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!

Return Home.

Todd and I were out of town for the last 10 or so days.....funny how fast time goes by!  We were standing at baggage claim at LAX last night saying how strange it seemed we were already back from that trip.  I was able to spend a lot of time with my family in Atlanta; it was a much needed vacation!  I'm missing them already!

While we were away, our contractors continued working, as there were several projects that would be easier with us out of the house.  Foremost, the chandelier in the foyer was replaced using scaffolding.  Then the foyer, hallway, and laundry room tiles which were uneven, cracking, and lacking grout were removed (which apparently was a huge job).  The floor was then leveled and laying of the new tile and grouting began.  Here are some pictures of the foyer before:

While many commented on this floor,
it is not as nice in person....
just photographs well! ;)

The foyer, in progress, now looks like this:

As you can see, the new chandelier is in!

In addition, the master bathroom was at a point in which we were temporarily going to not be able to walk through it to get to our closet.  Our contractors had built walls in our bathroom to close in our shower (no more brass and glass), and moved some plumbing in order to accommodate the new tub and additional fixtures in the shower.  They were ready to tile and needed us out for a good 3-4 days.  It was so nice to come home to this:

Shower enclosure - sorry so dark!

Tiling and new wall enclosing shower on left

Gorgeous white tile and new cabinets!

I was so relieved to get home and see that my design decisions were sound, and that nothing went horribly array.  I am now so anxious to see this all come together!  Off to pick up more tile! ;o)

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