DIY Stairs

Our house is an ongoing project. 

Aren't they all? 

The projects are seemingly neverending. 

Our most recent DIY remodel/renovation was our Living Room and Kitchen.

There are just so many projects we don't know where to start. 

Or we don't have a good renovation that won't cause us to tear the entire house down. You know, when you tug on that one string of a sweater, the whole thing will fall apart. 

Steve and I started recently brainstorming what we could do next. We're itching for something.

Our master bathroom is desperate for a makeover, but that would be far too costly. 

We thought about adding a wood stove to our living room. 

We finally decided to finish up our freaking foyer and staircase. 

Since we had finished our upstairs loft, the first step coming down the stairs had been ripped up. So it's been a bare piece of wood for well over a year. 

We never painted the foyer. It's such a high ceiling that it'd be a pain in the ass. 

So we never bothered.

But now it's time.

My new phone has a wide lens now...but...you get the picture. The girls put the ghosts there, I would not have chosen that spot, lol. 

Looking down from the upstairs 

View from the top & a view of our front door. We lose SO much heat through this door. 

This carpet is just so fucking gross. I cannot wait until this shit is pulled up! 

We are looking to do a farmhouse look (DUH), with dark wood stair treads and railing, with either white or rod iron ballisters. 

Here's my inspo board (check out those light fixtures!)

I will be very excited when we replace this God-awful light fixture.

Like everything else, Steve will be doing all the labor. Luckily for us, this project isn't going to cost us a TON in materials, but it'll be a LOT of Steve's time. 

We want to do wainscotting or some sort of picture frame border on the walls. It would then make it so I won't have a picture gallery wall - so we'll need to figure all of that out.

We will be going from this teal - which I liked when we first moved in, to a much more neutral white. I want to go minimalistic in this area since it's like the ONE area we could possibly do this. The kids don't really play in this area.

No one really "hangs out" in this area.

No one comes to our front door either. We don't have a front walkway. LOL. Not sure why.

So everyone comes through our garage. 

ANYWAY.

New front door to come too! 

I will continue to post on our progress. We hope to complete this over the fall/winter time frame.

Don't get me started on the floors...

I Just Can't Take It Anymore

It's no secret that our house is a chronic work in progress. 

Aren't they all?

When we bought this house 6 years ago (October 1!) we didn't buy it for the gourmet kitchen or updated bathrooms.

It had neither.

We bought it because of the land.

And the house wasn't 1,000 years old. 

While it could use some serious updating, it wasn't like it was stuck in the 1970's or anything.

The bones were good, if you will. 

And I was pregnant.

Mila was 2.5 years old. 

We were in our early 30's.

We knew we had a lot of updating to do.

We were prepared to tackle as much of it ourselves as possible and I think we've done a decent job of it.

We completely renovated our upstairs, including new paint, new carpet in bedrooms and new vinyl plank flooring in our loft.

We did a DIY kitchen renovation which I'm totally happy with. Is it professional? Absolutely not.

But we did it. We did it together and I think it came out beautifully. 

The one thing that's been just an EYE SORE FOR SO LONG?

Floors. 

But here's the thing. 

Floors for the entire first floor of our house is SO EXPENSIVE.

Like $15,000 expensive. 

For fuck's sake. 

There's something weird about our floors, too.

In the kitchen, we have the shittiest linoleum floors that are from every 1980's house. 

This house was built in 2003, people. 

Then, in the downstairs bedroom, we have the grossest, tan colored, wrinkled carpet that is infested with the past two families' dead foot skin.

Yes, I said it. 

So whatever, we shampooed that shit when we moved it and just went with it. 

The other living areas? Dining room and great room? Beautiful Brazilian Cherry hardwoods. 

Like what? Why are these floors so on the opposite sides of the quality spectrum? Why go so expensive with one floor and then literally the CHEAPEST for the other?

Oh yeah, as with EVERYTHING we're learning with this house, it APPEARS that the original owner simply ran out of money when he built the house. 

I mean, not to judge, because WE literally had NO MONEY when we bought this house. 

And then we went and had our second baby 2.5 months after moving in. So yeah. 

Then we got a puppy the following summer.

Then 3 years later we added a rescue dog to our lives.

And this master bedroom carpet...has seen better days.

Weird bleach marks? The wrinkles? Ugh drives me NUTS. 

If you follow my blog, you've likely seen in my mirror selfies the gross dog pee spots. I know. So gross.

Trust me. I'm living in it. 

I've scrubbed, I've RESOLVED, I've used powder and vacuumed. It just won't come out.

And then on Saturday?

I woke up at 3am to MR. making that famous puke sound.

I didn't wake up in time. 

So I had to pick up chunks of vomit at 3am.

I shoved his ass outside and went back to bed.

And when Steve woke up I said to him "I DON'T FUCKING CARE ANYMORE. WE ARE GETTING NEW FLOORS IN HERE."

And we are.

BUT. 

Because we legit don't have $15,000 for the entire downstairs, we are just doing an "interim" vinyl plank floor to buy us some time.

