Sunday, November 28, 2010

Another makeover……

We are finally getting to the end of our long kitchen/dining room/hallway partial makeover!! Here are some before and after photos….

The kitchen floor before….DSC04961I’m embarrassed to say we were hiding the tears in the the old 1983 linoleum with area rugs.

The new floor is a grayish ceramic tile in the kitchen and hallway DSC04980 as seen here.

And here is the old stencil above my cupboards I painted eons ago and the original color “bone” that was in my kitchen. Here is the new color in the kitchen….it’s called Cream Yellow…after the priming of course!

                         Before                                                                       Primed                                                                 Cream Yellow                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 DSC04948       DSC04968    DSC05023              Then we began working on the dining room right next to the kitchen. The floor looked like this…..DSC05281          and now this ……       finalpoly8 What a huge difference! It’s gorgeous now!! We painted the ceiling in there tooDSC05289See the difference already?  And we repainted the walls. They were already painted a light yellow called Filtered Sunlight but they needed updating. DSC05290That stairway that you see in this photo, will be updated as well. In January, the carpet on those stairs will be replaced with birch treads. The mantle and railings and side boards will be painted. Here’s the dining room painted out…..ceiling and walls….with my curtains down…DSC05280. That was before the floor was done. That monitor heater had to come out by our monitor guy the first day of the floor sanding. We used a small electric heater for 3 days.DSC05334This is the pump behind it and the exhaust and the brackets it goes on. We love that heater. It’s the best way to heat a home….very inexpensive and efficient. See the beam Bobbie and David built? That needs painting still. See the transition board between the kitchen and dining room? Those are oak and our carpenter guy made them for us and the floor guy sanded them down and put poly on them for us. Here’s the new beam tricked out but not painted on one of the top sides.DSC05288 Here’s our guy sanding the floors….DSC05336   DSC05337   DSC05338   DSC05341   Hard work that lasted three days. Once  it was sanded, the wood began to show these gorgeous dark and light boards. We always thought the floor was just birch. Our guy showed us birch AND Maple too in the floor! What a surprise that was!!DSC05347 Here is a shot without the sealer on it….DSC05350 See the dark and light boards? Lovely. Now here it is with the sealer and three coats of poly, after three days of coating and sanding and buffing….finalpoly5   finalpoly6   finalpoly7 It looks like glass! We absolutely LOVE it!! And here he is tipping his hat and saying goodbye…..mattjobwelldone a job well done!! Thanks Matt!!

What are we doing now? My curtains are still not back up so in the morning I see this still in my dining room….DSC05282   and this….DSC05280 That sun is very, very bright without my curtains, while sipping my morning coffee!!  In the last picture you can see there is no baseboard molding or ceiling molding. We just purchased that yesterday from Lowe’s. It’s primed but needs painting. That will go up hopefully next week. Then….my curtains can go back up and I won’t feel like I’m living in a fish bowl at night!! Meanwhile, I have to find a dry cleaner to clean my curtains…..I keep putting that off! Geez….I wonder why? I don’t have enough going on here do I? So….that old country beam that was twisted and cracked that I once loved and still kind of miss, that looked like this…DSC04678 is gone. And now we have a much more contemporary beam that was designed by my husband and our loyal carpenter David that looks like this….DSC05274   and this…DSC05276….unpainted. They did good didn’t they? In fairness to my Bobbie (my husband), he painted the entire dining room ceiling and walls himself!! I am so grateful for that. He has a much steadier hand than I do cutting things out….Nice Job Honey!! Whooohooo!! We also have to fill all of those nail holes with puddy on all of the molding…etc….before we paint….like this….DSC05166 When you are building something like this from scratch, it’s not always perfect, so there are cracks that need to be filled before painting. We talked about tricking out the beams a bit more, by painting a couple of colors on them. I thought about it for a few minutes and then said…. “nope!”…..they are going to be white….period! I am ready to wind down and just enjoy my house now and get ready for Christmas hopefully….my favorite holiday of the year. Although, that is changing too. I’m getting older now and more tired easily I guess. What I could do 5 years ago I can’t seem to now. Maybe it was the heart attack last year. Speaking of the heart attack….it will be one year ago that I had it….the day after Christmas!! I can hardly believe it. Do you know what else was a year ago???? The day I quit smoking cigarettes! What a flipping miracle that is!! Me?? Without a cigarette?? OMG I never would have believed it if someone told me I would quit! So it’s been a long year of being on medication. Before that, I only took an occasional aspirin….now I take one of those daily, along with three other pills….Simvastatin…..Plavix….and one other….along with some vitamins. Thank God for those pills….they saved my life. I had a stent put in and that saved my life too. Next Wednesday, I see my cardiologist and we will discuss my coming off the plavix….it’s been a year….they said to stay on for one year.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did. Lots of good food and family and as always, my mother in law Alice made my day. She makes me laugh and enjoy the day! She is more than a mother in law….she’s my best friend. I didn’t get many pictures but I did get one of my turkey I cooked the day before so we could have turkey sandwiches…..DSC05376  it came out nice. I didn’t stuff it because I knew I was going to have some of Alice’s famous Pork/Peach stuffing!! I did get a picture of my father in law Woody with my brother in law Joe’s new dog Jennabell…..DSC05377 She’s a good girl. And here’s Alice and Woody….DSC05381 And of course the boys like to play xbox while waiting for dinner to be ready….DSC05379 We had a very informal dinner and it was nice. The food was fabulous. Woody made mashed white and sweet potatoes and a huge Woody special Cole Slaw with shrimp added….Alice made her wonderful stuffing…..I made a pumpkin and apple pie and butternut squash and brought pickles, olives, cranberry, rolls, and salsa and chips. Joe had some nice eggnog and a wonderful veggie dish and two turkeys with dry rub on them that he deep fried. My son and his girlfriend brought a chocolate and a banana cream pie. So….we had plenty of good food!! I guess I have written long enough! Sorry about that. You will have to come back several days to read all this huh??!! See you all soon…..

