Entry Door

Saturday we stained our front door and I think it turned out great. We still have to wait 2 weeks before we apply the polyurethane finish which will give it a very glossy look.

BEFORE

AFTER

During my search for inspiration for our house, I continuously come across antique furniture transformed into something useful(besides just looking pretty). The more I see it, the more I've come to really like it!

I came across this "sideboard turned bathroom vanity" a while back and fell in love with it. I thought, what better way to keep an old house's charm than by using antique furniture! This would be perfect for our master bathroom and I have been searching for something similar for a while now. Well.........

Just as I was about to give up on finding the perfect piece, look at what I found! Gotta love ebay!! I thought, this has got to be good to be true! It's almost identical to the one in my inspiration picture! I could not e-mail the seller quick enough to make an offer. Needless to say, I'm making the drive to Greenwood tomorrow to pick up my new 'project'!

A good sanding, a few coats of primer/paint, and some new clear knobs/pulls, and I think I may just have myself a bathroom vanity. :-)

A lot of work has been going on lately on Summer Street. Joseph has completely replaced the screened porch and I've almost got all the painting done. The floor still has to be stained, screen put up with the new doors, and the back door has to be put in. SO- we still have tons to do but it's definitely starting to roll along.

We also got our front door put in this weekend. I really like it compared to the one that was there before and this one gives us a little more privacy, while still letting some light in. I think we're going to stain it a real dark color. Here again, we still have tons to do in the front. The columns still need to be painted, rails replaced, siding put up(hopefully SOON), and some bushes. This may sound silly, but I can't wait to hang some big ol' ferns up and plant some flowers. I guess that's a girl for ya.

Even though we still have a ways to go, the picture I had in my head of how I wanted things to look is definitely coming together!!

We are hoping (fingers crossed) that our first inspection goes smooth and we can start sheetrock within the upcoming weeks! We are trying to stay optimistic and know that this house will be well worth the hard work in the end. This house holds so many special memories for me as a child, has so much sweat, tears, and blood(yes blood) poured into it over the past year, and will be our home where so many more memories will be made in the future........As I've said a million times, I'm not sure I could ever put a price on this house.

Hopefully we'll have more updates SOON! : )

Move In Day.....

Unfortunately, not for us! My brother's family officially moved in their house yesterday! They've been moving things in all week but last night was their first night actually staying there! Everything looks so good and Kaitlyn is SO excited about her new PINK room!!! She even has her own playroom full of doll houses and dress up clothes! I'm so excited for them as they start their new life in their new house!

Will, Melinda, & Kaitlyn in front of their new house!

Kaitlyn showing me her new room!

She was so excited about her pink room! She said she wanted a pink tiger paw painted on the wall, ha. Will was happy to hear that but Melinda, well, not so much...

A Look At Our Progress

Soometimes it's hard to realize exactly how far we've come untill we take the time to really look. Joseph has been working on the fireplace lately so I figured I'd post some pictures showing our progress.....

The walls have been torn down, ceiling has been replaced, fireplace torn out, wiring replaced, and new windows put in....

And here is the start of our housing for the fireplace insert.

We still have a lot to do but we have definitely come a loong way!

ByeBye Astroturf

I have been dying to tear up this horrible astroturf on our front porch!! I was planning on making it my personal mission to get this terrible stuff out of my sight! So, last night I talked Joseph into checking out the situation to see what all I would need to make this stuff disappear!

(here is a picture of our lovely astroturf)

After checking things out and about 20 minutes later THIS is what we had! TA-DA!!! GONE!!! It ripped right up! Who knew anything in/around that house would actually be simple?!? Well, it was simple to me because I just watched but it looked pretty simple for Joseph too. :-)

After a good cleaning, we'll paint it gray, I think.....

Ceilings...

It's been a while since I've updated so I wanted to share a few things we've, well mainly Joseph, been working on. All of the ceilings are up and here is the start to our coffered ceiling in the living room.

I couldn't leave this picture of Meg out. The girls are always fishing for something to do so Meg got the guts up to work the BIG saw, haha. We actually got some things done because of her courage to work that thing! Thanks for all your help Meg! :-)

Flooring

Here is the flooring we found that will go throughout most of the house! {this is not our actual kitchen...just a picture of the flooring}

SNOW DAY!

This past Friday Joseph and I took some time off work to head to Columbia to pick things out for the house. We still have a while untill we'll need a lot of stuff but we wanted to go ahead and pick out some things so we'll have an idea on what things cost, etc... Our trip got cut short because of the snow though and then we got stuck in traffic for forever it seemed.

We had plans to work at the house Saturday untill we woke up to SNOW! We decided that we'd take a snow day to play. Here is the house all covered in snow! :-)

Sunday, Meg and I did some more priming while Joseph and Nick worked on framing in the closets and window seat in one of the bedrooms. Here is a picture of their work...

On either side of the window there will be a closet. Above each closet we'll put shelves for extra storage. In the middle Joseph built a window seat. He'll build drawers into the seat for more storage. {you can never have too much storage space}.

And The Work Goes On

This past weekend we got a good bit done on the house. Saturday mom and I had a 'not so successful' yard sale...then again, are they ever?! We had a few big items that came out of the house (oven, etc) that we wanted to try to sell just to get them out of the way. While mom and I were basically just watching our breath out in the freezing cold, Joseph took some time to tidy up around the house. After lunch, Joseph's mom and sister came over and we started priming ceilings...