We're not trying match our Brazilian Cherry - because while they are lovely, they are NOT the finished I'd choose. You can legit see every single foot print, paw print, mark etc. on these floors. I'd much prefer a matte finish. 

Anyway, so instead, we're going for a completely white-ish wood look. 

We chose this floor.  

We just hope this floor lasts us maybe 10 years until we can get really nice hardwoods everywhere.

Until then...

This needs to withstand kids, dogs, LIFE. 

We will get an area rug, and if and when that gets gross we can at least throw it away and get a new one.

Still waiting to get it scheduled - we're having Home Depot install it, due to Steve's back. 

Living Room Update - REVEAL!

So here's the before:

Mind you, I've already cleared all the shit off the top of the credenza. It had huge speakers on it and just...stuff. 

AND TA-DA!

Even though we're "closing" the openness, the room actually feels and looks bigger! 

We obviously need to work on the finishing touches with artwork and such on the walls. We have some pieces, but I really want to do big canvas prints of the girls. 

We are totally in love with how it has turned out. I absolutely LOVE our new couches! And we can allllllll sit and relax at the same time now! 

Living Room Renovations - Update

So where did we leave off?

Oh yeah. Ok, the wall that needs to be drywalled, mudded, sanded, mudded, sanded, etc. 

So we struggled with how to create something that would make a HUGE MESS when sanding. Our girls, as you know, have asthma as do I. So we just can't have this shit floating through the house (well, it's obviously not good for anyone). So we built this "room" and Steve is using his heavy duty gas-mask with filter. It's working....kind of. He's attaching his shop vacuum to it so it'll suck what it can.

This scaffolding is really coming in handy! 

our new couches :). But here you can see the paint on the walls behind it. Turned out great!

Ok, he's actually in there now sanding away.

Once we get a few layers on there and sanded evenly we'll be able to paint. It's the LAST THING WE HAVE TO DO. Other than fix where the tape peeled the new ceiling paint off the wall. Ugh. And we missed an entire corner some how. 

But the goal is to be complete with this project by the time my PTO is over. I "go back" Monday.

We have 3 days.

So we didn't end up getting a coat of paint on Saturday night. We did prime the wall and stuff, but just couldn't bring ourselves to get all set up at 9pm. So we tackled it Sunday morning. 

Painting Ceilings Suck

We spent all weekend getting the living room ready to paint. There's always something.

I washed and painted all the baseboard moulding.

I painted the window and door trim.

I painted our master bedroom door (HUGE DIFFERENCE OMG).

I taped all the edges so we could do some wall painting today.

But first. Ceilings and the vaulted ceiling.

Our vaulted ceiling is SO high.

We've never attempted to paint or...anything.

Until now.

Steve painted the entire vaulted ceiling and walls.

We took this opportunity to clean the ceiling fan. SO. GROSS. This is my perspective laying on the floor. My office in the loft is the left of the pic. You can just barely see the railing.

We (meaning, Steve) also vacuumed up there. 

We stayed up and painted the other side of the living room. We had to let the ceiling paint dry before we could tackle taping that one wall. We also need to mud and sand the wall the TV is on. 

Before

After! A fresh coat of paint does wonders! 

You can kinda see the corner of the new couch in the above pic. I LOVE THEM. 

I can't wait to show you all the reveal! More painting and accessorizing needs to happen.

More shelving and furniture needed to tidy the place up. 

Can't wait! 

Living Room Updates

Like I mentioned in my previous post, Steve and I are looking to give our living room a facelift.

We desperately needed furniture that could you know, fit our entire family.

The walls needed to be painted and we need to rearrange some things.

Here's the before.

The couch worked when the babies were babies. We now cannot all fit on the couch comfortably together. Side note: we realize the paint colors do not match. We painted the one wall when we did repainted our kitchen. We are going to paint the rest of the living space the same gray color. 

The furniture was too big for the room from the very beginning. I'm excited to simplify! 

I sold it the same day I posted it! You can see Steve outside checking to see how much siding we need.

With his upcoming time off (heaven week) we're thinking we'll get a lot of this renovation done. He claims closing up this hole isn't a big deal....

I'm impressed that he got the window out and hole covered in less than a day. We do have to wait several weeks for the siding to come in, so we covered it up in the mean time to weather-proof it. 

Next up is electrical, insulation and drywall.

Sunday (hopefully) we paint.

Furniture gets delivered Monday! 

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

I didn't do shit today.

Steve told me yesterday that I could veg out all day if I wanted to.

He knows it's been tough on me lately, working from home and trying to homeschool, and all that other shit I've been complaining about.

I'm usually a busy-body on weekend. Well, there's just so much to do all the time.

Animals to feed.

Clothes to wash.

House to clean.

Floors to vacuum.

Groceries to be purchased.

Feeding of children.

Steve said he'd do it all.

Asked what I wanted this year.

And you know what?

I got what I wanted.

That right there is an apple fritter. In all its frosted glory. 

I had a coffee. 

I was sitting on the couch watching Netflix. 

