The great kitchen remodel

I'm still not sure what possessed us to do this, but we decided to try to sell our house and move.  Our neighborhood has always seemed like it was teetering right on the line -- it could get better & our property value could skyrocket, or it could turn into the 'hood and property value could plummet. 

When the house across the street went into foreclosure and the house next door became vacant, we decided it had finally tipped in the wrong direction.  We figured it couldn't hurt to try to sell.  Probably our house would sit on the market for a month or so, then we'd take it off for the holidays and put it back on in the spring.  We expected it would be six months or so before anything happened. 

Oh, and before I forget:  we chose to do this at the end of October.  I work in a job related to elections, and M's annual sales meeting started the Saturday after the election, so it is absolutely THE busiest time of the year for both of us at work.  Like I said, I really don't know what we were thinking.

Anyhoo, our house is nice.  We like it.  It has good "house karma."  But besides being annoyed by the ill-kept houses around ours, we also knew that it was only a matter of time before this house was too small for our family.  We have only one full bath, shared by all four of us, and I would really like to have a master bath before the kids get much older.  Z's bedroom is a floor below ours and B's, which is far from ideal.  And the storage situation is bleak:  no basement, no attic, and a very basic, not-at-all-oversized garage.  Kids come with a lot of stuff, and the stuff seems to multiply when you're not looking.  It was starting to feel cramped.  And there are a couple of major expenses that are looming -- the roof needs new shingles, and the gas boiler will need replacing before too long.  These are not expenses we want to absorb for a house that we know we're not going to stay in for the long haul.

So we (perhaps foolishly) thought:  why not try selling?  It's a great time to buy a house, if we can just unload this one first.  There are screaming deals to be had, and interest rates will probably never be this low again.  First though, our realtors advised us, we needed to remodel the kitchen.  Nearly everything else is updated, so the original 1967 kitchen stood out.  M has tried for years to convince me that the formica countertops with swirls of gold were not ugly but "vintage," but I just never bought it.  So we spent a mere $2,000, and now have a lovely kitchen.  Which sadly I'll be moving away from in three weeks, into a newer, larger house in a better neighborhood, but a house that has its original 1975 kitchen.  Sigh.  At least we have experience remodeling a kitchen now.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that our house sold on the 11th day on the market?  For 97% of our asking price, which we purposely set a little bit high?  And that day happened to be the day after the election, when I want nothing but sleep, having pulled an all-nighter the night before?  Our lives have been a tornado of paperwork and packing ever since.  I'll show you the new house in another post.  Meanwhile, here are pictures of the kitchen, in before & after pairs:

By the way, when I say "we" remodeled our kitchen, I really mean "M" remodeled our kitchen.  He did 95% of the work, and truly did a fantastic job.  I pretty much designed it, picked out materials, painted things, and followed him around with a dustpan and brush.  That was pretty much the extent of my contribution.  He installed the floors, the new cabinets, the countertops, and the gorgeous glass tile backsplash. 

It's the best $2,000 we ever spent, I swear.  It's bigger, brighter, and cleaner.  There's a place for everything, so the clutter is gone.  There's so much more counter space I don't know what to do with it all.  Really, I just love it.  I'd say that we should have done it years ago, but there's a good reason why we didn't:  we were waiting for Ikea to open a store in Denver so that we could do our "dream kitchen."  Well, Ikea opens next fall, and we now have another kitchen to remodel.  I have a feeling the next one will cost significantly more than $2,000...

Look what I found!

A neighbor had it sitting out by the curb for the garbage men. It's not in the best shape -- that magazine holder appears to be a separate piece that someone added on by nailing it with 3" wood nails, but I think a few screws and some wood glue can tidy that up quite easily. Some of the veneer on the top is slightly damaged too, but I think I can make that look nicer, and if I can't, maybe I'll get a piece of glass to put over the top or something. Someone went to all the trouble of stripping it before they put it out by the curb though!

I'm thinking of painting it a bright hot pink/fuschia sort of color (but I'm open to suggestions -- anyone??) and using it for Z's bedside table when she gets out of her crib and into a big-girl bed.

Our taste tends to run to the clean, simple and modern, but I think this will work for two reasons: (1) it's for a little girl's room, and I think little girl rooms can bear a certain amount of frou-frou in them, even in an otherwise modern decor, and (2) I kind of like an eclectic look anyway. I'd rather fill our house up with individual pieces that we love, rather than having a theme, and letting our taste be the thing that ties it all together. Besides, painting it a funky color that you wouldn't expect to see that sort of piece in will give it an edge, I think.

I'll post an "after" picture when it's all done. Don't hold your breath though -- I have quite an array of painting projects tucked away in this house. Probably the worst is painting all the trim on the house so it matches the new gutters (least exciting $1300 we've ever spent), but that's one that might have to wait until spring.

Do you like it?

I redecorated my "living room." Actually, Danielle did it for me. I think she did a bang-up job. I love the colors. I'm a very color-y sort of person, and the plain blogger template was starting to bore me. So welcome to my new home!

New blog, new president, new hope. What a great day!

Friday catch-all

First of all, the only thing I know most of you want to know about: we haven't heard from CCAI yet. There are conflicting rumors as to whether they're working today or not, so I'm not expecting a call anytime earlier than next week. I'll keep my cellphone on me just in case though.

