rather short. I have a couple of pictures of the master bath. I discovered that it is really hard to take good photos of a small area. In this room we replaced the old cabinets counter tops and sinks and took out the old medicine cabinets. Unfortunately, I don’t have any before photos that show the cabinets. When we looked at the house I only took a picture of the tub and shower area, and we didn’t change any of that. Here is the old photo.

Here are the new photos. The bathroom has his and her areas. Of course, the her side is much bigger. Here are the photos of the new cabinets.

What features do you like to have in a bathroom?

The Living Room and Dining Room

Today I’m adding the next installment in my remodeling saga. This post is about the area of the house, which is a living room and dining room combination. The original room had carpet while the rest of the downstairs was tile—three different kinds. Since we wanted to get rid of the carpet and we couldn’t get any of the old tile, we didn’t think a fourth kind of tile would work. Since we were getting rid of the tile, I decided I wanted hardwood throughout all the areas you see when you walk in the front door. Our bedroom still has tile, but it is off to the side and not readily seen when you walk in the front door. Here is what the living room looked like when we first saw the house.

 I took this photo of the living room right before Christmas last year. You may notice that we got rid of the coral color around the window.

 Here is a partial look at the dining room when we had my mother-in-law’s furniture in it. I wish I had captured a picture of the old chandelier so you could see the difference the new one makes in the room. The old one was polished brass and very plain.

Here is what the rooms look like today.

Do you have a formal dining room? If you don’t have one, do you wish you did?

The Front Hall

Yesterday I wrote about the loft. In addition to the loft, there are three other rooms upstairs. Two of the rooms saw very little change other than new carpet and a fresh coat of paint on the doors and woodwork. The third bedroom was actually painted before we moved in. Here is what it looked like when we first saw the house.

Here is what it looks like now.

From the loft you can look down on the front hall. Here’s what it looked like during our inspection.

During the remodeling process we took out the old tile and replaced it with mahogany hardwood. I have a few photos of the remodeling process. In the first one the old dishwasher is sitting in the front hall along with a lot of paint cans. In the second you can see how they started laying the hardwood floor.

There is one last picture before I show you the final results. This is the stairway just before they put in the new carpet.

Here is what the front hall looks like today.

 This is a photo taken looking down from the loft. You get a good view of the new light fixture.

Here is the front hall looking toward the front door.

Do you call this part of the house the front hall or the foyer, or do you have another name for it?

The Loft

Yesterday I posted before and after photos of the upstairs bathroom. Today I’m moving just a few steps into the loft that overlooks the front hall on one side and the family room on the other side. Here is the way the loft looked on the day of our house inspection.

The next photo is a shot looking up from the family room.

We didn’t do much to the loft except the new carpet, which is hard to tell from the photos, the new paint and the furniture. The tables are for my granddaughters to use. Our older granddaughter is so excited to have her own table for coloring and painting.

The next two photos are of the loft during the mess we had while the new carpet was being installed.

The next two photos are of the remodeled loft.

Do you think my granddaughters will enjoy the loft for their playtime?

Begin the Reveal

The remodeling project is mostly done. I have a few things left to do like paint my laundry room, and I keep finding places to touch up the paint. Each new set of workers usually put a few nicks in the paint. So for the last few days, I’ve had a paint brush in one hand and a paint can in the other.

To begin the reveal, I’m going to start small and work up to the grand finale—the kitchen. I’ll start with the before picture, if I have one, then the work-in-progress picture, and finally the finished product. Today I’m showing the upstairs bathroom. Here is the before photo. This is what it looked like when we purchased the house. We had it repainted before we moved in. I wasn’t fond of the purple.

I don’t have a photo of the work-in-progress, so we’ll go right to the finished product. I have two photos.

I just realized that you can see me in the mirror taking the photo. That didn’t show up in the thumbnail. If I’d known I was going to be in the picture, I would’ve dressed up. Here’s the second photo.

I’m very happy with the final results, but I’m glad it’s over. 

What should I do to celebrate?

 

My Displaced Office

Over the past few weeks I have been blogging about our remodeling project. We are nearing the end. Most of the work is done downstairs. We still have some new light fixtures to hang, and the back splash in the kitchen still needs to be put in. I do have a sink in my kitchen, and I have actually cooked several meals. However, now the chaos has moved upstairs. The upstairs was a mess before because we had all the downstairs furniture upstairs. Even though we have moved the furniture back downstairs, we still have things out of place upstairs. We’ve been putting in new baseboard and painting all the doors and trim before the new carpet goes in. Right now my desk is sitting in the loft, and we have moved most of the furniture into one bedroom. Here’s what our upstairs looks like now. In the photo below, you can see the space where my desk used to be.

Here’s where my desk is now. In the loft with empty shelves. The contents of the desk are sitting wherever we could find space.

Here are more photos of the loft and other rooms.

I’m calling the photo below the “Princess and the Pea” bedroom.

This room is almost empty. When they come to lay the carpet, we will have to move this one piece into the loft.

We have hired out most of the work on this project, but some of it we have done ourselves. You can see some of our tools. My husband has been putting up the new baseboard, and I did the caulking and touch-up painting as well as giving all the door frames and doors a new coat of paint to match the new baseboards. The work is almost done.

Do you do your own painting, or do you hire someone to do it? Are you a do-it-yourself type person, or do you hire someone else to do the work?

Making Do

When everything isn’t perfect, we have to make do with what we have. We get some good advice in 1 Timothy 6:7-8 about being content. “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

During our remodel we have had to make do with a lot of makeshift things. We were down to one sink in a bathroom with no light fixture until I finally discovered that I could plug in a pole lamp for light. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Here’s my newly painted half bath. What do you think of the color?

The following photos show our makeshift counter tops—particle board and a floor tile.

We’re almost done with the kitchen and baths. The cupboard doors and drawer fronts will go on as soon as the counter tops are in. It should all happen this week. In the meantime, I’m trying to be contest.

 What is your advice for being content?