FINALLY!

First off some sad news: We did not get chosen for the HGTV show. =.(

But life goes on.  And technically, life starts for us tomorrow since IT'S OUR WEDDING DAY!

The planning for the wedding went pretty smoothly and instead of freaking out all week doing last minute things, I was able to relax a bit this week and enjoy the nice weather we've been having.  And what do I usually do to enjoy myself?  Well, work on the house of course!

As you all know by now, our house is painted a horrendous shade of light green with black trim and looks like a 40-foot tall pile of mint chocolate chip icecream.  That's about to change though.  I started prep work this week to finally PAINT the house an acceptable color.

We're really excited for this change since painting the house a decent color will be the single largest thing we can do to the place to make it look more modern and not be an eyesore (the neighbors were visibly excited when they realized I was getting ready to paint).

I'm pretty much done with scraping the peeling paint off of the south and west sides of the house (which get absolutely baked in the sun during the summer).  Our house looks like a leper at the moment:



Now I need to redo some of the trim, fix a few warped boards, caulk and seal everything, pressure wash and then PAINT!

Also, I'll be re-doing the fence at the end of the driveway, adding some exterior lighting and cleaning up all the wires on the exterior of the house (cable and telephone).

Once I'm done making those messes, it's Sarah's turn to work her gardening magic to pull everything back together.  Can't wait!

A New Kitchen?

Sarah and I were nominated by our friend Matt to be on a kitchen makeover show.  If we get chosen, we get to be on TV and get a free kitchen remodel!

As part of the process, we had to make a video complaining about how much our kitchen sucks and we also had to talk about a few things the producers wanted to know about.

Here's the video we made for our submission:

Hey, How About an Update Finally?

First things first, our sincere apologies for how lazy we've gotten with updating this poor blog!  We haven't done a lot to the house recently because most of our attention has been on our jobs and wedding planning.  Also, most of our finances have been focused on the wedding as well, which also puts a damper on working on the house.

However, you never got a decent update after I installed the hardwood floors last summer.  The last time you got a real update on the remodel was when the floors were halfway laid and we were still living in the basement.  Well, that was close to nine months ago now (my bad!).  Since then we've moved upstairs, gotten some furniture, done a little decorating and have just been enjoying actually living in our house.  For those who haven't been here to see the place yet, here are some pics of how it looks right now.

The first round of the remodel still isn't 100% done though; I'd say it's somewhere around 95%.  I still need to finish installing most of the floor and window trim and then paint it, lay new tile in the entry way and find some proper lights for the master bedroom.  And a few other things I'll find along the way I'm sure.

We'll begin out tour in the kitchen.  As you might recall from previous posts, I gave the kitchen a little weekend makeover about this time last year.  I painted the cabinets and added new hardware, redid the counter tops, installed a new sink and faucet, ran a waterline to the refrigerator for the ice maker, installed a garbage disposal, added under-cabinet lighting and updated the ceiling lights.

Looking from the kitchen to the living room:

From there, we'll move onto the dining area and the view of the living room from there:

Looking back from the living room to the kitchen and dining area:

And now we'll say hi to Sarah on the couch and head down the hall.

Here's a quick peek into the office.  Eventually we'll get some proper office furniture in here, but this setup will work for now.

As we walk into the master bedroom, on the right side of the room we have the bed.  I got bored today and decided to rotate the bed to butt up against the north wall too see how it looks.  It's usually between the curtains.  It also usually has a nice purple douvet on there as well, but the dogs got dirty and rolled all over it and got it filthy, so we have the backup quilt on the bed for now.

Looking from the bed across the room, you can see the french doors that lead out to the deck and some of the lake.  As you can see, we still have a lot of furniture to buy and decorating to do; but we're getting there slowly by surely.

From here you can see the walk-in closet I added and the purple accent wall Sarah added.  In case you hadn't noticed, Sarah got to pick the color scheme in the bedroom, which also happen to be our wedding colors (purple and gray).

Here's my side of the closet.  I built the closet organizer with the help of IKEA.  Sarah's side is almost the same, but she wanted more slide-out drawers.

And that door in the back of the closet leads my thinking room... which is still REALLY ugly.  Once the wedding is over, gutting this will be my next project.  We're sick of commuting downstairs to shower and get ready in the morning.

And now that I've shown you what's going on upstairs, I'll give you an update on what's going on downstairs.

But first, I should probably show you the stairs.  I think these turned out really well and I'm really proud of my canvas-wrapped riser idea.

Here's where we lived the first 9 months during the remodel upstairs.  Now it's a spare bedroom/workout/storage room.  And yes, we actually use our treadmill!  Eventually, this room will be getting split in half and made into two additional bedrooms and a dedicated laundry room.

The other half of the downstairs will eventually be my man cave/movie room.  For now, it's the big, ugly mostly empty room that the dogs get locked in when we're not home.  The old carpet was really gross, so I yanked that out awhile back and discovered that this room used to be two bedrooms!  I also discovered some fantastic 30-year-old vinyl flooring.  I also removed the awkward non-structural wall that was in the middle of the room not doing anything except taking up space.

And that's where we're at now!  Once the wedding is over and the weather gets better, we'll be turning our attention to the exterior of the house (and the upstairs bathroom).

And as usual, Lucy and Leroy say hi.