Kitchenette Before and After Pics

Here are the before and after pictures of the room. Wow, what a difference.

This first pic is the view standing from the stairwell.

This is the view looking at the stairwell. Don't you just love the ugly cabinets that were installed somewhere in the 80's. The "cabin feel" is obviously what they were going for here.

What a breath of fresh air, don't you think? In case you can't see the detail of the picture, just click on it and it should get bigger. The handles on the cabinets are brushed nickel. Shawn picked out the faucet because it pulls out. In this picture you can also see where the stove is supposed to go. It will be located where the dryer currently is. We have run wire (really expensive wire) to the location behind the dryer. We will eventually get a stackable washer and dryer and put it where the washer currently is and install a stove where the dryer is. We may even build a custom cabinet from floor to ceiling to cover the W/D at some point.

I finally got a window covering for the window. Click on the pic to enlarge it to see the detail of the very dainty/girly curtains (thanks to my mother-in-law who had extras and gave me the curtain).

In case you can't see it, the floor is a natural color, and so is the counter. We are going for a beach themed room here, and will probably take a day trip to the beach this summer to take more photos to put up in the room.

We will also be installing upper cabinets eventually. That will probably take place at some point this summer. One can never have too much storage right?

The only thing we have left to do is install the crown molding, baseboards, toe kicks around the cabinets and trim around the door. Shawn also has to hook up two remaining outlets and get fight angled hoses for the washer so it sits against the wall. All of the remaining work should only take a week or two of on and off work (meaning, an hour or two here and there). We are so excited to have this room finished. It has been quite a project. Here is what we accomplished:

Already completed:
*Tore down a wall
*Removed wood paneling
*Framed out the wall around the window
*Added insulation in the exterior walls
*Ran new wire for the whole room
*Installed new plumbing in the room
*Installed drywall floor to ceiling
*Moved dryer vent
*Textured drywall floor to ceiling (hired out)
*Painted - 5 coats on walls and ceiling
*Installed recessed lighting
*Moved the exterior door 6 inches
*Installed tile floor
*Installed base cabinets
*Installed granite counters (hired out)

Yet to complete:
*Upper cabinets
*Baseboards
*Crown molding
*Trim around door
*Wire two outlets
*Toe kicks around cabinets
*Change out washer hoses to lay flat

Kitchenette/Laundry Room

I promised some folks that I would post a pic of the Kitchenette/Laundry Room in our house. This project has taken us about 4 months on and off. Without further ado, here is the room as it looks today. I will add another post later this weekend with the before and after pics. Enjoy!

Tile is 98% finished

So here's the final product. It took us about 2 weeks of working on the tile, on and off, but we finally got it done. We worked on it for 2-4 hours a day, but not consistently. All I have to say about tiling a floor, is that I'll never do it again. Of course Shawn and I started with the largest room in the house that needs to be tiled, the downstairs kitchenette and laundry area. This room is about 250 square feet of wonderfulness. I will post pics of before, during and after pics once we get the kitchen cabinets and granite counter top in. But for now, you will have to settle for these pics.

We tried to grout the floor in a dark color, per my sister's advice. She said that grout will change colors when it gets dirty. So, we started out with a dark color, but apparently once you get the grout in there, it is MUCH lighter than the color on the grout bag, and even the color chart. Now our grout is exactly the same color as the tile, which is slightly disappointing. We wanted darker grout, but such is life - you live and you learn I guess.

Our next step, sealing the grout, getting the washer and dryer back into the room, and installing the lower cabinets. I can't wait until the room is finished.

Laying Tile

My wonderful husband and I are laying tile in our downstairs kitchen. Yes, our house has two kitchens. A full kitchen exists upstairs, and a kitchenette resides downstairs. Our full kitchen upstairs has everything a kitchen needs. The kitchen downstairs has everything a kitchen needs except for a dishwasher. I keep calling the downstairs kitchen a 'kitchenette' because that's how we are going to use it. We are currently leaving out the refrigerator and stove, though there is space and wiring. But let's get to the point......

We have been laying tile on the floor for the past couple of days. If there is one word of advice for the beginning tiler - DON'T FREAKING DO IT!!!!! Buy the materials and hire a professional to do it. Laying tile has to be the hardest jobs we have done in our house so far - and we've torn down walls, replaced front and back door with re-framing, built walls, remodeled bathrooms, refinished 1150 square feet of hardwood floors, painted the house inside, painted the outside of the house that had been beaten down by the sun for 50 years, laid pergo flooring, replaced windows, built a concrete wall including a slab for the hot tub, and countless other remodel projects around the house. Tiling a floor is by far one of the worst remodeling projects EVER!!!!!!!! (I use multiple exclamation points to emphasize the fact that tiling is horrendous. Don't do it, just don't.)

Here are some pics of the kitchenette and the tile project. I hope you can see the color of the kitchen. If not, it's a gray/blue color. The tile is a ceramic travertine tile, and the counter top is a natural granite color (that was free-$.99 thank you very much to the folks disposing of perfectly good granite slab). The cabinets will be white along with the ceiling, trim and door. The kitchenette theme is "Ocean" or "Beach". I will put up my ocean photography in the room, and make some matching curtains.

Without further ado, here are a couple of pics......

Notice the gray/blue color of the walls, light and breezy. Recessed lighting because our downstairs is not a full 8 feet, and the natural color travertine tiles. This pic is where the cabinets will eventually be. We have the cabinets, they are just waiting to be assembled and installed.

Notice the perfect grout lines. Yeah, 18x18 tiles are really hard to place. Never will we tile a room this big again. Never, nope, no way.

Our Old House

I keep up with the housing market in our area, and just for kicks, the area we owned a townhouse in up until about a year and a half ago. So, here's the verdict: We purchased the townhouse in May of 2004 for $340,000.00 - - - - - - we sold it in November 2005, a mere 18 months later for $480,000.00 (and, before you ask, almost all of the profit was turned around and put back into this house - we do not have a huge chunck of money sitting in an off shore account or anything) - - - - - the lady who bought it from us sold it just a couple of months ago in June of 2007 for $458,000.00 - - - - - yikes!!! It always kind of sucks when you loose money on a property deal. I pray that she is doing ok financially.

Hmmmmm, it seems like we bought at the right time and sold at the right time. God is amazing isn't He? I have issues with trusting God - - - I have for years and years, and it only got worse after my father's suicide. But, here's the thing: no matter what, God is still faithful. How else do you explain that we only looked at houses 2 times before we found the townhouse we purchased in the Bay Area? I walked into the house, and 10 minutes later walked out, hugged Shawn and said, "buy that house for me, that's the one I want". I 'just knew' that the townhouse was the one. And, after we purchased it we found out that the person who was selling it had just lost her mother to cancer I think - but here's the kicker - she was a Teen Mania intern just a year or two prior. We bought our house from a Teen Mania intern. Very cool!

On top of that, about 18 months later I got EXTREMELY antsy living there and told Shawn that we needed to sell the townhouse because I was no longer comfortable there. Due to a set of, what I recognize now, as God ordained situations, we sold the townhouse for the price of $480k - a price which God had given me even before we had the house appraised and evaluated by our realtor.

THEN - it gets even better!!! We, at the same time was looking for houses in Placerville because we knew this is where God wanted us. I found a house that was in dire need of work, a task that Shawn and I thought we were up to at the time, and I knew that this was the house we needed to buy! And, one more time, God told me exactly how much we were going to pay for it. I don't want to get too much into detail here - but there is no way I could have known either of those prices....AND....when we went to purchase the house we are currently in, we offered something different than what we paid for. We offered $370k for it, but, NOW GET THIS, our realtor in Placerville calls me and says, "I know you said that $370k was approved, but I feel like we can get it for $365" - - - uhhhhhh, the price that God had told me a number of weeks before that. How cool is God????

