6 years! Can you believe it?

6 years ago on April 1st I bought my first home after my divorce.  The things you never think will ever happen to you actually CAN happen...but if you TRUST in God He always has a plan!

I have spent the last 6 years trusting that He will lead me where I need to be.  I know big things are around the corner and I cannot imagine my life right now without this house and the friends I have made since I moved to the South side of town!

Thank you so much to all of you who have helped make that possible, supported me through all the ups and downs and loved me through all of it.  Thanks for all of those I have met along the way and have come alongside me in my adventure of Taking on the World! :)

  Here we are the day we bought the house!

 3.5 months later when we moved into the house!

 Our first snowman we built at our house!

  And the furry animals we have added to our family!

We love our house and all those that come and visit!  xoxo

The Dining Room Details

So I will have to admit that when I first saw this Curio cabinet I did not fall in love.  To think back about that I would call myself crazy today.  I am usually really good about seeing past color, pattern, etc to see somethings potential but this blue just screamed Country to me...or maybe it was the small flowered wallcovering inside that had something to do with it.  (Sorry I missed the close up picture of that).

If only the curio cabinet could talk....I bet it would have some stories to tell from 1938 when it was originally put in place, and I bet it would have yelled at the people who covered up the gorgeous hardwood floors with ceramic tile...and espeically the people who painted it blue.  But I think deep down in this Curio's heart, he knew that one day he would be brought back to the glory that it once was.

And I have my mama to thank for that.  (She is my favorite tedious painter).  I love to paint...but I am pretty messy when I do (which you can see by the clothes I wear).  And although we may have all gotten high on the oil-based glossy paint it was well worth it.  I went with a very dark wall color in my Dining Room.  There is not much wall space due to the openings on either end and the large front window so I could get away with it.  The White curio really pops out and pulls the painted kitchen cabinets through into the room as well. Check out the before and after shot below...

Sometimes it is all in the details.  In order to really pull a room together you have to think through the details.  While almost any knob would have looked great on this Curio I went with a dark knob to give it contrast but the coolest thing about it is that is matches the bronze glass details at the ends of the curtain rod across the room.

 When creating a backdrop for a Curio or even a bookcase it is nice to draw the eye into the space. The previous ugly flower wallcovering was a bit too distracting though (and it also did not want to come off) so I lined the inside of the cabinet with new white wallcovering that has a great contemporary yes simplistic pattern to it.  So the classic beauty is accented very subtly.  And then I filled it with all my favorite glass dishes (most which I inherited from my Grandmother!).  I am not the type of of person who only uses the china on special occasions...the kids and I LOVE to put all of our desserts and fruit salads into gorgeous glass dishes, it just makes it that more fun!  

Enjoy every detail of your house including what you fill your cabinets with!

The Dining Room- Part 2

So as you will see later I finished out a space on the upper level that was previously an attic so in order to heat the space I needed to run a new duct up to that room.  Since this Dining Room was was already in repair due to the corner it seemed like the perfect location.  The wall got a little "fat" but no one is the wiser when you are standing in the space.  Plus this allowed me to add some extra insulation to an exterior portion of the wall.  Then of course came drywall and plaster repair and then floating all the wall with a TON of drywall mud to make them pretty and not show all the wallpaper that would not come off the wall in certain locations.  I thought about adding a gorgeous large scale wallcovering to this room (and if I would have had the money I probably would have) but instead I went with this gorgeous dark grey-green.  Looks a little funny with the blue corner curio but we will fix that later!

So after the sanding down this is the gorgeous original wood that was under the ceramic, under the plywood, and under the glue my mom scraped off.  We had to fill in the wood floor where the cabinet was removed but luckily we stole some of the flooring from where the Kitchen was expanded into an old bedroom.  I picked a slightly darker stain than the original hardwood but luckily not too dark that it shows every single thing.

Above are views from both sides of the room with the wood floors drying.  Unless you know to look for it you cannot see the wood that was filled in, my carpenters did a great job!

Here is a before and after picture looking into the Living Room.  Much better right?  

I am going to do one more post focusing on the Corner Curio  (remember the country blue one  in the  sanded wood floor picture above?).  It is probably my favorite original piece in the house and totally deserves its own blog!  Stay tuned!

