Wood Floors: Before & After

There is so much to catch up on here. Story of my life it seems. I hope to get to it all soon but for now here is a little peek at the wood floors we put in. We bought the boards from a guy who had been collecting them over the years from torn down old barns. They were unfinished, dirty and painted wide planks that varied in widths. Needless to say, they didn't look very pretty but once they were in, sanded, hand scraped, stained and finished we were thrilled with them.

The Porch

I thought I should post a few pics of what we call "The Porch". It's where we have lived for the past three years during our maddening, stress inducing, I'll never make it, farmhouse renovation. Typically when you hear the word porch most people invision an outdoor space. Our "porch" is more like a sunroom, I suppose. It was added on to the original house years ago and wraps around the south and east sides of what used to be the homes exterior. It is completely enclosed but with windows along each exterior wall. As part of our renovations we took out the two windows that looked out onto the porch from inside the house and the door that lead out to the porch. The two windows and the door were along the south wall of the kitchen/dining area and we replaced them with french doors with fixed windows on each side that are centered on the south wall. Once the renovations are complete (if we're still alive) we plan to use the space on the porch as extra seating and to add to the flow when we have guests and possibly a kid's play area. It needs a lot of work to but for now I've tried to make it a comfortable living space to relax. Its multiple uses include our kitchen, dining room and living room. It's amazing how much we have put in this little space.

This is our cozy little living room. We put up new siding but it will eventually be painted.

We were storing our new couch covered in another room of the house but when we hung the new drywall and everything we had to move it to the porch. Our dining table use to be where the new couch is now under the little chandelier which, by the way, I found on the clearance shelf at Lowes for only $35!

You can kind of see the french doors in this photo to the right. Also, I have to point out that Houston built the armoire in this picture. It was also stored in another room but had to be moved to the porch during the drywall installation. It still needs to be stained or painted but I am so proud of this project of his. He's very talented. The only problem is, that's where I normally put the Christmas tree! He built it to fit our tv so we may end up and move it to the living area and put the tv in it even though it's not finished.

My itty bity, but functional kitchen!





The sink is in the counter to the right in this picture. I was standing next to it when I took the photo. I just didn't get it in the picture. Our microwave is actually under the sink area. You can kind of see the curtains hanging down from the counter top and behind them is our dishwasher and also a little cart on rollers with our canned goods and other food.







I had fun with this project. We moved some of the old cabinets that used to be in the house in the old kitchen out to the porch. We just set the upper cabinets on top of the lower ones and made it look like a hutch. I painted them all because they were a little old and not very pretty and added some new hardware. I even painted the counter tops black for a more updated look. We had already gotten rid of some of the cabinet doors so I made some little curtains to cover the bottom.



Hopefully now you have a better idea of what I mean when I talk about living on the porch. It's not all that bad. It's pretty cozy actually!

What A Mess!!

This is a picture of the floor in the kitchen area of my house. Nice, right? It looks kind of like the fake snow you use as part of your holiday decor. Maybe I'll just leave it. Sounds easy enough. Or maybe not. Yeah, I better clean that up. Let me back up a little. About a month ago we packed up our belongings and headed south, a quarter of a mile, to Houston's parent's house. We left our beloved farmhouse remodel project behind and anxiously waited for a crew of guys to blow insulation in the walls, another crew to hang, tape and mud the drywall and finally, a third crew would come and texture the ceilings. Talk about exciting! In the hype of it all, I temporarily forgot that when they say they are coming on Monday, you might want to ask which Monday. What I mean is they don't always show up when they say they will. Mostly because things take longer than expected and they get backed up and so on and so forth. Patience is something I have definately learned throughout this process so I just put it into practice and sure enough they eventually came. Meanwhile, down at the inlaws, we actually found it quite relaxing to come home to a home with carpet! And walls!

Here are a few photos I captured of the process:

At this point we were in awe. There were so many guys and they were so fast!

I had to capture this moment. Houston was sitting back and relaxing. For the first time he wasn't doing the work!

It's hard to tell from the photos but it looks so much better than it did. A far cry from where we were when our friends, Nate & April came over to help with the holes in our floor!

To be continued...
Love,
Kristin

Okay ya'll, I have some big news! Okay it's not that big but it was pretty exciting to us. We had a guy come out to the house to measure for our new kitchen cabinets!!!!!!!!!! I'll try to calm down but seriously, it's almost been 3yrs that I have lived on the porch. I'm ready for a real kitchen! We used this picture to show the guy the kind of cabinet doors and drawers we wanted, how we wanted the vent hood to look (which is covered up by my silly wording) and the over all style we were going for. We'll paint them white and put in black counter tops (probably granite but possibly soap stone). We were going to go a little lighter on the floor stain but I think now we have decided to go darker, similar to the picture. We had to decide what kind of drawers and doors would go where, where to put the microwave, the spice rack and stuff like that. Definately the most fun we've had so far during this process. It will take about a week for them to give us the estimate and then about 4-5 weeks to build everything. So in between now and then we have to insulate and sheet rock (which we'll have a crew do) and put down the wood floor (which H will do & I'll assist, of course). We still have a few things to do before we can insulate and sheet rock (the story of my life) but we should be ready in a couple of weeks. You know, lately I have felt like I've lost a little bit of hope in things but truly it's the journey and the waiting that makes you a stronger person. And for that I am grateful.

Making Progress

So WE worked on the house this weekend and yes, I helped too! It was great. I really don't mind the work that much. It's more that I feel like I don't have the know how or the muscles to do it. But this weekend I got to scrape the rest of the popcorn ceilings! Yippee! I had already done the downstairs (like 2 years ago) but I still hadn't done the upstairs. There are only two bedrooms and a very small 1/2 bath upstairs. I found a couple of my old magazine clippings that I saved as some inspiration for the upstairs. We won't have a tub up there and I'm not sure that I am going with pale blue but for sure the trim will be white and there will be a pedestal sink. Our favorite part is that we're putting wood on the ceilings like in the pictures.

Scraping the popcorn ceilings is really simple. First I sprayed a section of the ceiling with a water/Diff (wallpaper remover) mixture.

Then I just scraped away!

Here is a before and after shot.

Now we just have to pull up the brown carpet. I will be really sad to see it go. Not really. Underneath the beautiful brown carpet is old wood flooring! BUT, Houston says we will really regret it if we have wood up there because someday when we having little munchkins running around (above our bedroom) it will be really loud. So we're going with carpet, not brown though!

Houston always works really hard on the weekends trying to get things done. Lately I have been slacking off a bit. I think I just get in a slump because it seems like we have so far to go. I tell Houston all the time that I can't wait until we're done. But this weekend I really realized that he feels all the pressure to finish the house. I felt really bad for not helping more and repeatedly saying how badly I want to be finished. I'm going to try to up my game and be a better help to my amazing husband.