All in all, looking back on it, God was the chess master in this situation. I can see looking back how faithful and amazingly coordinated His steps were for the purchase and sale of the townhouse and of course for the purchase of this home. I am amazed!!!! We bought at exactly the right time and sold at EXACTLY the right time in the Bay Area. Had we waited, like we were counseled to by a number of people, we would have lost quite a bit of money.

I find that God works in the most amazing of circumstances. God knew, of course, that this is something that would get my attention. I am sitting here hoping with everything within me that things work out here in Placerville for us. I need more work, Shawn needs to make more money at his job ventures, yet I still question whether everything is going to work out. Seeing our house purchase, sale and purchase, I would say it's gonna all work out just fine. But I have never been one to be satisfied by the unknown. I wonder if this is something I should work on??? Uh, yeah - I think so. I need to trust God, because ultimately He, and only He is the chess master in my life and in Shawn's life. Regardless of the moves He makes, even the unexpected ones, He is still in control. And, the best part about it is that He always wins the game. Check mate!

The Finished Product

I know I'm obsessed...so what?

I am about 90% done with the bathroom remodel. Overall, not too hard of a project. It is quickly becoming my favorite room in the house. I love being in there - it's soooo pretty. :) Shawn seems to think I love it so much because I did most of it myself (Shawn helped with the sink plumbing and installed the light fixture - two things I don't mess around with...I don't have enough experience with those two things, so I needed Shawn's help a little). But, I did install the toilet myself - that's right - installed the 'O' ring and everything.

Here are some interim pictures. I will post a final picture when I am completely done. I still have the curtains to put up, install the toilet paper holder and towel racks and add something decorative like a small laundry bench (which I bought today, but am not sure I am going to keep - I will see what I can find at Ikea tomorrow). Let me know what you think......and, I know there are a BUNCH of people out there who read my blog but never comment......NOW is the time to comment. :)

(From right outside the door - note the purple bathmats)

(Shower curtain - please look past the hideous shower tile)


Bathroom mirror - tomorrow I am going to add some lilac ribbon to replace the cream ribbon at the top.

This material (lilac and white small checkers) is going to become the curtains - and possibly a runner or two for some accessories - and maybe even a ribbon around the waste basket....who knows.

Another pic of the mirror - just because I thought it was kinda cool.

Now look down, a couple of posts below and look at the before picture - quite a difference. And remember, please post a comment (I would like to know what you think - is it cute? too sickly country? do you hate this design? do you want me to come design your house?). This is not my traditional style of design, but I really like the design for this room.

Bathroom Update

Here is a pic of the bathroom as of today. Here's how it went down:

Monday: Decided that I (alone) was going to remodel our downstairs bathroom. Partly because Shawn hurt his back over the weekend, but partly because I wanted to see if I could do it alone. I researched the toilet and sink we are going to put in there, and promptly went to the home improvement store to buy the items. I, with the guiding of Shawn, ripped out the old fixtures.

Tuesday: This was the day of painting that never ended. I painted two coats of primer and one final coat of latex paint. I realize that I should have added another top coat, but after two coats of primer, the walls were perfect. I added the final coat because it was the semi-gloss finish which is appropriate for bathrooms and kitchens (also, if you recall in a previous home remodeling post - I WILL NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use flat paint again if I can help it - I hate the stuff!!!) Final coat finished at about midnight.

Wednesday: Went shopping for the curtains (which I am going to have to make myself), shower curtain and bath mats. I decided on lilac - not a normal color for me to use in a house, but I have never had purple in any house I have ever lived in and I thought it would look really cute. It's going to be a 'country' bathroom...not normally my style, but the area of California I live in screams country. So, this bathroom is a nod to the area. ;)

Thursday: Make the curtains (if my sister-in-law will so kindly let me borrow her sewing machine), install the curtains, shower curtain, sink and toilet. Maybe I will go out tomorrow to look for a light fixture to replace the 70's fixture in there right now. I am thinking some kind of cute track lighting. Also, I need to pick up a mirror and install that too. Oh yeah, and maybe a wicker waste basket for the corner.

