Backyard progress

 You may have seen the video I put on the blog a few months ago of my husband's red neck trenching. Here is the reward for his hard work. We put in grass. I love looking in the backyard and seeing color now. It has been so much fun to play in and lay in. We wanted to camp out there one night but couldn't get our daughter to settle down and ended up inside. But we love having a big area to play in.

Chickens

 One of my biggest fears in my life are birds! They scare me, they don't have eyelids and they are fast and don't have arms. They are just weird looking and I am afraid they are going to peck me. My husband's sister called us one day and told us one of the classes at the school she teaches at was going to be hatching eggs and wanted to see if we would like some of the chickens. The thought of healthy farm fresh eggs sounds so nice but I wasn't sure I wanted the chickens that came with it. My husband was very excited at the idea. I have to say the baby chicks were cute. (I pet one or two of them but could not hold them) but the adults are ugly. There is one rooster in the group and he is learning his voice. He sounds like an ahooga horn and is trying to compete with the other roosters in the morning around 5am. It does make me laugh. I am proud of myself though, I have helped feed them and corral them every morning as they have been flying out of the pen my husband made. They still terrify me though.

Moving the Kitchen Entrance

One of the things we didn't like about the house floor plan is it really felt like two different sides of the house. Which was one of the reasons for moving the kitchen entrance. We wanted to help the flow of the house. The first picture is looking into the family room from the bedroom hallway. This wall is the wall we opened to the kitchen.

This is the view from the family room looking into the snob room where the front door is. You can see the original opening to the kitchen right next to the front door.

This is how the view is now from the family room. We have the original opening closed off, and we used one of the old doors from the back of the house and a coat rack, and now have our new opening to the kitchen.

One of the treasures I left off our kitchen update is we now have a chandelier of the kitchen table.

The Kitchen

Here is some of the transformation/work in progress for the kitchen. This first picture is the way it looked when we first moved in. The washer and dryer in the kicthen, no water hook up for the refridgerator, drop ceiling with the old light and really closed off.

Phase two of the kitchen started to look like this. We moved the cabinets around and made plans to move the sink into an isle that would be parallel to the cabinets on the back wall. We still weren't in love with this idea and we would have had a very small island to fit in this space.

We then decided that we HATED that you walk into the kitchen right from the front door. We then had the idea to move the whole kitchen. So we moved the cabinets again and started opening up a new enterance to the kitchen.

As we removed the old cabinets I found this scrap of the original wall paper. It was very stylish in the 80's which makes me laugh now. I think I had something similar in my parents house growing up.

Once we opened the new entrance we had to move a bunch of electrical and then boarded up the old enterance. This was so nice to see closed off! I really did not like that if you looked through the front door of my house you could see most of the house.

 This is the view from the snob room.

 Next my husbands favorite part. Electrical! (I hope you caught onto my sarcasm there) He does a great job but does not enjoy this headache. We moved all the outlets that were on the wall, and had to run new plumbing. Luckily our house has a crawl space underneath which made it a lot easier to replumb. (Have I mentioned my husband can do anything?!) A special thanks to my husband's brother-in-law also for spending one of his days off helping my husband run a new line for our internet also. I am sure that is not how he wanted to spend his day off. And thank you to his wife for letting him help.

Next more dry wall. Seeing that I was 7-8 months pregnant during this project I have not been much help. The dry wall was about the only place I was useful. I have learned to mud and texture in my sleep.

Next, talk about blessings. A couple of days before we really started digging into the kitchen I had a friend stop by to visit. I started telling her about our plans for the kitchen and what we were going to do. She mentioned that her brother was doing some work to his house and would be getting rid of some cabinets and asked if we could use them. I wasn't sure what they would look like so I said sure thinking I was positive we could find a place for them somewhere. She brought them by the next day and they looked great. Especially compared to our 27+ year old small cabinets that I had poorly painted. Her brother had removed just some bottom cabinets, we were luckly and easily found some places that sold the matching cabinets and ordered new top cabinets. It has been GREAT to have the extra cabinet space. These have so much more room than the old cabinets we had planned to use and look so much better.

The wood behind the island and the counter tops are still from the old kitchen. We cut them down to use them until we can get new counter tops ordered and the rest of the island built. We still need to hang up the microwave but the kitchen is usable and I have space. So I am not complaining a bit!

Getting inspired...

So a friend of ours refinished this piece and has it for sale. Guess what?! We are buying it. I love having a mirror by the front door and think this piece will look great. Now I get to work with decorating around it.

I have been trying to think of something clever to do with the old doors that were on the house that we removed. I am thinking that when we put the wall up where the opening to the kitchen is this might be fun to do with one of the old doors so guessed have a place to put their things when they come in.

 Evalyn has moved to a big girls bed. I am still trying to figure out what bedding I want to do. I am debating between the shabby chic patchwork and the pottery barn inspired ruched bedspread in gray.

I am still not the biggest fan of a sliding pantry door for this reason... This little girl can get in the pantry way to easily and get into things.

Uh-Oh

Evalyn and I have been playing outside with chalk lately, and I think she decided that chalk and crayons are the same and can be used inside on anything too. She decided to color on the TV, walls, doors and some toys.

 Well if you do the crime, you do the time. lol. She actually wanted to help me clean up the mess. She thought it was fun. I love magic erasers.

Yard work

Our house had been empty for about 1.5 years by the time we moved in. I have been so focused on the inside I haven't cared much what the outside looks like. Now that the weather is nice I figured I better get to work. My job has been pulling weeds while my husband figured out the half way done sprinkler system that was put in. 

awww!!! So much better!

