Toddler Room

Finally! Here are some pictures of our Little Foreman's room. We don't have a good "before" one, so here's part of what the room used to be (but we had already torn out the carpet) ......

And now.....

It's not 100% done, but it's close. We still need to take out that disgusting heater and put in a new curtain rod. We also need to put in more baseboard to fill in the gap left from the old carpet.... but all in time.

Of course he wanted to model what his bed is for. "nigh nigh!"

Close up of the shelf that Josh made.

 And the fabric covered frames that we made. The room is coming together!

And then we moved in...

Progress slowed WAY down around here once we moved in. I guess that's the way it goes. Honestly, we did not realize what we were getting ourselves into (having a toddler and Josh being in school full-time.) Most of my day is picking up after our little one, and sometimes I get around to working on the house. But that includes keeping him out of dangerous tools and paints while I try to work. I am usually too overwhelmed.

Nevertheless, we have made a little progress.... bit by bit.

Here is our bathroom that we painted and made a frame for the mirror. We have a lot more planned for the bathroom, but this is all the time/money that we wanted to invest in it right now.

Also, we finally found a super cheap ($0.24 /square ft) stick-on tile for the kitchen floor. It's only temporary, but it works nicely for now.

A Floor Refinished

We have sanded through to the worn and rustic warmth of our seventy-year-old floor.   It now awaits a final coat of polyurethane to protect it from various attacks by land, sea, and air of an intrepid 17 month old toddler.  The addition of base shoe molding on the base board will fill the gap left in the absence of carpet and padding, making the room ready for move-in... finally.              

A little bit of Christmas

Here's a preview of how the kitchen is turning out... plus a lovely poinsettia from our new neighbor (I'm super excited to be moving into such a friendly little neighborhood).  We decided to just clean up and paint the existing cabinets until we completely remodel the kitchen later on.

Kitchen floor idea - cedar planks! Josh ran them through his planer and they actually look really rustic and lovely. Maybe they will work as a cheap temporary (or maybe long term) option? We'll see.

We may not be moved in yet, but (thanks to Josh's brother Andrew) we do have a Christmas tree. Hopefully we will be settled in by Christmas, but we'll still have a lot of work to do.

Some Floor Progress

Top photo is of Josh and Ronan hard at work removing staples and getting the floor ready to sand (Yes, our little foreman takes every opportunity to closely monitor our progress). The rest of the photos are of what the floor looked like after Josh started sanding them. I love how beautiful and rustic they are turning out to be.

Once the floors are done, we can move in. We only found particle board under the carpet in the living room, so we are just going to paint that as a temporary solution. We are still trying to figure what to do as a temporary fix for the kitchen right now.

Kitchen Conundrum

   
     Here are the ancient cabinets waiting to be resurrected from their depressing blackness, all the drawers and doors removed for easier painting.

     Unfortunately, when we pulled the old linoleum up from the kitchen, all we found was particle board and even older linoleum.  Once the second layer was pulled up we found the original subfloor, some rather nice looking wide planks just waiting for new flooring.  We are trying to decide if we want to do a more affordable short term solution, or simply put the money into the floor that will ultimately stay there.  Any ideas for a wood floor on the cheap?

     Since we will probably be stuck with this fantastic yellow oven which was probably brought over on the Mayflower, we are trying some likewise subdued colors that will hopefully give the kitchen space a bright but antique feel.  When affected through the eyes of a couple with no decorating experience, the process becomes one of confused trial and error.  As a side note, we are grateful that we narrowly missed matching the walls to the enthusiastic tone of the oven, even though they previously bore the same color in scorchingly greater intensity.         

Grandpa and The Foreman

Even The Foreman put in a few minutes of work while instructing Grandpa on the proper technique to preserve the archeological specimen of flooring we discovered under layers of sediment.