Sunday, Joseph's mom and I continued to prime. We only have 2 rooms left! Joseph and his Uncle Mike put up the beadboard ceiling in the kitchen. It didn't work out exactly how we wanted, but we'll make it work. I've come to learn that renovating an older home is ALL about revisions!

Here are a few pictures of all our hard work....

Ms. Rhonda priming away

This is the kitchen ceiling before

Joseph and Mike

Almost done....

I never got a picture of the finished product. Hopefully I can start painting the beadboard this week and I'll get a picture then.

That's all for now. There's not much to see or visualize until we get the walls up. We have been working on our light fixture order so hopefully we can get those ordered soon.

Happy Birthday MaMa!!

Today is my mama's 54th Birthday!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!!

I Love A Good Deal...

Every now and then I come across something for the house that I feel like I just have to have, especially if it's a good buy. I've been searching for some wicker furniture for our screened in porch, hoping to find something on sale. Well, today I found the perfect little set online from Pier 1 Imports...ON CLEARANCE! YAY! :-) After calling every Pier 1 in South Carolina, literally, I found 2 chairs & a bench! Orginally, all 3 pieces were $547...I got all 3 for $157!!

The cushions, however, were not on clearance. :-( Go figure. Actually they were rather costly{between $30-$50/cushion} Looks like I'll be putting my sewing machine to good use making cushions. :-)

The Renovation Continues....

This past weekend was our first day working at the house in a while. December was a VERY busy month! Saturday me, my mom, Joseph's mom and sister spent the day pulling nails{I think for every nail we pulled, two more would appear!} Joseph and his grandfather got the other header up in the dining room. Sunday Joseph and I spent the afternoon just cleaning stuff up. I'm excited to move to the next step of our renovation...

I've been continuously gathering/organizing ideas. This is a picture of Sara & Heath McCutcheon's dining room{they just got done renovating their house} and I fell in love with it! I already knew I wanted brown but I love the wainscoting! We are definately doing something similar to this in our dining room.

The next thing on our list to do is put up the ceilings. We plan on doing coffered ceilings in the living room and dining room{depending on time and money it may have to wait till later} For those of you who don't know what coffered is, it looks like this...

The house has beadboard ceilings in it now, but we were pretty confident it would be too costly and time consuming to try to refinish them. We do want to have at least one room with beadboard though. As of now, we may do the kitchen with beadboard and wood beams like this....

Update

We haven't really been able to do much at the house lately. As many of you already know, Joseph's dad has Sclerosis and hasn't been doing well...he's hanging in there for now though. Joseph has been trying to visit his dad as much as possible since they really don't know what each day will bring.

I have been doing a lot of "research" on things for the house though. I am constantly browsing the net and reading magazines to get ideas. I love rustic furniture with character and I recently came across this sink/vanity....

I think it'd be great in our guest bathroom!

Now I'm just looking forward to the day when I can put all of our ideas into action!

The wall between the living room and dining room has come down and the "meat" of the columns has gone up!

Saturday Joseph took the flooring out of the laundry room and replaced it to make it more level. It's amazing at what all he has learned to do. He's been working very hard and I am VERY thankful!

I was recently talking to my aunt about all the doors I was having to refinish when she told me about the inmates at a jail in Columbia that do it. So for $10-$15 a door they can totally refinish them!! I was so excited to hear that! I was spending twice that amount on the strippers and not to mention the hours of sanding! So, thanks to my Aunt Bev for saving me all that hard work! :-)

Deuce Ruff =)

Here is Deuce when we first got him in July

And here he is now at over 50lbs! He's so sweet but a pretty wild one at times.

We've tried to train him not to get on the couch but how can you turn this face down?! Santa may have to get Deuce his own little doggy couch for Christmas...

I find this on the couch every morning when I get up...he sleeps in the weirdest positions!

Just For You Christina!

An old co-worker of mine got onto me today for not updating my blog so here ya go. :-)

There hasn't been a lot to show with the house lately. Joseph has been hard at work but there still really isn't anything to show at this stage. He's almost finished framing in the guest bathroom. It looks good and we're excited about how it turned out. All of the new storage/closet space we added is going to be great!

After seeing some of the Black Friday Ads, we decided to go ahead and choose our appliances. So far, we're going with Sears and here are a couple that we've picked out.

This is the color I've been thinking about for the kitchen. It looks pretty Blah by itself but against the stainless appliances and white cabinets it looks good{light & airy}. I want to print some of our Paris pictures in black & white for the kitchen too.

I'm hoping we can use our current kitchen table if we paint it a dark brown but the chairs are a no go :-) I really like these though....

Anyways...these are just a few thoughts I've thrown together for the kitchen. :-)

New Windows

Our new windows were finally put in over the weekend and we love them! They definately give the house a new, updated look. We used Window World out of Greenwood{they have been really easy to work with}. They are also doing our siding but that will probably be one of the last things we do.

Joseph and his grandfather also got the chimney down...

Framing in the wall where the chimney was...this was after Joseph's grandfather busted his head open and had to go get stiches!! He insisted on coming back to work though!

We had an eventful weekend and got tons of work done! Next weekend they'll take the walls down in the dining room and put up columns! After that we should be able to move to the next step{rewiring the entire house} Things are moving right along. We still have a long road ahead but I'm getting excited about moving in eventually! I've been looking more at paint colors and I'll post those as soon as I narrow down my choices a little more.