House of Love

After titling this post, Amy Grant's old school "House of Love" starting running through my mind.  I apologize, I know you are now humming it!  Brings me back to Elementary school, doing "figure" skating routines in the street with friends to her cassette....yup you read all of that correctly!!  Had a Nancy Kerrigan poster on my closet door (the only place we were allowed to hang things) and a great weekend included a new dance routine choreographed for hours to Janet Jackson with all of the girls :)  Those were the days....no bills, open weekends, and no idea what any of the lyrics to songs we liked really meant!!

Took me a minute to figure out what the heck I was here to blog about after all that?!?  Yes, house of love...no worries, not what you are thinking...it is safe to keep reading!  I guess Labor of Love may have been a more appropriate title, however it is not quite finished so I don't want to use such severe and scary words until the laboring is complete and a distant memory!  When my blogging is behind, it is safe to assume we are busy working on the house!  Never a dull moment here....there is always something to paint, hang, install, etc!  So, here is a montage (sorry for the yuck pics) to all things productive over the last several days:

We added this couch to our upstairs sitting area and finally prettied up the built-ins....

....I hung these cool wall hangings in the master bathroom over the tub

....And made these monogrammed framings as an inexpensive wall filler for our living room

....We finally had the tin tile backsplash and undercounter lighting with lightrail installed in the kitchen

...and the island lighting too!

....and I finished off our stove hood with this piece of garden art I've had for years!

....We purchased a rug for the den

...and the great room is looking more complete each day!

So, we finally paid a little bit of attention to outside with new light fixtures to replace the dingy and old

....and some flowers to brighten the porch

...and finally added some iron work to above the door!

As you can see, this house has been rejuvenated with lots of time, hard work, finishing touches and love!  It is finally feeling more like ours, more cozy, and just more like home!  Happy Valentine's Day from our house to yours, wherever it may be!

Back at it, Baby!

After 4 months of no kitchen, concrete floors, dust, no sink, plywood countertops, and 6 weeks of living out of a wine fridge the kitchen is almost done!!  Things have been so slow, but the week of Thanksgiving, several large variables (countertops, appliances, plumbing) fell into place, and made us have a working kitchen!  We are still lacking backsplash, undercounter lighting, lightrail, and some final touches (scribe, paint, windowseat cushion, etc), but for the most part it is complete!  Simply being able to use the sink, fridge, and stove make me happy!  Now if we can just get a coat of primer on the walls, I will be elated!!!

The Bar!

Gorgeous fresh, wreath from my grandparents :)

12 foot island!  Organization heaven!

I have made several meals in the kitchen now, which has been so exciting!  It is so nice not to have  to eat out every meal!  I even went to the farmers market yesterday and stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies, eggs and honey!  We love dinner guests - come on over :)

Halloween is Here!

It has not felt like Fall here for two reasons.  The first being that the leaves are not changing color, they are just dieing and falling off the trees (the ones that do, that is).  The second reason being that our house has been a mess of drywall dust, pallets of tile, buckets of grout, plywood for kitchen countertops...I think you are getting the point.  I have wanted to put out Halloween decorations, but it is pretty much pointless, since it will just be one more thing to dust!

Yet, us crazy people wanted to embrace the fact that we are living in LA and all of the fun costume shops! So, what did we do?  Decided to throw a Halloween party, of course!  Clearly, not being able to entertain like we usually do has gotten to us!  We spent last night finalizing our costumes and the menu.  While the menu consists of mostly easy appetizers and desserts, I was having a huge craving for pumpkin bread I couldn't curb.  Todd and I headed to Whole Foods last night to buy the last can of pure pumpkin (no, seriously it was the last one) and everything else we haven't had in our house for months!

Maybe I should explain why this pumpkin bread venture is so crazy....our kitchen is still not complete, we have plywood for temporary countertops, no fridge, no stove, no working sink, BUT we do have a working oven!  In addition, we have 4 contractors here today grouting tile in our foyer (which is of course the route to the sink we are using for dishes), prepping floors in the kitchen, installing the tub in our bathroom, and prepping for our glass shower enclosure.  Yet, amidst all of the bustle I managed this:

I am feeling so accomplished this morning!  It is not even 9 am yet, and I am on my second load of laundry, Breck got a bath (twice after walking through the grout!), and now there are two loaves of gluten free and dairy free pumpkin bread in the oven!  I am going to spend the rest of my day preparing for our party and carving pumpkins with some fun ladies I have met out here!  Wonderful start to my Friday! :o)

Adding Warmth to the Kitchen

My mom and I started our day with two goals: find fabric for the kitchen windowseat and find fabric for drapes in our bedroom.

We were not successful with the second goal, but we excelled at the first goal!  Not only did we find fabric for the window seat, we also came up with an entire pallet for the kitchen and den.  I was wanting to warm up the kitchen which is full of cabinets, tile, tin tile backsplash and granite with some fun fabrics that would pull together all of the colors that already exist:  fudge, antique white, oil rubbed bronze and green.  I think we were successful!  I apologize for the lighting (that makes some of these look like they don't exactly go), but I know some of you are anxious to see!

