Opening Up

This week we had a wall removed that will open up the kitchen and the living room. Hubby also continued to removed the drywall that needed to be removed before new drywall could replace it. So, now we have a completely empty kitchen minus the left wall of the pantry, which was helping to support the roof. Hubby fixed that today so that we could take out the rest of that wall. We're saving that for family that's coming into town who want to take part in some demo. Can't say I blame them. ;-) Now our kitchen is a blank canvas.




Today we went and had an appointment with the cabinet company we're going to have do our cabinets. Before we went there, we had in our minds the kind of kitchen we wanted, which included white cabinets, wood floors, and slate-colored countertops. Kind of a blend between a modern and traditional look. But the cabinet company didn't have the bright white cabinets that we were looking for (bummer), but they did have these beautiful wood cabinets that had a distressed look in rustic mocha (love). I immediately was willing to change the theme of our kitchen around these cabinets. They have an inverted beveled edge, so hardware is not required if we don't want it and would help save us money. So, in a matter of minutes the theme for our kitchen went from modern to rustic. It will be similar to this picture with slightly lighter wood floors and dark counter tops:

(buzzle.com)

Finally, what's keeping me excited and dreaming at night, the 3-D picture (courtesy of Wilson Lumber) of how our final kitchen will be layed out:



Wanna come have a chat with me at the bar? =)

M-O-L-D is a 4-Letter Word

This past weekend my parents came up and helped us with the house. Hubby was still working on clearing out the kitchen so that we could put in new cabinets. Originally, we weren't considering new cabinets but rather just repaint the base and doors. However, I am so glad we're getting new cabinets because the water damage caused more mold than we originally thought.







However, the fun part of the kitchen gut is demo! My mom and I got to take out the tile backsplash along the wall. We each had a hammer and chisel and, with some finesse, pried off the tile pieces. I'm sure we each got out some stress in the process.

New Layers

This weekend we had two main projects: remove the kitchen floor and paint! Both involve showing new layers. The entire kitchen and most of the dining room floors were taken off using an air hammer and chisel. My husband and brother-in-law worked on it all weekend (minus a couple hour break to go to the circus). The previous floors were glue-down engineered with tile inset.







The master bedroom was painted a seal gray, a major improvement from the eye-gauging red that was there before. My mother-in-law and father-in-law did the majority of the painting here and most of the rooms this weekend.





The first bedroom was painted a color called soft mint green. I was concerned of how bright it would be (and it is bright), but this color is meant to compliment my white bedroom set with purple bed covers and curtains later on.




My big project of the weekend was painting the outer squares in the mudroom which is the same color as our living room (a close resemblance to a "brown bag" color), the top has already been painted, too (swiss coffee). Also, the hallways was painted with swiss coffee (top) and brown bag (bottom).