The Dining Room- Part 1

So I wasn't exactly sure where to start....or I guess I should say re-start.  Thought it might be easiest to take you through each room.  Not necessarily in the order they were completed but kind of a tour through the house.  The front large windows of the House look into the Dining Room and this is not a "formal" dining room but the kind you eat in every day because your kitchen is too small for a table.

I will be honest.  The room was hideous when I bought it.

Wallcovering covered the walls, tile floor had been installed over the wood (what???)  The ceiling fan had pictures of barns on it....oh yes.  And the built-in curio screamed country.  

The only thing I loved were the three big windows.

Usually when you buy a house you don't look forward to ripping off wall paper but with this house it was about one of the easiest things on the to-do list so day #1...off it came!

 And that weird paneled cabinet behind me...it had to go so we even broke out the sledgehammer!

 So now with that cabinet gone there was a nice large opening from the Dining Room into the Living Room which made a huge difference in making the first floor feel a little more "open-concept"

 But of course now the wall, ceiling and floor had gaping holes in them...but that was fixable.  We ended up taking a sledge hammer to the tile floor to get it to break up and then we scraped it off.  Then the thin subfloor was removed to reveal the gorgeous hardwood floors continued underneath them...not sure who would ever cover them up in the first place but the trick was going to be the fact that they were now coated in a thin layer of glue (which by the way you cannot sand off because it gums up a sander pretty quickly).  So my some of "my crew" (but mainly my mother) took this task on inch by inch.

Here are the two pictures side by side so you can see what a difference taking out that cabinet made...and even what a difference taking off the dark paneling made!  The next week a greater discovery was made....the rotten corner.  If you didn't read about it the first time you can read about it here.

But don't worry because if you can't look past the fact that there is a hole in my house (glass half empty) and focus on the sun shining through (glass half full) you know there are good things to come!  

Here is a sneek peek of that same corner in Part 2!

The CREW that made it possible

Remember this crazy girl who bought a "scary fixer upper" and decided to blog about it?

She's baaaaack!  Don't worry...I didn't buy another house....but I did think that it was about time I started blogging about it again.  (And maybe some other projects along the way!)

First I wanted to introduce you to my CREW (which stands for: people who put their blood sweat and possibly tears into my house and did not get paid a dime).  Also known as my demolition/cleaning/floor-scraping/carpentry/whatever asked helpers.  I know I didn't get a picture of my painting helpers....but maybe those will turn up as I dig through the past....

 

Not only did this girl learn at IUPUI...but her big sis got to teach her how to properly use a sledge hammer!

This young lady at heart always wanted to help and she always made me smile.

The two hot girls above know how to tear down walls...yeah that's right (and are available for hire).

 This lean mean working machine sure can scrape glue off a hardwood floor like no-body's business.

 This sweaty dude has been challenged beyond measure...just wait till you see the niches he has built for me!

She didn't obey the construction rules of NO open-toed shoes...but I did give her a swing with the sledge hammer since there was a rule that if you were onsite you can't just stand there and look pretty.

This awesome lady tackled mold with me....what more can I say?

 This strong girl battled itchy insulation...and a BIRD....but thats another story.

And of course my children....you didn't think I would let them get off scott free did you?

Read the posts below if you are new to my blog (or want to refresh your memory).  

And hopefully less than a 18 month lapse will happen before my next blog!

Day 80-90- From Stark to Stunning!!!!!!

Remember THIS house? The one I bought back on April 1st? It was cute. It had character. It was also rotting on one corner, had two layers of old siding, 3 layers of red roofs, a lack of gutters, a car port that was about to fall off by itself, ...and that was just the exterior problems! Yes, I will agree with most of you that I was insane. But I will also pat myself on the back and know that I did it. It is amazingly beautiful and I love every corner of it.

Especially my front door. :)

And all of you are welcome to come and knock on this amazing front door. You may be greeted by a big barking dog or two screaming children but I will show you house that I love and will explain the time and challenge that went into it (if you are interested) or we can just actually SIT on furniture and take a deep sigh that I did not invite you over to help me knock down a wall! :)

More Interior pictures to follow! (I promise)

Day ?-85- The 4 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Retrofit

So I began with the first R- REDUCE the size of the 4th bedroom which increased the size of the kitchen and created a new hallway to the back yard. One of the reasons this house worked for me even though everyone thought I was insane was because it had a 4th bedroom...or as I saw it, an Office! In my previous house my office had always been open to the rest of the house- usually part of that second living/family room that no one uses for the proper purposes. Needless to say it is hard to get away from "work" when it is always staring at you. So essentially for this room I took at 12x14 bedroom and built within it a 9x9 office. It is small but cozy.

