Beauty Farming Life

No, this isn't a "before and after" of our house but it's pretty close!  This is what is being done this weekend.  The husband of a friend of ours does projects like this and he's going to build us a porch railing and two sets of stairs.  It should be pretty cool when done and will look very close to this picture.  The difference being that we will have an extra set of stairs coming off the end of the porch as well.  It will TOTALLY change the look of the house and we can't wait.

Yesterday at lunch, I bought lights for the house.  The electrician comes on Monday.  I bought two porch lights and two motion sensing security lights, one for each end of the house.  We're starting to make lots of progress!

Here is the living room as it looked just about a week ago... Here is what they have done as of yesterday... We had those two openings/walls sheet rocked closed (they aren't finished of course) but wow, it sure changes the room.  In fact it "creates" two rooms, with two defined spaces.  The foyer/entryway which will eventually hold a desk, and some other fun stuff, and then more wall space in the living room for furniture that can be arranged.  Should be wonderful when it's done.  As always, click on the photos to enlarge.

Here is a view of the master bedroom before they started work.  Note the pole on one side, the pole in the middle, and the beam and glass "windows" on the other side...we came up with a solution... We had the center pole removed, and large support beams placed a bit closer together in order to make up for the missing center pole, and then we are having half walls built... ...as you can see in this picture.  This will create a separation of the two areas, while still allowing light and air circulation from the windows into the  bedroom.  We intend to make that space a reading area with a couple of comfy chairs and ottomans, a lamp or two, and a small table.

Shannon Bathroom Vanity We got this bathroom vanity the other day, it was too good a deal to pass up.  It will replace the one that is there now.  It's a little smaller, and somewhat farmhouse looking. We were told about it by the contractor, and it was the perfect fit for now.  All we had to get extra was a faucet and we chose the one like in this picture, retro with "hot" and "cold" handles.  Less than $100 for the base, the cultured ceramic top, and the faucet set.  Told you it was too good a deal to pass up!  It should be installed once the painting and flooring is done.  It will save the contractor from having to strip and paint the old one. It has to be removed anyway to paint behind it so he can just remove the old one and throw it away and then we'll put this in later. Our new toilet, exciting huh? Oh, did I tell you the new toilet  was put in?  Figured that was a necessity with people in and out of the house.  Here is a...

Above is Julia Child's kitchen wall at her cottage in France.... And here is Julia Child's kitchen wall at her studio... And here is her kitchen wall as it was in her home, now in the Smithsonian... And here is where I want to create the same thing for 2nd Man's cooking utensils, pots, and pans! I figured this is a great spot for something like this.  The wall is too close to the doorway to put a piece of furniture, it's too shallow for shelves that would be able to hold anything, and if we put pictures or something there, it would just be a huge waste of that space. Since our storage is limited out there, why not do something just like this? As soon as I can, I want to work on this.  It's a pretty simple DIY, some strips of wood to raise the pegboard off the wall, making sure they are anchored well, and then attach the pegboard to them.  Or perhaps they have some that are already done and you ...

BIG day at the farm today, we get to see all the work that was done this week.  The contractor/painter tells me that all the sheetrock is done, the new walls are in, the doorway is covered up, they supposedly finished up wood trim yesterday, started putting texture on the walls.  Painting will commence next week.  The porch railing is also done, or almost done.  All the railing is up and I know one set of stairs has been built, so that will be exciting to see as well.  There will be lots of pictures and videos going up this weekend when we get back. I might post a bunch at once, or spread them out next week. We're also going to look at an awesome piece of furniture today that we might go ahead and get.  It's a one of a kind piece, it's really cool looking, it's bright yellow, and it will look awesome in the kitchen.  If we get it, I'll post pictures of that too. See you back here later!

Mudroom  Here is the electrician's progress in the mudroom.  We have OVERHEAD LIGHT!  Whoo hoo!  You don't know how exciting that is.  Other than the upper window in the door, there has never been much light in there.  Nor were there electrical outlets.  Ma had an overhead lightbulb run by extension cord and the fridge was plugged in around the corner behind it in the dining room.  So, we had three outlets put in, one on each wall (you can see one of them above), plus an overhead fluorescent light fixture (so we didn't add heat to the room).   It's so nice to flip a switch and have light in the room!   Now we will have a place to plug in not only the refrigerator, but other places to plug in other things such as the water cooler that we moved in there yesterday, and maybe even a wine refrigerator somewhere down the road. We are so excited!  Black and white floor coming soon, then we'll start building shelving.  Progress is...

Here is the porch as it was before, no railing. The house sits up pretty high, so there was no point in not having a railing.  A fall off the porch wouldn't be good, and it was too high to jump up and sit on the edge so we felt a railing was the best solution... ...and here it is with the new railing!  Of course it will be painted when we paint the house, but it already looks SO amazing.  We had it made at a height so that when we sat in the chairs, we had an unobstructed view of the yard.  It's perfect!

Stomp and Drag ceiling The ceilings are finished as well!  This is a technique called "stomp and drag".  We had never heard of it, but the painter recommended it as a means to cover the flaws in the ceiling and plus it's a popular ceiling texture.  We weren't sure what it was when he said it, but when we did finally see it, we understood.  I've seen this on many ceilings, just never knew what it was called.  By the way, in this picture, those strips on the ceiling are original to the house, they are a decorative element, not related to the 'stomp and drag' technique.  We didn't want them to be removed, we like that character and style. Anyway, they are all done, the holes where vents were, and other misc hardware on the ceilings are patched up and covered and it looks wonderful. We're almost there!

New porch stairs Yesterday we debuted the finished porch railing, here is the other end.  We have new stairs!  Before, there was a just one smaller set (you can see where it was, the dark spot on the white part).  We had it moved over a bit, and then, the biggest change, we had an entire new second set put on the end.  We figured it would be nice to have a set of stairs leading to a different part of the yard and it just looks good. The Porch Guy did an awesome job.  He set the posts in concrete, he added extra support under the stairs since they are wider than normal (4 feet wide) and he even set the bottom steps on concrete pads just to keep them from deteriorating, even though they are pressure treated and should last a long time.  It's the little touches like that that we appreciated.   Please pardon all the debris and trash on the porch and ground.  That's the nature of having work done.  After it's done, a truck is coming to haul ...

 White wall test  We chose the white color we liked best, called "Snowfall" as I recall.  The painter did this test for us to see what it would look like with the texture on the wall and the white color.  We think it looks awesome.  It's going to look so TOTALLY different when everything is painted white.  It will be so bright and light and airy.  That should happen sometime this week!

Sitting area before Much change in here!  This is in the master bedroom and this is what we will turn into a reading area.  These poles are load bearing but just seemed to be lacking something.  So he suggested moving them a bit further out, and creating half walls... Sitting area during ...and he created this for us!  These walls conceal the new load bearing columns.  They are awesome and create such a wonderful space for us.  I even have a great decorating idea to share with you when the time comes.  This really defines the two rooms.  

 Here is the dining room as it was before.  Note the doorway.  Since that's going to be our guest room, we didn't need a doorway from there to the dining room, and it would give us more wall space in each room. There's also an old electrical panel and switch we didn't need. And here it is with the ceiling painted and all of those openings closed up!  It will look more cohesive when it's all painted, I still feel like the plywood is a doorway (not to mention I must have started to walk through that direction about a dozen times), but we'll get used to it. 

I just thought this was kind of cool.  On the left, is a new stainless steel all in one sink and counter. On the right is our stainless steel all in one sink and counter. One is brand new, the other is over 50 years old (or more).  It's kind of cool that we have something "old" that's not too far removed from what they do today.  Of course, ours is currently dirty from the work going on in the house, but once it's polished up with some stainless steel cleaner, it will look as nice as the new one.  A total kitchen remodel is not in the cards for us now, but someday we might do that and we think we'd want to just keep something similar to what was there before.  It's nice to know we could have that option if we wanted.  I guess that saying is true, everything old is new again!

Spoke to the contractor today, he said he was "almost done".  Working on the oil based paint today, which is all the door and window trims...said he should start the walls tomorrow afternoon or maybe Wednesday. In a few days that should all be done!  If it's done in time, I might swing by after work and check it out.   Then comes the nervous part, the final "walk thru" to see if it all meets our expectations, oh and then of course there is always the final payment!

Detail strips above windows Not sure if you've noticed in some of the photos, but the house has these really neat accents on the walls and ceiling;  1 inch strips of wood that are spaced about 4 feet apart.  It makes for a nice detail. The contractor noticed this and the fact that a couple of doorways and windows had the same detail but the rest did not.  So he put the same strips above every window.... Detail strips below windows ...and below as well.  Pretty cool.  Of course in these pictures, they are not yet painted (though they may be by now, ha), but you should be able to get the style and what they look like.  It was great that he thought about this kind of attention to detail.  Yet another reason we are so happy with him.

Living room work in progress Here is a shot of the living room (as seen from the kitchen doorway) just last week.  The sheetrock had been done, but of course no painting yet...and below is as it was yesterday, with the painting almost finished, and trim work being completed... What do you notice between the two photos?  Look have much brighter this photo is as compared to the photo above.  The pictures were both taken almost at the same time on clear and sunny days.  The white really reflects the light and makes the house bright and airy.  That is exactly what we wanted when we started this process!

Dining room during remodeling Dining room last weekend, with the doorway sealed up, and the trim done under the windows... Dining room almost finished ...and here it is with the initial painting done.  Floors haven't been refinished yet of course, but again it looks so different.  We're excited.

All in one utility sink Well, as often happens in the remodeling process of a house, you run across things that force changes in your original wants/desires.  We encountered that yesterday. We found  stumbled upon the above utility sink at our local  LOWES  big box store.  It's a wood base cabinet, in the cottage style that will fit with the design/style of our house, with an ABS 15 gallon sink.  The best thing is, this is an "all in one box".  It has the base, the sink, all the plumbing hardware connections, a high arch faucet and a pull out extension, even a built in soap dispenser.  Not a bad deal and it might hide the pipes.  It's not exactly what we want, but we just might get it. UPDATE 11/2012:  We found a sink that was more in the style we originally wanted and got it so this one is not on our wish list any more.