The walls will be painted the far right color, Crocodile by Behr.  We will be using the green fabric next to the paint swatch as accent for the roman shade over the sink and as throw pillows on the window seat.  The blue fabric was the inspiration for it all!  I am so excited to use this on the actual window seat and as throw pillows on our dark brown leather sectional in the attached den.  Finally, the far left fabric is being used as accent pillows on the window seat and sectional, and will have green velvet cording!

The layout for the window seat will look a little something like this...

Love the fabric we brought back today!

Kitchen Progression

The kitchen is nowhere close to complete, but I did want to post some pictures so you could all see the progress.

As you probably remember, this is what the kitchen looked like when we first viewed the home while the previous owners were in it (prior to being damaged by them)....

Obviously, the kitchen was not in this shape when we finally moved in.  In addition, since we were replacing the cabinets we decided to open up the kitchen/eating area/den to make a true great room by extending the kitchen, adding an oversized island, and making it an eat in kitchen.

Demo began last Monday, and this is what the kitchen looked like after the demolition was complete.

Oven and sink walls

Old breakfast room and peninsula

As you can see, the house has been full of boxed cabinets and I took these pictures at the end of the day once the sun was down!  The next morning, cabinets began being installed:

Pantry cabinets
(in addition to our walk-in pantry)
 and stove base

Sink base

Location of the new island

Old built in desk area, now the bar!  :)

Slowly, but surely things began to take shape....

Stove area

Sink base

Bar area

...and things have continued to evolve into what looks more and more like a kitchen....

Stove, sink, and beginnings of the island

Fridge and oven built ins - fridge to be installed

Bar area (wine fridge to be installed)

Glorious island!!

What's left in order to complete the project?
-Cabinets and window seat under the old breakfast room window (waiting to be delivered in order to install)
-Countertops
-Flooring removal and install
-Backsplash
-Install of stove, wine fridge, and fridge
-Install of under counter lighting
-Install of light rail, toe kick, etc
-Painting of the disgusting walls!!
-Final walk through

Hope to post more pictures of progress on the kitchen soon!

Kitchen Demolition!

Today officially marks the beginning of our kitchen remodel!  Our kitchen contractors arrived this morning to begin demolition.  However, I must first back up to Friday, when the new appliances and replacement cabinets arrived.  Yes, you read that correctly.... replacement cabinets because the kitchen was originally mis-measured, which pushed our start date back even more than the first time! So, the new cabinets arrived, and since our garage was already full of the old cabinets that haven't been picked up yet, our den looks like this:

Then, we spent our Sunday cleaning out the kitchen and completing our makeshift kitchen in the dining room to hold us over for the next few days!  I kind of like our mini kitchen in the dining room -- it is nicer than what we had in the hotel for several months!

Makeshift kitchen in the dining room with stacks of dishes

More stacks of dishes in the guest bedroom

...and that brings us to this morning, and all of this:

More Reno Drama

Our chandelier for the foyer finally came in, and I was so happy to have the exposed wires in the ceiling covered!  We had our contractor hang it due to the height of the ceiling which required scaffolding.  Thank goodness he was in charge of the project because the wiring in the fixture was faulty and sent surges through our electrical system causing shorts -- I would have had no idea how to diagnose this issue!  We are now waiting for a replacement fixture in order to go through the entire process of hanging again and fixing our blown fuses.

No worries...there is plenty of other reno drama where that comes from!  In other news, the master bathroom is on hold because we are waiting on our claw foot tub to be delivered.  Our contractor wants to triple check the dimensions of the tub before building out walls that the tub plumbing will require for support before anything can be finalized and moving in a forward direction.  I don't blame him, I am a little anxious about building walls, moving plumbing, and tiling without having seen the actual tub in the space.  Also, the kitchen (which should have been complete by now) is still sitting in boxes in our garage, with a new proposed install date of October 3rd.....no one at our house is holding their breath!

Kitchen on Hold

Our kitchen demo and install were pushed back three weeks....frustrating!  I thought all along the kitchen would be done before we began the demo on our master bathroom; that was the goal at least.  However, the contractor we are using for our kitchen has decided to take a 10 day Alaskan cruise at the most inconvenient time for us and with no warning.  In the meantime, our main contractor, who has done almost all of the other major jobs in our house keeps pushing onward!

Kitchen cabinets in the garage - waiting for install

So, our garage will continue to be a cabinet warehouse until mid-September, and our master bathroom will be in reconstruction for the next few weeks.  The master bathroom and kitchen are the most major renovations you can do in a house, and it would figure we would be so lucky to going through both at the same time, despite all of our planning!  We continue to roll with the punches :)

Master bathroom - stripped down