 Once my husband figured out where the sprinkler lines were we started digging new trenches for grass we want to put in. We spent a while digging and took a break. My husband then got a great idea... Use the dirt bike! It's very red neck style but it worked and saved us hours and sore muscles.

Just for fun...

Evalyn continues to make me laugh. She loves hats and boxes. She was playing with this box while I was working and it broke. She stood there and looked at it for a minute then excitedly exclaimed COUCH! and sat down in it. Thats the positive way of looking at things.

Evalyn does not like wearing shoes. She takes them off as soon as she can, but she also doesn't like walking on rocks. This was her inventive way of getting from one side to the other without having to step on the rocks.

This was all dressed up for Easter and ready for church. Don't mind me, I am 5 months pregnant and instead of getting a belly I tend to gain weight everywhere!

Snob Room

The picture quality is very poor in these but you can get the picture. For some reason our front door was brown. The side windows were painted white, but the door was never painted. I thought this looked bad so we now have a painted front door.

I am still working on decorating this room, I took the pinterest idea of taking a pallet and turning it into a shelf. I love it. It brings the country look into the room. The yellow is a bit bright for me, my husband loves it. The pictures make the color look lighter than it is. Its growing on me. I have a piece of furnture picked out that a friend of ours is selling that he has painted. He does some great work!

I am still trying to figure out how I want to decorate the long wall. I have figured out that I no longer like the black picture frames that I used at our old house. Next to the yellow it reminds me of a school bus. :)

We still have some work to do. The wall on the left still needs to be sanded and textured then painted.

Putting up Walls

Wow. It's amazing how the right tools make a job so much easier! We invested in a framing nail gun. This made the job of framing the wall so much easier. I was never strong enough to hammer the nails through the studs with the other walls we put up. But I am proud to say I helped put this wall up with this little beauty!

We cut away the flooring this time to make room for the wall to go up. We are getting smarter! In the kitchen we pulled up the floor and relayed it. This was a lot easier. This room was originally set up for a formal living room and dining room. That is not my style so we will have a snob room and a family room separated by a wall. That way my back room can be messy and the front room always have the appearance of a nice clean home.

 We finished the drywall today. Tomorrow I will put up the mud. I can't wait until we can paint this room. The color is not the worst orange I have ever seen, but I am ready for some nice clean walls. (Did you notice the popcorn ceiling is gone?)

Kitchen re-rehaul

It has been a little while since we have done anything to the inside of the house. Since the weather has been nice we have been working on the yard. We have ripped out a lot of dead trees and planted 8 new fruit trees. We still have A LOT of yard work to do. I decided this week that we need to focus on one project at a time and get them finished. So back to the inside of the house we go.

We started trying to draw out plans to put a wall up to separate the large room you first walk into. My husband and I could not agree on where we wanted to put the opening to lead to the family room. He wanted the opening right when you walked into the house. I told him I didn't like that because of where the opening of the kitchen is.... DUN DUN DUN... As I continued to put my foot in my mouth, I started telling him the only way I would go for his idea would be to move the doorway to the kitchen. I think he loved the idea of more work :)

This is how the kitchen currently looks. We had plans to rip out the sink and dishwasher and make an island. I was never in love with where this was going to be so I hadn't pushed to get this done. (You can see through the opening the front door, and how when you first walk in you can turn into the kitchen)

Here is a mock up of the new plans. Now this is a very bad depiction. I mine as well have had a picture and a magazine and cut a pasted to make this picture but you get the idea right? What we plan to do is shift the cabinets, stove and microve down the wall and board up where the opening to the kitchen is now. Then we will place the new walkway/opening to the left. This will make it so when you first walk into the house you either go into what I tease is called the Snob Room, or walk straight back through the hallway to get to the rest of the house. We will still create an island with the sink and dishwasher but we will turn it a different direction than orginally planned. I finally like the idea of where the island will be and what it will look like. So let the work begin! Actually I convinced my husband to finish the main room before we tackle the re-rehaul of the kitchen.

Kitchen Time Line - Almost Done!

We are getting closer to being done with the kitchen.

This is the view when you first walk into the kitchen. The fireplace sure works well. Our heater went out a few weeks ago and I was sure happy to have some sort of heat!

This is a view of where the hole used to be in the ceiling. It is no longer there. And no more popcorn ceiling!

This is the dining area next to the fireplace.

E wanted her picture taken. You can also see the tape on the floor in this picture... This is one of the last things we have to do. We are going to take out the sink and the dishwasher and make an island where the tape is to open the kitchen a little more and make more counter top and cabinet space.

The fridge is in and so is the door.

We have some of the lighting in. We want to add more can lighting through out the room and a chandelier over the kitchen table.

We were able to reuse the cabinets and painted them. We placed some of the cabinets we removed, where the fridge used to be.

Kitchen Time Line - in progress

One thing that made it easier on us is that the water line was already in the wall from the washer. We were able to use this line for our fridge so we can use the ice machine and tap into it for the other side of the wall were we hooked up the washer.

This is after we put the new drywall up for the ceiling, and the frame work for the pocket door for the pantry.

This is inside the pantry looking into the kitchen. You can see where the entry door used to be for the bedroom.

While we were working on this we realized we had a leak in our hot water heater which is located in the same area. I was very happy to find this now while we had the walls ripped apart so we could fix it and not have to tear a new wall apart later.

This house was built in 1985 (what a great year by the way...) The builder used a lot of pony walls and and spindles to separate the room. When we took the part of the wall down in the kitchen in left a nice whole in the ceiling and wall.

This is during the process of scraping all the popcorn ceiling off. It is so nice to almost be free of that ceiling!

The drywall is up, the door is in place, the wall is ready to be textured and painted. 

G loves soda... Now so does E... Like father like daughter. It is so funny to see her with a cup almost as big as she is.