I'd like to post a bunch of pictures from Thanksgiving, but somehow I forgot to take any, except this one of the dogs:

Poppy got a bag of treats out of his pocket, and before he even got a word out or got it opened, the dogs heard the crinkle of the plastic & gathered round.

I made this yummy yummy cake for Thanksgiving -- it's got two chocolate layers with pumpkin-cream cheese stuff in the middle. We had pumpkin pie too, of course -- Mom brought that. But here's a picture of my first attempt at the cake:

Martha Freakin' Stewart I ain't. Fortunately I had enough of all the ingredients left that I could make an extra layer, and this one went in chunks into a tupperware, and we've been snacking on it ever since. The cake came out delicious (and very attractive after the do-over), but we ate most of it before I could take a picture. Oops.

Last but not least, the dining room. Almost five years we've lived in this house, and we've never had dining room furniture. We have a very spacious dining room, but it's always just had a bunch of leftovers & junk in it. Well, we finally bought dining room furniture last month. Then I decided I needed to paint the room. It had one red wall, which we'd had in our condo and loved, but it just didn't look right here. The rest of the walls were tan, and they didn't go well with the rest of the house. Plus it seemed dark. So I decided to try a green, and paint over the tan with white. I've had a long & tortured history with green paint, and it continues today. Here's the closest I have to a before picture (I forgot to take one until I was almost done priming over the red):

Here's the first green -- it was just a little too bright, even for me.

And here's the green we currently have -- I think it's a little too minty. You can't really tell it in the picture though.

And here it is almost finished:

I haven't painted the white walls yet (they're just primed in the picture, so they'll be a little less harsh than they look here after they're painted). We have a bamboo shade for the window, and I'll paint something for the big long blank wall that's on the left in the picture. Maybe one big canvas, maybe three that hang side-by-side. But we finally have a dining room! I feel so grown up.

I'm in love

With my new vacuum! I've been complaining about our vacuum for a long time -- it sucks (in that it actually DOESN'T suck very well, ha ha!). Yesterday, after much research, I went out and bought a Eureka Capture. Of course, I immediately vacuumed the entire house when I got home, just to test-drive my new baby. I couldn't believe it! Now mind you, I'd already vacuumed yesterday with the old vacuum, so you'd think our carpets would be relatively clean. Well, I had to empty the canister four times! It was chock-full of dog & cat fur each time. Grrrrroooooosssss!!!! If you have pets and are sick of living in a fur-coated home, get to Target and buy one for yourself!

In other, totally unrelated news: We are now "Mom" and "Dad" instead of "Mommy" and "Daddy." This happened once before, about a year ago, and only lasted a couple of days. We'll see how long it lasts this time. I kinda miss being "Mommy."

The great remodel and new baby room

Our house is (was) a two-bedroom. With a second wee one on the way someday soon, we needed a third bedroom. Luckily, we had a fairly easy way to do it. Our garden level was pretty much one giant room. And I do mean giant -- 500sf, bigger than most apartments I lived in back in my single days. It was finished, but just one big, mostly empty room, furnished with all the mismatched, leftover junk we'd never gotten around to putting away or getting rid of when we moved into the house in 2003.

We decided to divide it up to make a smaller family room and a 3rd bedroom. I think it worked pretty well! Unfortunately, I didn't think to take "before" pictures, so the one below is the best I can come up with. It's taken from just inside the bathroom door, looking down what is now the hallway into the side of the old room that's now the family room. See that metal pole? You can see it from the opposite side in the 5th picture below. The igloo is pretty much sitting in the middle of what's now the 3rd bedroom.

The Bedroom

DURING: The framed new wall from the bedroom side (imagine the edge of the igloo in the bottom right-hand corner, with the tunnel running up the right side of the picture):

AFTER: Same view -- the new wall finished, from the bedroom side:

We put in built-in shelves because it's a pretty small room, and added a desk in case we still live in this house when she's old enough to be in school & needs a place to study. (Ahem...in the interest of full disclosure: when I say "we put built-in shelves," I mean my husband, of course. I did finish them though.)

The south wall of the new bedroom (the windows will eventually have velvet roman shades in the same color as the purple behind the shelves...I'd better get sewing...):

And here's our wish for our daughter -- peace, love and happines:

I'm eventually going to paint this on the walls in our bedroom & the Bee's too. We all deserve peace, love & happiness! (I cheated on this -- I bought a stencil for it at Michael's.)

The bedroom is currently in use as a guest room, so it has a double bed in it. That will get replaced either by a crib or the twin bed I slept in as a girl, depending on how old our daughter is. There's also a beautiful quilt in the works from Grandma; stay tuned for pictures of that. I just realized it still looks a little naked -- it's getting there though. At least it's a bedroom now, and not just half of a humongous, badly-used room!

The Family Room

DURING: The framed new wall from the family room side (imagine the igloo inside that framed part -- the new bedroom -- with the tunnel running down in the picture toward the photographer):

AFTER: Same view -- the new wall finished (except for hanging up all that art you see stacked against the end table), from the family room side:

And a view of the opposite side of the new family room: