Shiny Floors

Yesterday the floor guys came and applied two coats of polyurethane. They'll come back and do a light sand and 3rd poly coat later after everything else is finished with the renovation.  The smell was really strong, so we spent the night away last night and we're staying away again tonight. Jeffrey made it by the house today to take a couple of pictures.

Hardwood Floors! - Tuesday January 25th

Today they laid all of the new hardwood floors. Then they sanded down the existing floors with the new floors and re-stained.

Everything Out - Monday Jan 24th

Today Jeffrey and Vicente finished removing everything from the kitchen. Here is a pic of the empty room.

Bob and Jeffrey encountered a plumbing problem when they were removing the drain pipes for the kitchen sink.

Needless to say, the old cast-iron pipes were allowing very little drainage. They had to be replaced with pvc piping all the way back to the 4-inch main.

Color Decisions

The kitchen is coming along and our hardwood floors are set to go in Tuesday - Thursday of this week. After that, the focus will be on our kitchen cabinets, so we have to make some color decisions about our island.

We are doing shaker style bead board cabinets in white, but we want to do a color on our island. We are deciding between some blue and gray colors. Here are 3 of the Sherwin Williams sample colors we have tried.

Here are a few inspiration pictures. 

Here are some pictures of our color testing. 

Day 5 - We Have Lights!

Today Bob installed 6 recessed lights in the kitchen area and partially finished the 4 that will go in the dining area.

Kitchen Renovation Day 4

Today Jeffrey went back to the stone warehouse to pick out our slabs of marble. Here are two pictures of the slabs that we picked out. "poor lighting"

We had a surprise discovery today. While I was working in my office I heard Bob exclaim "I can't believe that"! I immediately thought the worst  must have happened. I walked in and this is what I saw. 

Notice anything missing?

That's right, the wall was not load-bearing. This means we don't have to install the dropped beam in the opening that would have come down 12+ inches. It will just be one big smooth opening...yay!!

Kitchen Renovation Day 3

Today we went shopping for countertops. I have been in love with white kitchens and Carrara marble countertops for over a year. Almost everyone we have talked to seems to discourage us from using marble in the kitchen. So, I have considered so many other options, granite, quartz, Corian, etc. Nothing we have been able to find compares to the look of Carrara and I just keep coming back to it. So, today we decided that we are just going to do what we know we really love.

Here is a shot of one of the Carrara slabs we viewed today. The shadow makes it kind of hard to see exactly, but you can get the idea.  Jeffrey is going back tomorrow to pick out the exact slabs that we will use.

Bob worked some today in the crawl space. He will be installing an engineered beam to help support the area where we are taking out the wall (sorry we didn't make it under the house to take a picture of that).

Here is a pic of the temporary wall that Bob built today. He will also build another one on the other side. These will be in place until he finishes and properly supports the new opening.

Kitchen Renovation Day 2

Today Jeffrey and Vicente finished most of the demolition.

Here is a pic of the tile that they ripped out in the foyer.

They finished taking out the lower cabinets in the kitchen and crown molding in dining room. 

They also ran the temporary water line to the refrigerator.

Yay!!

Kitchen Renovation Day 1

Jeffrey is doing all of the demolition himself. Here are some pics from day 1.

Kitchen and Dining Room Before Pictures

Here are some pics from the kitchen and dining room when we first purchased the house.

Here are a few more pics that show the kitchen  and dining room during our first year in the house.