But with my change in plans to remove the side kitchen door and put in a new back door- kinda screwed up my office plans. It worked out great for my kitchen and I did have fun tearing down the wall...but now the shelf I was planning on using in there to hold all of my work library was now not going to fit...but I did have a great niche for built-ins...but that just meant more money being spent. boo.
My new office entrance is shown above (which eventually got a pocket door).
Here is the new built-in shelf niche below:
I wasn't sure how I was going to do the shelves but I had put my dad in charge of taking down the closet bi-fold doors in my bedroom and he had a brilliant REUSE idea...Can we reuse these bi-fold doors as shelves? And this is the reason I surround myself with smart people. And so we did!! We RECYCLED the doors as shelves and RETROFITTED them to fit within the niche.
They look pretty sweet and are now filled top to bottom with books...I even had to add more. And nobody can even tell they use to be doors, it is pretty sweet. Pictures to follow!

Day 75-79- Kitchen Madness

So for some reason I had put the kitchen as last on my list to make decisions about...which I am regretting now seeing as how I have now lived here for 2 months (way behind on the blog btw) and still do not have a working kitchen sink...ANYWAY, let me try get back to mid June when my kitchen was getting updated...extended...renovated...not sure the word to use here.

At the beginning I decided I would keep the kitchen cabinets and just add onto them, thinking this was a cheaper route. I think it did save me some money and left some of the original character...but it wasn't cheap adding what essentially was custom cabinets and it pushed my timeframe out about 2 weeks. I could blame this on the contractor who didn't bother to show up the fourth day or anytime thereafter but I would have been on the ball they probably could have gotten built a month before. So here are some mid-build pictures for now and hopefully once I actually post the final pics I might just have countertops and a sink!

In the picture below the fridge will go on the left (where the stove use to be). Existing cabinets remain past the window on the right.

In the picture below the cabinet to the right is where the side door into the house use to be. I was able to add a dishwasher, move over the existing base cabinet for re-use, add a trash pull out and then wrap the cabinets around the other side. Essentially I added 2 feet in length to the kitchen but by removing the side door I doubled the size of my cabinets and countertop. (The microwave is sitting where the sink will be).
In this last picture the bulkhead above is where the wall use to be. The stove and microwave niche was added and the opening to the right leads to the new back mud hallway and back door.

And we now enter Crunch Time!!

Day 73-74- Shower with a Stranger

Soooo...you might think the title post is weird but that is essentially what happen...kinda. A new neighbor down the way stopped by on a Saturday morning. He is a tall friendly older man who loves to work on houses as his hobby and also likes to help people out whenever he can. We will just call him Godsend for now. Well I typically will not turn down help so needless to say I took him up on his offer of trying to help me get some misc. stuff done.

Now although I may at this point be semi-talented as a tile-girl the shower surround really intimidated me. And by intimidated me I mean it scared the crap out of me. I mean tiling a shower is serious...there is alot of water in a shower and if you screw it up you may just screw up alot of other things down the road as water slowly leaks into your walls...yeah. So needless to say it was something I kept putting off which essentially meant that I kept putting my plumbing off (aka toilet) from being installed because I wanted the plumber to come back and be able to do it all at once. So needless to say on this Saturday morning I had a large leering goal ahead of me and was not sure about pulling it off. And this is what led to the stranger and I sitting in the bathtub together. Now let's just say that you get to know someone pretty quickly sitting in a bathtub together! But he ended up being a very sincere guy and got me started on getting 6 rows straight and pretty across the back. The rest was up to me though!

How do you think I did?
Grouting from tub to ceiling was a bit messy and seemed to take forever but I was so excited about the little glass tiles that it kept me motivated. I left it very simple, very neutral, but it also went perfectly with the beauty of the floor. So next time you are here you will have to join me in the shower! Ha!