Friday: Sharon and I will be going out to Whole Foods......if we have time, I may high-jack her and stop by Ikea to see if there is something inexpensive to put into the bathroom, maybe a bookshelf of sorts - something small and cute....and of course, with the lilac color, something country. If I can't find a bookshelf, I have a feeling I will be buying something to put in the corner to hold extra 'bathroomy' kind of stuff.

I must say, this picture doesn't do justice. It simply looks like I ripped some stuff out - but trust me, the former yellow stained walls (now gleaming white), and nasty flooring from the 70's - is now new linoleum (I know, I know - linoleum SUCKS!!!!!! I would have put tile in there, but this is a temporary fix) speaks volumes if you see it in person. We are going to rip out the whole thing in a couple of years, make it bigger, move the toilet and sink to the other side of the bathroom (QUITE the undertaking I might add - we are going to have to break out concrete and everything) put tile down on the floor and re-tile the shower area etc.... So, what I am doing is a short term - couple year fix. And, before you ask - the reason why we are remodeling it now for a temporary fix is because I CANNOT live with the bathroom the way it was. It was disgusting!!! And, it cost only a few hundred dollars to remodel it (yes, I remodel EVERYTHING on a budget. Plus, we are having a party here in a few weeks and the house needs to be mostly presentable.

I will post more pics once the sink and toilet are in. :) Until then......

The poopy hole in the floor

This pic was taken before we owned the house.

Hideous shower tile in the downstairs bathroom.

So here we are again. Remodeling. Again. This time it's gonna be a bit different. Why, you ask? Thanks for asking!!! Well, because I am remodeling this bathroom all on my own. Yes, that's right folks - ALL ON MY OWN!!!!!!!!! No husband, no contractor - nobody but me. I 'uninstalled' the toilet (did you know that when you take a toilet out of the house, there is a big poopy hole in the floor??? Ewwww), vanity, medicine cabinet and towel rack all on my own (although my husband did give me some pointers with the plumbing - and he DID watch over my shoulder and kept saying, "do you want me to do it"......no thanks, babe, I can do it). So, last night we went to one of the major home improvement stores and picked up a toilet - an extended bowl toilet......for reasons only my wonderful husband can explain (apparently it, ahem (clears throat), 'works' better for men to have an extended bowl) - and a new pedestal sink. This afternoon I will be sanding the holes I patched and priming the walls. Tomorrow I will put two finish coats on the walls and replace the floor - that's right - I do floors too ALL ON MY OWN. Then on Thursday I will be installing the new toilet and pedestal sink. After that I will be purchasing all of the extras - the medicine cabinet - towel racks - a storage unit for the corner of the bathroom - window covering etc.... The only thing I will NOT be doing is replacing the hideous tile in the shower just yet. I think we are going to leave that for now since we will be ripping out the shower and moving it over to the other side of the bathroom - and I suspect that's going to take a while.

I will post pictures as I make progress. I just hope we can get everything done before my 30th BIRTHDAY PARTY on JUNE 2nd. (Lately Shawn and I have lost our motivation for remodeling the house - and, even WITH motivation I am not sure we can get it all done before the party.....yikes....we need help!!!) So - if you are in the Lake Tahoe/Sacramento area on June 2nd, please feel free to come over and grab a burger and a beer and hang out for a while for my 30th b-day celebration.

We finally did it

Yesterday Shawn and I finally painted the kitchen. Yeah!!!! It is now a sage green color, officially titled Herb Garden. We are going to refinish the cabinets so everything in the kitchen is white and the walls are green. It's going to look really cute when it's done. I can't wait to have a nice looking kitchen in this house. (I will post a pic a bit later on today).

