decks and bathrooms and cabinets, oh my!

I have been a complete slacker, I will admit it right now. We have been working away and when I finally get home all I want to do is go straight to bed. But here are a few updates to the house project: Our French doors and few windows have been ordered. Half of the appliances have been ordered. Our granite tiles for the kitchen counters have been purchased The tiling in the bathrooms is almost complete. We have a new roof (yay!!). The gas has been run to the range, dryer and fireplace. The deck is basically completely removed and slowly but surely things are coming together, especially thanks to the great team we have helping out (aka the Withrow clan). Things are really moving along quite nicely. And since words can only do so much justice, here are a few photos to prove it:

Old Deck and TONS of bamboo

Hot tub/leaf collector

Tree cut-out in deck

Back of the house, you can see the old roof covered in moss and the deck and railings

That little stump is the tree that used to grow up through the deck

This is how we got rid of some of the old branches/deck debris until an unknown neighbor complained..

The deck is gone! And see how nice the roof looks? 

Stand alone hot tub... it will be leaving soon too. 

And then we also have made some great progress on the bathrooms:

Cabinets painted white and the counter tops tiled

Subway tiling is coming along great! Thank you Matt!

New light and backsplash, check. We also painted the walls a light grey.  

(a before picture, in case you were like me and forgot what it used to look like before these transformations)

And a sneak peak on the kitchen cabinets. They are almost done and look fantastic, especially with the granite tiles we chose. 

This was the Cabinet Transformations in Kona.

A few doors will have glass added for a special look. :)

The counter tiles in the downstairs bathroom are also done... 

I can't wait to see the final product! This has been a learning process for both Matt and I, but it has been spectacular as well. I don't think a single thing will be left untouched in this house, and it will truly be ours once it's completed. We also just planted a handful of herbs in some pots and we hope to have a small garden next year with more herbs and veggies! 

master bath

this project started the night we got the keys... Matt and I had briefly talked about the idea of opening up the small master bathroom by taking out the door to the shower/toilet area and putting a main door to the entire bathroom instead. It was something we liked, but I wasn't under the impression it was a confirmed plan. As I am downstairs working on the first stages of wall paper, Matt comes down and says... "Want to know what Nick and I just did?" I say sure without hesitation because I'm thinking it's just something funny.
Matt: "We tore down the wall in the bathroom!"
me: "You did WHAT?!?! I didn't know we were for sure doing that?!?!"
Matt: "Well, we are now!"  
me: "Ok, but that is the first and last decision you get to make before checking with me first!"

Thankfully this was something I really wanted to do, so I truly wasn't mad, it was just funny because we had hardly been there an hour and they were already breaking down walls. There were a number of things we were going to have to fix/update in that bathroom, so we figured we may as well just make it nice from the beginning instead of doing some here and some there later down the road.

A before shot. Look at all that wallpaper... and no door for the sink area. 

Here is a doorway for the toilet and shower. You can see how small this little space is. 

View from the tub. There was a light and fan switch on the wall in there.  

And the fun begins...

Demolition King

All the way down

See how it already looks more open?

A new view from the tub

And.... the wall is gone!! 

And the next project that Matt's dad Tom graciously tackled was installing a new door that enclosed the entire space... Not just that little toilet area.

New frame is all dry-walled in

A new door :) Very sweet deal. 

Since we had to get rid of the switches on the wall we took down, they were added here. 

This was the first can light Matt installed and as you can see we had success which helped our case for installing cans everywhere. 

A little preview of what the shower walls will look like. In addition to subway tiling the shower, we also raised the shower head because I swear it was about neck height. Maybe the previous owners were little people. :)

And lastly, me starting the Rustoleum kit on the cabinets. Downstairs we used Pure White with the glaze but for the master bath we decided to go with plain white. 

Woohoo! It feels good writing this blog, because I am starting to realize all we've accomplished so far. We've had a great team helping along the way too! :)

you light up my life

I wish I had more time to update this blog... However, all of my "free" time is now "house" time. So thank you for your patience! Our contractor is scheduled to start this week and will be working on the roof. We are getting a shade of grey, just need to pick one of two colors. But I last left off with the carpet and wallpaper removal. The next project we undertook was the kitchen lighting... Here is what it looked like in the beginning:

You can see how the low fluorescent lights make the kitchen feel small and closed off.

Closer view of the lights and the ceiling. It just felt weird going in there with all the natural lighting, and  then feeling like the ceiling was right above your head. Not the best combination and usage of space. 

We knew from the beginning we wanted to add can lights as it would create a cleaner and more updated look. However, the conversation about how to get them installed created some great groupthink, and after a good night of sleep we decided to make a big change. We were going to raise the roof! Because the fluorescent lighting needed to be encased, a box was dropped down below where the ceiling should have gone. We decided that it would be easiest to install the lights if we could just get to the joists and if we were going to all that trouble, why not raise the ceiling up as well. It also allowed us to take down the cabinets which is beneficial to the project I am starting this next week! 

Matt and I removing the old lights.

Matt and Nick taking down the cabinets. Funny to see the paint lines of  where they used to be!

The wall is complete! We also took the cabinets down that were to the left of the sink. 

Then we (and by we I mean Matt and Nick) started the demolition. Now tell me, what boy doesn't love getting a hammer and being told to have at it! 

I think they had quite a bit of fun ripping down the drywall and box boards! Projects like this made me so happy we have cement floors because we never have to worry about getting them dirty. One of the pluses of getting our work done before the contractor starts. 

Adding the housing for the cans. 

Ta-Da!!! New lights and a higher ceiling! We can't put the drywall in until after the contractor does a bit of work in there, but the kitchen is going to look so much better with new lights and about 7" more above our heads.

And once Matt installed the kitchen can lights, he decided why not replace them all! One more example of how these new lights look:

Old dome light...

Pretty new can! 

As you can see the projects are starting to come together! This past week/weekend we worked on painting, deck removal, bathroom upgrades, cabinet improvements and much more. Hopefully I can share those details in the next couple days!