Our house in the springtime

Apologies for the break in posting...it's hard to work on the outside of the house in Michigan in the winter.

Last fall, Ryan and his dad replaced all of the bedroom windows and, while they were at it, insulated the walls.

Since the walls were stripped down to the studs, we decided to go ahead and replace all the siding on the house. We had planned on doing this eventually, but didn't think we'd get to it for several years.

So, Ryan began working on that in the late fall and got about half of it done before winter set it.

Now, he has almost finished all of it! In the meantime, he also put down tile in our entryway, which used to be covered with ugly green linoleum.

 



We need to get new trim and such, but this is more more inviting, we think. The tile was a gift from Ryan's parents - leftovers from when they redid their bathroom several years ago.

And now for some photos of the outside of the house! We are very pleased with how it looks. We still have the "worst" house in the neighborhood, but it finally looks like it fits in.

Before the big reveal, let's take a walk down memory lane and see what things used to look like:

 

 

We took this first one when we bought the house. Please note the tiny windows, really uninviting porch, and ugly old bushes.



 

 

 

Above is last fall, with the addition of my little rose garden in front and the new door and bench in on the front porch. Below is a photo of the calm before the storm....

 

 

 

One day in the fall I left for work and (above) is what it looked like! A little scary to have such huge holes in the house. But, as you can see, we went from three small, old windows in each of the corner bedrooms to five big ones!

 

And, here's what it looks like today, all finished:

 

 

 

So much better, yes? It's not a great angle, but hopefully you all agree that it looks better with the new siding. 

 

 

This is the guest room corner and down the wall on the left are two windows each in the two "small" rooms in the house that have yet to serve any purpose.

 

And here is the back view, with Ryan hard at work on the back porch:

 

 

Please note the massive lilac bush.

 

And finally...my parents and brother visited last weekend and my mom helped me make some curtains for the three kitchen windows near the table that Ryan and his dad put in more than a year ago.

 

Cute, huh? I really like them. I found the fabric at JoAnn. Let's just take a moment to remember what this side of the kitchen looked like when we were moving in:

 

 

!!!

 

 

Until next time!

 

~





New Windows! (Or: No More $150 Heating Bills)

Hello readers! We took a bit of a hiatus from home improvement work during the summer, as I was home every day (perks of working for a school) and didn't want to live in construction dust.

Also, we did a lot of travelling and weren't even in town for that long at any one time. 

However, we decided to replace all of the bedroom windows in the house before winter comes around, as the original windows in the house were not energy efficient at all and we spent way too much money on gas to heat the house last year.

Ryan's dad, Roger, came to help him install the windows last week. They finished the two big bedrooms and now Ryan is completing the smaller two on his own.

Because the new windows are so much bigger than the old ones, they basically had to rebuild the walls of the house to accommodate them. Also, the walls didn't have any insulation in them (wow!) so they insulated, added new plywood, and wrapped the house in that nifty vapor seal stuff at the same time.

We decided that while the siding is off for the window project, we might as well buy and install new siding. The stuff that's on there now is original, aluminum, and dirty. We ordered some nice "Natural Clay" vinyl siding from Menard's last week and Ryan hopes to install it in a week or two. Our lucky neighbors will feel like they're living next door to a new house pretty soon!

Here are some photos of the window work:

 

These are the old windows. The white one on the far right is our bathroom and was new in May.

 

Guest bedroom straight ahead, master bedroom on right.

 

Half of the new windows in our bedroom, with Roger peeking out.

 

This is scary to come home to...but it all worked out in the end.

 

New master windows with insulation, plywood, and house wrap installed.

 

Looking out to the street from our bedroom. We have so much natural light now!

 

Ryan and our dear neighbor John Somerville working on the first of the two "spare" bedroom windows today.

 

View from end of our driveway - doesn't the house look totally different? Windows on the far right here are in the kitchen and were installed in May. For comparison with the photo above, old:

 

 

More photos will come when we have new siding!

~

My beautiful kitchen!

Well, our kitchen remodel is finally done and I couldn't be more pleased with it. We had some friends and neighbors over to celebrate a few weeks ago, which was a fun way to end the whole process.

Here are some "before" shots, just to remind you how terrible it really was when we moved in.

Oh, the wallpaper! The cabinets are the same ones, just totally sanded down and refinished by Ryan, who has an amazing array of home improvement skills. We repainted all the walls a color called "goldtone" and installed new appliances. The counter top is new (Formica, looks like granite, though) and Ryan and Paul installed the tile back splash. New light above the sink and all new windows, as I'm sure I mentioned before. We need a pantry, and haven't really decided what to do about that yet, so all our non-fridge food is on a small storage shelf as seen below.

And here's the finished product:

As seen in the middle picture, Paul and Ryan are putting in a new window in our master bathroom today.

The living room is also "finished," although we still have the old carpet. It insulates the floor well...we'll get rid of it eventually.

The walls are "calming cream" and "rosemary sprig."

We got all of our DVDs on shelves and finally hung art two weeks ago. Paradise family: notice the painting by Grandaddy above the mantle! This one was in the basement at Grandma's house and she said I could have it when she was moving out. It's gotten lots of compliments from visitors.

Finally in a beautiful, functioning kitchen,

Maria 

Major progress made, kitchen nears completion

I fully intended on updating after spring break, which was in mid-March, but decided to wait until more "tangible" progress was made on our kitchen/living room.

Much of what Ryan and I did to the house over spring break was not photo-worthy - things like moving heating vent ducts and running new wires for fridges and taping off sections of walls to paint.

Since the last update, the major upgrades of note are:
- New big window over the kitchen sink, with trim and blinds
- Cabinets all moved to their final positions
- Lower cabinets almost entirely sanded and stained
- NEW COUNTER TOP
- NEW TILE BACK SPLASH
- A fridge that makes ice and dispenses chilled, filtered water

- All new paint in the living room ("rosemary sprig" accent wall and "calming cream" for the rest)
- New cream paint in the entryway

The deadline for the kitchen to be completed is this Saturday and we will finish it! Many thanks to my brother for helping put in the tile and to James and Paul for helping Ryan get the new counter in place.

Better photos of the kitchen all completed and the living room upgrade will come soon.

This is the kitchen at the beginning of spring break - note the dark brown lower cabinets, old window, old counter, old curtains.

Here it is after Ryan pulled out some cabinets, which are moving directly across the room. Also note the new windows.

Moving heating vents.

The new set-up for this half of the kitchen - still quite roomy! The other half (behind where I'm standing) now will only house our table.

Painting the accent wall (above the brick half wall) over spring break. My roller form is not good here.

The former owner left two of these benches on the back porch, but they were rotting and falling apart. Ryan replaced the wood with Trex decking and repainted the side bars. This one now graces our front porch, so we can watch the neighborhood.

Here are some tulips in our front garden.

Here are the three men trying to get the new counter top in. It was quite heavy and it's only Formica!

Setting it into place...the color is called "Labrador granite" and is dark with some light flecks.

Ryan begins tiling with the glass tile sheets we bought. They come in 1 foot by 1 foot sheets.

Almost done laying the tile. Also note the new lamp above the sink.


We're nearly there! If it's done this weekend, the kitchen will have taken roughly nine months to complete, but at a minimum cost and with one (sometimes two) crewmen. My husband is awesome.

~

An extra set of hands

My father-in-law, Roger, came to Hillsdale last weekend to help Ryan work on the house. It was a fun and productive visit - the best kind.

They spent the first few days installing new, energy-efficient windows on one side of the kitchen. We have more to replace the large window over the sink on the other side of the kitchen, as well.

Above, they are knocking out the old windows and making big holes in my wall in the 30-degree weather... ;) 

And here are the new windows with pretty, new white trim! I think they look great with the yellow paint. They also insulated the walls around and underneath the windows...apparently there wasn't any insulation there before. Yikes. The kitchen feels much warmer now and the wall isn't as cold to the touch. 

They also installed a new front door, also energy-efficient. Trying to get the new door to fit in the old hole was a bit difficult, I gathered...I just took pictures after I got home from work. 

Here is the house, sans door...

And the next day, James came over and helped put the new one in!

Isn't it pretty? :

As a refresher, here's what the front of the house looked like when we arrived, after we had only taken out the juniper bushes. That old, red paint was really terrible. 

I would say we've made some progress. 

Ryan is installing another cabinet he finished today:

And here's a nice photo of some icy branches in our front yard the earlier this week:

We're doing well! Many thanks to Roger for helping us this week.

~

Who needs a microwave, anyway?

Two weekends ago, my brother Paul helped Ryan and I paint the kitchen. We chose a color called "Goldtone" which is yellow but not bright yellow. It's soft and, hopefully, will match well with whatever counter we get...eventually.

Ryan also installed the microwave we bought in July...which had been in its box in the middle of the kitchen, serving as an island, since the day it was delivered. He had to build a custom cabinet to go above it that holds the microwave's ventilation system, electrical cord, etc.

Yesterday, my father-in-law arrived in town. He's going to stay for a week and help Ryan work on the house. They plan to replace windows in the kitchen (awesome!), work on cabinets, get the electrical and water lines for the refrigerator hooked up, and probably several other things.

Right now I am sitting in the living room, trying to ignore the ripping, scraping sounds coming from the kitchen behind me. I just have to keep telling myself that messes now = beautiful kitchen later.

We have only used our newly-installed microwave a few times...we got used to not needing one at all. Aside from using the microwave at work for my lunches, we haven't used one at all since we moved here. Yes, heating up leftovers in the oven was a slow process, but I didn't really miss not having "the modern convenience."  

Here are some photos of the painting process and the new oven/microwave/cabinet setup.

Here, Paul removes the terrible old curtain rods. 

Our kitchen wall color. 

It's hard to tell, but this is what it looks like after it was painted. 

Eventually, cabinets will cover that oven cord...just imagine it all completed! Yes, that wall is painted. In bright light it doesn't look very yellow. 

This is our new computer! We bought it very gently used but it's basically brand new, and it was a great price. It was time to retire the Dell that I got when I graduated from high school in 2006 (yes, I was still using it until this one arrived).