Yesterday was both good and bad. I started the day by covering my newly built shelves in my closet with shelf liner. The shelves are kind of big, so the whole process took me a couple of hours. Then we tackled the kitchen. By the time I was done with the shelves and just starting on the kitchen my back was bothering my pretty bad. But, I didn't want Shawn doing it alone, so I pushed through the pain and kept painting anyway for the next couple of hours. Ummm, probably not the best of ideas since the rest of the night I was in quite a bit of pain....even with some ibuprofin in me. We were supposed to go out to dinner and a movie with my brother-in-law and his awesome wife, but had to change plans because I was in so much pain. But, I must say, we had a great time anyway (I feel really bad about not being able to go out, but I honestly think I would have barely made it through dinner with the way my back felt......in fact, right before Jonathan and Sharon came over I was almost in tears because of the pain). Sharon and I talked for hours while Shawn and Jonathan built his new computer (his anniversary gift) and my 'new' computer which is made up of Shawn's old computer parts. Shawn and Jonathan are amazing....they have a love for computers that runs incredibly deep (although that's probably not how they would describe it).

All in all it was a productive and fun day....except for the pain that is. I think I worked out too hard the day before. Vanessa and I talked on the phone for a while during my workout and I lost track of time. At the end of it I had worked out for a full hour. Something I greatly enjoyed, but paid for later. But, all's well that ends well. The kitchen walls are painted and the kitchen is now clean, save some dishes in the sink.

No cooking for me yesterday. Our kitchen was a total disaster until Jonathan and Sharon came over. I think Monday I am going to make stuffed peppers. The recipe I have is low fat, and pretty low cal...but the ingredients sound wonderful. I will let you know how it turns out. Like I was telling my sister-in-law last night, I am trying to get 20-30 dinner recipes together before I go back to work so I can just pull from those and rotate them.

What's on the docket today? Well, finally getting our master bedroom clean. Anyone who has come over to the house in recent weeks can tell you that our room is the messiest room in the house.....but of course, not without excuse. I just finished the shelves yesterday so now I can uniformly fold all of my clothes and put them away. They have been sitting on the floor in piles (to me they are clearly piles, to others it looks like a bomb exploded all over our bedroom) waiting to be folded and put away. So, that's my goal...before midnight tonight, our room will be free of clothes on the floor and we will once again be able to walk in our bedroom.

The house is almost ours

We have had renters in our house virtually since we purchased the house. They were supposed to move out on November 4th, however, they are not moved out. Shawn and I said, when they moved in, if they needed a bit of extra time we would allow them to live there. We have set the deadline for this week. So, by the weekend, they will have to be completely out of the house. I am pretty excited about this since we need to redo a lot of stuff and the only way we are going to be able to do that is if the house is empty.

Upon emptying a room of the house (the master bedroom), we discovered that there are interesting scratches on our newly refinished hardwood floor. In the contract (yes, we made Shawn's brother and friend sign a contract - more on that at another time - there is a reason for it, but I don't want to get into that now) it stated that they were required to return the house to the condition in which they moved in. That means that the floor was perfect when they moved in, so it's going to be perfect when they move out. (They wanted the floor redone before they moved in and we busted out butts to get it done for them - that was the agreement, the floor would be perfect when they moved out). In any case, Shawn's brother is going to refinish our floor over the next weekend. All in all it's not going to take that much effort since all he has to do is re-sand the top layer, basically run over the top layer with sandpaper, tack cloth the floor (which is the most horrible step) and then put the sealer on there. I think we are going to need a couple of coats of sealer, but the floor should be good as new when they are done. (Good as new except for a gouge in the floor of the master bedroom - be heck, those can be filled with a bit of wood filler).

Needless to say, I am extremely happy that Shawn and I will finally have a place that we can call our own. We will finally have a house to ourselves, no renters! This is an exciting time for us and we simply can't wait. Until tomorrow.....

In Progress

Here is the house before and after getting some new paint on it! We are going to paint the trim white and have wine colored (or dark blue) facade shutters. Progress - that was the theme for this weekend.