Ignoring my kids' pleas of this or what. I'm not sure what they were whining about. I tuned them out.

It was decent outside so the kids went out to play.

Of course, they DID first give me these.

Are you kidding? Ava's little handwriting. Mila's card. They made me ooblek :)

Since it's quarantine, it's not like we can actually go anywhere.

Not that I'd have anywhere to go. Maybe out to lunch? Dinner?

Luckily, we're homebodies and like being home.

I got to relax and pretty much watch TV all day. The girls floated in and out, and would stop for cuddles in between their activities. 

On top of doing nothing for most of the day, I also decided it was time to redecorate our living room.

Our current set up just isn't working anymore.

The couch we got almost 6 years ago is literally too small for our family of 4. It worked when the kids were babies, but now? It's a struggle to fit us all on the couch. And the way our living room is set up...there's really only one wall to put a TV against. So that limits how we arrange our furniture. 

I kinda get why the previous owners put up a wall between the kitchen and living room. Not that I would have chosen that route...

ANYWAY.

We had talked about closing up windows on the one side. We'd still get a decent amount of light coming in from the sliding glass doors and from the windows in the two-story vaulted ceiling. 

So...we're going to do it. Steve said it "shouldn't be that hard" to close up the window (we'll save it for the barn), re-drywall it and paint. It would give me the opportunity to paint the last wall of the great room as well.

We also have what I would call "old school" audio equipment - it's like 10 years old at this point (got it after we got married), so it's fucking bulky as shit. Takes up WAY too much space.

Plus, the furniture itself was purchased for our old home. The living room was a different orientation, so it fit better in my opinion. 

I never thought it fit in this house anyway.

The girls have also completely destroyed the furniture. 

So I got to spend some time online finding new living room furniture. 

We found a couch set...which is the first "set" we've ever purchased. All of our previous couches have been sectionals. And while we've liked them, we've found that it can be annoying not to be able to move things around or rearrange things. 

We got a couch, loveseat and a "chair and a half". This should be enough space for the 4 of us. Plus, with removing the huge credenza, we'll gain some real estate in the room itself. 

I got a smaller coffee table and we are going to get a single sound bar to replace the sound system we have. 

Things should start arriving this week! Couch will be delivered next Monday. We opted to pick it up to save on the $119 delivery charge, only to find out that due to the quarantine, the stores are closed and the option to pick-up is no longer. They are offering FREE delivery!

Sweet!

Here's what it looks like with us all on the couch. I'm obviously taking the pic. That's about it! So the window behind Mila is going to get closed up. We'll put the TV on that wall instead. 

Here's a good view of the back of the couch/TV situation. It's going to completely change and I can't wait! 

I will do an official before/after. 

The Kitchen Reveal

Welp.

We did it.

We actually did it.

I didn't think we would really do it.

It seemed SO daunting.

All those cabinets.

Hand painting them.

Nothing about the project was appealing to me.

Except for the end product.

I never hated my kitchen.

Shit, when we first walked into the house, we LOVED the kitchen.

It's nothing glorious. 

The countertops are shit.

The floors are crap.

But we saw the potential people!

The cabinets were nice, just beat up.

We decided to change out our island, since it was just too small to be really functional.

Once we did that, we totally stalled. 

For months.

I tracked progress throughout my 2 week holiday staycation.

A few things I never thought I'd have in my kitchen:

A pot filler. We got this one.

A fire back. Being held up with adhesive. This thing weighs like 50lbs. I'm not sure where he got this from. Or why he felt like we needed one! But, now that it's here, it's amazing and I love it. It truly does add a bit of flair to the kitchen!

Adding shims to hold it in place.

I assumed I'd get a new stove eventually, but we pulled the trigger much earlier than anticipated. Having all of our appliances match became a much bigger deal when we started to put all the pieces together. We just couldn't have a shitty stove/oven and this new kitchen! We got this stove from LG.

I grew up in a household where there was a LOT of cooking. My mom always had a nice range hood above her stove. 

Our house came with the microwave combo. 

When we took it down, we realized that even though it's supposed to be vented outside, it wasn't ever connected properly. 

So all that disgusting grease and shit just...filled the cavity above the stove and never actually vented outside. 

Gross. 

Not only that, but our new range hood is 6 times stronger. 

And it'll be installed properly. 

We had to cut this piece down to size. We opted to get a copper color and went with this one. To break up the black/white we have going on.

We finally got our pulls. 

Well, most of them.

We got one set, but the size wasn't right.

We sent them back.

We got another set and finally started to put them up.

Of course we miscounted and we're missing one.

BUT, I love them!

Finished grouting, finally!

We are still missing some final touches, but we're about 90% there.

This is probably my favorite part. Fire back. New stove. Pot filler. Hood. 

I am beyond happy with the results! 

Here's a side by side:

Now the floors are so incredibly obvious and I hate them :( 

I also want to clear off my counters, so I'm hoping to fix up my pantry and I can put my appliances in there, like my air fryer and microwave. 

Don't look too close - we're still missing some trim and moldings!