18 January 2013

remodel reveal

as many already know we bought a home in august.   while we loved our little home from day one it was definitely a diamond-in-the-rough type of purchase.  after months of smoothing out those rough edges i am happy to reveal some of the progress.

when we first walked in the house, we knew it needed work but we saw through all the outdated bits and saw real potential.  one of the first things i wanted to change was the living room.  the living room was located right off the kitchen and had a lovely brick fireplace.  when i saw the living room  i knew it was screaming to be a dining room instead. we always seem to find ourselves wrapped around the table, deep in food and conversation and a fireplace will hopefully help us linger around the table longer.

below you can see the progression from turning a dungeon living room into a cozy dining room.


lucky for us when we ripped up the shaggy baby blue carpet this pea-green linoleum was waiting for us underneath.



amazing what a little paint can do...





in addition to paint we also covered up the outdated popcorn ceilings with white bead board.   and as you can see we still have a few finishing touches. we need new (non-rusty) vent covers, add a light above the table (which will let us move the lamp out of the corner of the room) and move the cable (can you see the cable box in the bottom left side of picture?)  into our new living room.  here are a few shots of the new space.  








just a quick recap in pictures:

before


after



people ask us what is like to remodel our home...let me tell you it's like the children's book when you give a mouse a cookie.  if you have read the book you know that when you give a mouse a cookie he then needs a glass a milk to wash down the cookie.  then he needs a mirror to make sure he isn't wearing a milk mustache. then he needs scissors to trim his little mousy mustache...and on and on it goes.  that is a metaphor for remodeling.  we were just going to do the floor.  well if we did the floors we should knock out a wall, raise up the floor a level, paint every wall, re-tile the floors, knock out a soffit light fixture, put bead board on the ceilings to cover popcorn and on and on it goes.  it's a happy labor of love though.  here is a sneak peek at the some more of our handy work.  clearly we need vent covers.


07 January 2013

jb has a man cold.   if you know anything about men and the fierce man colds that can take them over then you know that we are in dire straights.  desperate times call for desperate measures so i made a very hearty gremolata mushroom and beef stew tonight.   the broth is so velvety and rich you will just want to grab a scotch glass and sip it straight up.  







just in case you aren't familiar with the man cold epidemic here is a glimpse...