(Taken a few weeks ago)

(Taken this morning at about 8am - no sun - half with primer)

(Taken this afternoon - the whole front, save a few areas,

Blessings over the weekend

Shawn and I traveled up to Placerville again this weekend to get some work done. Not only were our renters gone all weekend - blessings for a quite house - but something else really cool happened. We were at Sherwin Williams on Sunday to purchase paint for the exterior of the house. While we were talking to the gentleman at the counter asking about the horrible state our house is in a contractor walked in. After talking to the contractor for a bit about the house, he offered to come by the house and take a look and let us know what he thought. The guy, named Rick, came by as promised and told us what we needed to do, step by step in order to make the house look really good. Nothing like this would ever happen in the Bay Area. A perfect stranger went out of his way to help us figure out what we need to do to make our house look good and have a paint job that will last years. It am constantly amazed at the people in Placerville - mostly good stuff!!! People in Placerville are so much nicer than the people in the Bay Area. In addition to that, they will go out of their way to help you. Don't get me wrong, there are nasty drivers like there are everywhere, but for the most part people are very cordial and helpful. It's such a different experience. I love it. Many blessings have come our way!!!

The nail that broke the husbands back (or foot)

This past weekend the husband went up to P-ville alone to work on the house. His goal was to tear down both decks (front and back) and that's exactly what he did. In the midst of that Shawn managed to put a nail through his foot - well, not completely through, just through enough to go in pretty deep and warrant a tetanus shot. Today we went to the Dr.'s and we both got tetanus shots and I had my blood drawn. About a year ago my Dr. told me that I had high cholesterol but I never did anything about it. Well, today I finally had my blood taken again to see if I need meds for it or not (I hope not). So, after we were both poked and prodded, we are in ok shape. I will get the results in about a week or so to see if my fate resides in a bottle of pills. I, unfortunately, have family history of high cholesterol - so it is almost impossible to lower it by exercising or diet. But we shall see....

What do you think???

As many of you may already know, my husband and I bought a house that is a definite "fixer - upper". The picture of it below is the "before" picture. Here's where you come in - I need to figure out a color to paint the house. Please please please look at the house and post a reply with what color you think would look great on the house.

Our plan is to remove the front deck and re-do the entire front yard that will make it more even and pretty beautiful. Now, all we need to do is figure out the paint color. Of course we are removing the facade shutters and will be replacing them with newer, updated facade shutters. So here's what I need from y'all - what color should the house be and what color should the trim be? We are going to paint the house within the next month so we need to decide on this ASAP.
Keep in mind that the house to the left of us is a light green and dark brown wood color and the house to the right is maroon/barn red. So what would look good on the house and in between each of those colors? I appreciate your input. :)

Home Update

We finally finished the floor in our movie theater. Now we have red walls, a white ceiling, black curtains and a very light colored wood floor. We are going to be putting white trim around the windows and doors and also white baseboards and crown molding (although I am not sure it's going to actually be 'crown' molding since I don't like that stuff too much). But, I think it's going to look cool. Now when people ask you the age old question - "What is black and white and red all over?" you can say with 100% confidence, "Carol's movie theater". LOL

We have figured out though that the dog is not a friend of the slick floor. She already fell once today - which is not good for her since she has pretty bad arthritis. But, in our defense, we are going to be putting area rugs down on the floor in a lot of places so there won't be too much for her to slip on. I am looking at the poor pooper right now and she's knocked out. She doesn't like when we come up here to do work. She is the ultimate protector and NEEDS to be with us all the time otherwise she thinks she is not doing her job. So, when Shawn and I walk in and out of the house 100 times she ALWAYS gets up from where she is sitting or laying and the blocks the door until we come back in. We would have taken her with us and let her freely walk around except that it's about 110 degrees outside today and the ground is simply too hot for her little paws to handle. In addition to that, we were using the Skil Saw and Chop Saw all day and it's a bit too loud for her sensitive ears. Plus, all we need is for her to knock one of us over while using one of those things. So we thought it best if we kept her in the air conditioned house.

On a much more positive note, I am getting used to the heat. It doesn't feel quite as hot today as it did yesterday. I went down to Folsom for a bit yesterday and thought that I was going to die when I got out of my car. It was about 120 degrees out there when you were standing on the asphalt. But, up at our house it was about 10 degrees cooler. Plus we put a window air conditioner in the bottom floor window to keep it bearable in here while we worked. So it was only about 80 degrees while we were laying floor over the weekend - thank God for little blessings.