9 comments:

Lori said...

I love it!!! It's turning out so wonderfully and I can imagine how happy you and your husband must be. We used a sander just like that when we did our wood floors. Yours turned how beautiful. I quite smoking April of last year too. It was very hard but I did it and have managed to be smoke free since then. Good for both of us. I didn't realize you had a heart attack almost a year ago. I am so thankful to hear you are doing well. It looks and sounds like a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thanks for undating even though you are very busy! Happy Sunday! XX

Unknown said...

what a lot of work you're doing! You will have a whole new home when you finish! yay!

Mary | Deep South Dish said...

Everything looks wonderful Debbie and I know that you are so happy to be getting it all back in time for Christmas! That wood floor looks amazing.

Sounds like you had a nice Thanksgiving - that turkey looks fantastic!!

Congrats on your upcoming quit smoking anniversary. Mine was this summer - 6 years now. Glad to be rid of that habit & thankfully before it caused any health issues. Now if I could convince all the people around me to quit LOL!! I literally have smokers - chain smokers it seems - in every single house around me. Sometimes when I walk into my backyard it smells like an ashtray, ugh. I sure don't miss that.

Was nice seeing your update - makes me so wish to redo my kitchen!! Hope you have a great week.

Claudia said...

Your home is looking really beautiful, Debbie!

I had no idea you'd had a heart attack! Thank goodness you are okay. And thank goodness you stopped smoking!

I quit in 1985. My husband quit around the same time, so by the time we met, we were hadn't smoked in years.

xo
Claudia

Debbie said...

Lori....thank you my friend!! I want to say that i was truly inspired by YOU to quit smoking! I am so proud of YOU for doing that and for who you are as a person. I am honored that you wrote about it in my blog!! Thanks so much.
Eva...Well we didn't plan on it like that but yes you are right!!
Mary...Oh my...6 years?? You go girl!! Good for you! And yes! I think it is a nasty habit MOST of the time now! I must get in touch with you. I have decided I want to do a Southern Thanksgiving next year and want some tips from you!! Thanks for coming by!
Claudia...Thanks for coming by. Oh yes...the heart attack was a shocker and a wake up call for sure. I am so happy to be among so many who quit smoking!!

Dawn said...

Debbie, I love the wet floor look on the fresh hardwood, our kitchen is the same and we were lucky to get some maple. Beautiful, just beautiful!
Arm has nerve damage and is a real bother right now. But I'm still trying to do what I do. I have appointments tomorrow so catching me will be hit or miss, disconnecting from chemo, ugh....upchuck!!

Elenka said...

Nice job on the kitchen and dining room. Wow! It's really exciting, isn't it? Bet you can't wait to decorated for Christmas. I haven't started yet, and I don't have construction going on around me. But I've been there,done that. Quite an ordeal but very worth it.
Congrats on a year since your heart attack. I can remember you telling us about it, I can't believe it's been a year! Hope you are feeling good.

Kathleen said...

Wow Debbie! You must feel like you are living in a new house. So many beautiful changes. The floors are just amazing. Lot of work, though..., and living through those changes. We had a great Thanksgiving too. Looks like you had a really good time, too. I can't believe it's a year since your heart attack. I am so happy you are doing so well. Hope your Christmas season is off to a good start!
Love, Kathleen

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