Yes, we've been on a hiatus....but for a GOOD reason!

I realize we haven't had many posts the past 2-3 months, but I can explain. There are a few reasons as to why we've (I've) neglected this blog...well, one BIG reason. We're having a baby!

We're totally excited, however, the past few months you wouldn't be able to tell because my "enthusiam" had me pretty much glued to the couch or in bed sleeping :/  Therefore, as dumb as it sounds, I just haven't had any energy to update the blog :(  And to be honest, we actually haven't done any additional home projects since October.  I hate to say we're submitting to winter hibernation, but I think we totally are.  There's only so much we can do on the inside before the big renovation in the spring, so we're sitting tight for a little while.  One thing we did manage to start was the nursery!  Below are a few pics of the paint and trim going up.

A Little Stain and Paint Go a Long Way

Since we were a little late to the game with getting out door installed, we werew a little pressing for time to stain (and seal it) before the winter.  Luckily, on a random Wednesday, at the end of October, temperatures hit 70 degrees, so Adrian and I ran home after work to get'er done (the next day was of course in the 40s so it was a good thing we acted when we did!).  We were able to get a coat of paint on the porch and I stained the both the inside and outside of the front door.  Now, it REALLY looks like someone lives here :)

Goodbye Padlock!!

So even though we had the door delivered during the summer, it's taken us a long time to actually get it installed.  The thing is massive and takes at least 2 people to move, so it sat in our foyer for what seemed like forever.  Since this door was so big, we knew we wanted to make sure it was installed correctly, so we enlisted the services of my uncle Mike.  He's a professional carpenter and does amazing work.  It took him two days to install, but that's only because he is super meticulous and patched everything up once he was done.  Here are a few shots of the newly installed door.

Sooooo happy that the padlock is finally gone! Now it actually looks like someone lives here :/

Still Scrapping

So Adrian and his dad spent another day scrapping and sanding the porch floors boards,the handrails and the balusters. And after many more hours they decided that it would just be easier if they replaced the center section of floor boards and ALL of the balusters.  Adrian is convinced that the balusters won't look good after we paint them since not all of the paint will be removed.  He doesn't like that fact that the balusters will have a lot of texture.  I really don't mind, but do understand that a smooth finish would look better.  So he wants to keep the handrails and replace the spindles.  This is ok, however, the dilemma is that our balusters are not your generic 2"x2" wood stick. We have some detail and grooving on ours.  As much as we like the detail, we're not about to custom order all of these balusters because there are 120 of them!

Uh, What Do We Have Here?

You may have noticed that our front stairs are ugly, and not to mention a bit hazardous, so in addition to fixing up the actual porch we also want to fix the porch stairs.  As a reminder, here are our stairs now...

And here's a good close up of WHY we need them rebuilt...

Who does that?!?! They built additions to the stairs!  No wonder they are loose.

And here's a photo of what we'd like our stairs to look like...

Here's an action shot of Adrian as he starts to remove the stairs...

Uh...what is THAT?  We knew there was a concrete base under the stairs since we could see it from the side of the stairs, but are those STAIRS?!?  Did they really just build right over concrete stairs???

Yep, yep they did.

Well, now we understand why they were built so oddly.  Looks like we have a bigger issue now, and our stair rebuild project is going to get pushed back a bit.  Need to look into possibily removing all of this concrete.  Awesome.

Here's a photo of our new concrete stairs.

This Old Porch

Lyle Lovett has a song entitled "This Old Porch" but his porch must have been nicer because our porch isn't worth singing about.  Our front porch is something I've wanted to fix since day 1 (I even went out and bought porch furniture back in February because I was so excited about it!).  I do love the size of our porch, however, I don't love it's current state.

Adrian and his dad started to scrape and sand this beast today so that we can paint it in a few weeks.  About an hour into it, they decided they needed to go to the store and buy some paint stripper since there was just too many layers of paint. After many more hours, they realized this was going to be a much bigger project than they originally anticipated.

Preppin' & Paintin'

So this weekend I decided to tackle the foyer. That awful gold color was making me sick, not to mention it was pretty similar to the wood color (and we already know there's LOTS of wood in the foyer) so it just created this overwhelmingly dark, dingy and monochromatic look.  Here are some before shots of the foyer... 

I spent all of Friday night priming the patched areas which look FOREVER since there were so many patched areas!  Here's me in action priming the 5,476,832 patched spots.

  

Saturday morning, I started with the foyer ceiling.  I HATE ceilings...like, seriously, hate ceilings.  After painting a 3'x3' spot on the second floor I was already frustrated and wanted to stop.  Adrian suggested we hire someone to do the ceilings only, but seeing as how I already had everything taped off, the tarps out and the paint poured, I reluctantly kept going. I don't have any action shots of painting the ceiling, but that's probably because I was mad at the world and didn't care about any stupid photos.

After the ceiling, I moved on to the walls!  We decided to go with  neutral grey/taupe color and it's such an improvement!  It instantly brightened the space.  with next year's renovation, we plan to restain all of the wood and make it darker so I think this new paint color will look even better then.

Here's a look at the new color

Finished photos coming soon....

203-K Complete!

It's official...we received the letter from the bank stating that all of the 203-k loan requirements have been met!  We're thrilled to be done with all of the horrible contractors and ready to start our own renovations! I'm glad this part is done and grateful for the learning experience. Just when Adrian and I thought we knew everything there was to know about real estate and investment properties we now have one more thing to add to our repertoire...we are 203-k loan experts!  Our advice, avoid them like the plague!  No, seriously though, they're alright.  They can just be a lot of work and can cause a lot of headaches.  I'm super glad we stuck with it though and excited for our future renovations and the work and headaches to come :)

You've Got Mail!

A few weeks back I gave our new mailbox a makeover and painted the gold letters pewter to match our color scheme.  Only took me a few minutes and it looks much better! You're welcome, Mr. Mailman.

The Front Door Has Arrived!

Finally after about 8 weeks, our front door was delivered this afternoon.  Can't wait to have it installed. I think it's a nice looking door and it's not even stained yet. I suppose its time to get rid of our padlock :/

Garage - Day 12

We have power! Today, an electrician was out working on the garage from 9am-5pm.  Our garage door now opens, we have sconces, security lights and indoor and outdoor outlets.  So happy about all the work on the garage.