LOTS has been going on since I last updated. SO SO SO much. {On the inside that is. Outside pretty much looks the same. Maybe worse.} In fact, I even cooked my first meal in my new kitchen (that’s about 75% finished!) on Christmas Eve so that was extra special. I looked around that night and it brought such a smile to my face to see so much of my family in one room eating the food I made. It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted. Felt like a dream come true really.
But….I’m doing the updates on the 20th every other month so you won’t be able to see those pictures just yet, HA! (I’m really REALLY hoping that the fifth update on February 21st will be the last one! But since this is the longest renovation ever I’m guessing it won’t be, haha!)
So let’s see, where did I leave you?
This was our kitchen. It was framed, plumbing/electrical were finished, we had dry wall, and they had put on the tongue and groove ceiling to try to mimic the rest of the house.
At the end of October they began installing the doors. All the doors (minus the kitchen French doors that we got at Scott’s) and windows (minus the two smaller ones in the butler’s pantry & MM’s bathroom that I got at Scott’s in May) are original to the house. It’s not that hard to frame in windows at all, but doors? We had to have each door jam custom made to fit these old doors which was very labor intensive. They also installed tongue and groove wainscoting in utility room and downstairs half-bath to match the rest of the hallways in the house.
Did I show y’all that we had moved the bathroom door in the downstairs bedroom (it’s becoming our master bedroom) to be closer to the outside wall? We added a stained glass transom I got at Scott’s in the summer over the door. This door has always had a transom (the only way they could vent a bathroom 100 years ago), but by the time we bought the house the glass had been replaced with wood so we put glass back…just a fancier version of glass, haha.
These are the French doors. It felt SO GOOD to not have the back of the house wide open anymore.
The last week in October they put down Durock in the two original rooms we’re renovating. Wasn’t a big deal in the addition, but the butler’s pantry and MM’s bathroom they had to remove the floor, try to level it, and then put down the Durock.
And then it was tile time. YES!
All the floors are tile in the renovation. We couldn’t get the tiger oak we have downstairs so we decided to go with the tile (it’s Daltile). In the kitchen we chose a brick lookalike. It really does look and feel like brick.
In the butler’s pantry we did a checkerboard.
In the laundry room, MM’s closet, and our master closet we did a weathered wood tile.
In the half bathroom I went with a mosaic.
In MM’s we did a penny tile on the floor and a subway tile shower enclosure.
This is the master bathroom. We came up with the mosaic edge design ourselves and had the tile company make custom sheets of the tile. Does that make sense? I don’t know…it did in my head, haha.
The tile took a solid two weeks. And then they started moving in the cabinets. And I started getting super excited! The main thing I was a stickler about with the cabinets were the feet. I wanted them to look like pieces of furniture so we had a fun foot cut into them and we placed the toe kick further back than standard cabinets. I know you can tell they aren’t furniture, but hopefully this detail makes them look a bit old.
{As of now, all the bases are in and 90% of the cabinets. We ordered the hardware the day after Christmas and I can’t wait to see all the knobs and pulls in the next week or so. Eek!}
The third week in November they put back in our original builtins that we had to take out when we demoed. We put them in the exact same spots they always were in (the builtin on the right was originally in the downstairs bathroom and then we walled off half of it in 2007 so it became part of our old laundry room. Now it’s in the half-bathroom. It’s spot never changed but the room sure did!).
Right before Thanksgiving they installed our custom closet in the master. It’s amazeballs not gonna lie. I can’t wait to actually use it!
The first week of December found us focusing on the exterior of the house for the first time in a while. We ended up removing the downstairs porch roof because it was pulling both the porches (top & bottom) off the house due to an engineering error in 1927 when the upstairs porch was added.
That week we also started having the lights installed inside.
And they also started putting in the fireplace that week.
The second week of December they painted MM’s bathroom (purple), closet (coral–just like the color in the closet at the Pink Flamingo in Vegas we stayed at in October), and bedroom (pink).
We tore out a couple more built-ins that week (in the downstairs bedroom and the tiny old pantry). In the bedroom we’re not putting anything back, but we are replacing the old pantry with a nicer one for small appliances (Crock Pots, toasters, etc.).
We added sidelights on the front door to match the sidelights on the second story “front door” that’s right above this door. I wanted them to match and it’s been bugging me for the last twelve years.
They also put wood siding on the addition to match the rest of the house.
Also that week we got in some of our appliances (still waiting on some things…like my dadgum pink Smeg fridge from England, grrr).
And then right before Christmas they installed the counter tops. We went with quartz in the kitchen and utility room, Jerusalem stone in the master bath, and granite in MM’s bathroom that she picked out herself (surprise, surprise, it has sparkles in it). We’re doing some kind of wood/butcher block in the butler’s pantry, but we’re not there yet.
And that’s where I’ll stop. I can’t wait to see what the next two months bring. It’s about to get REAL exciting, I think! Thank you so much for following on our not-so-short journey we’ve been planning for over the last 12 years. The end is almost in sight. Well, fingers crossed it is anyway!