Deck Expansion

The husband has been working on this for the last three weeks, pretty steadily. Our house was built with a 10x10 wood deck, which works ok to hold a grill and a small table. But the weather has been so perfect lately, we thought it would be really nice if we had more space to sit and maybe even entertain out there.  It's not 100% complete, we still need to trim the 4x4 posts and add a top rail to the stair rail, and potentially stain all the non-composite to match, but generally speaking, it's usable. And we LOVE it.

Also as a sidenote, we put in a paver patio down below the deck a couple years ago, which we use, but the sun beats on that spot in the afternoon so it's a little difficult to use. This new expansion shades that area now so it's much more usable. 

The BEFORE:

 The AFTER:

I also spray painted the small iron table and chairs I had up top and I'll show those in a later post when they're placed. I went with a teal-blue seabreeze color and I love it. I'm hoping to find or make some small cushions for the chairs so they'll be even more usable. I also have a ton more pictures of the process this deck took, but I haven't quite figured out how to embed just a slideshow into a blogger post, so I dunno if that will happen.

UPDATE: I downloaded picasa and used that to create a youtube slideshow video of the process of the deck build.

I am impatient

The furniture guys are supposed to call today and give me a delivery window for Wednesday. It's 4:23 PM and they HAVE. NOT. CALLED. They better call in the next 35 minutes. I guess I'll try to be patient and give them a chance to call tomorrow, but if the delivery is scheduled ... OMG THEY JUST CALLED! Hahahaha. I guess I should work on my patience. My furniture will be here between 745 and 945 Wednesday morning. Super happy birthday to me! Apparently it was supposed to be delivered July 11th, but I never knew that until they called to change it. So I thought it was pretty cool it was going to be delivered instead on my birthday. It is a birthday (and mother's day and anniversay) gift after all.

Now I'm super excited. Tomorrow night we'll prep the room, clear the space and sleep on the mattress on the floor (good luck to us trying to keep the dogs off) and then we'll prop it against the wall Wed. morning before the husband goes to work. And then the room will turn AWESOME once it's delivered. I am ridiculously excited. Having the furniture means I can figure out what sort of artwork I want in the room and I'm going to buy some sock drawer organizer thingies to help really organize my drawers. We're sharing a dresser so we'll have less space so we need to use it wisely. I get my own matching nightstand though, so I am beyond thrilled about that. Holy Moly I cannot wait!

Tonight I'm going to work out. Before dinner. I have a new total gym workout dvd (we have a Weider knockoff but the dvd works) And then swim maybe after dinner..or just for a short while beforehand. Then I'll get back to work tomorrow and try to focus knowing that the furniture it coming the next day!

Honestly. I am so easily pleased. I cannot wait to see it and use it and be a grown up with real bedroom furniture!

In the bedroom

Oh stop it. This is about a bedroom remodel of sorts. We're waiting for the arrival of a new bedroom set, from HomeMakers furniture, made by Daniel's Amish. A new dresser that we'll share, taller than standard and two new nightstands. I'm sure I've mentioned it, but I am SO EXCITED to have my own REAL nightstand. I can hardly stand the waiting.  It's set to be delivered on my birthday (July 25th).

Right now, our room looks like we just moved in and have no more money to buy furniture. I didn't want to wait too long to put our old stuff up on craigslist because I wasn't sure how long it would take to sell.  Now that I've sold it, I'm thinking I could have asked for more or waited a week. If you recall, we had two large chests and one nightstand. I took photos and posted them on craigslist on Friday morning and then the husband and I moved out our clothes and moved it all down to the garage. I sold a chest and nightstand by 5pm. I had also previously posted our wrought iron headboard and footboard and that sold on Friday also at 6pm. So I had just one chest to go. And Monday a lovely woman came and took it. No haggling from anyone, just sold it all straight up, it was awesome.  Ok, that's a partial lie - I did come down $10 on the headboard/footboard..but it was 15 years old, still in great shape and I felt like I got my money's worth out of it and I was really really tired of seeing it sitting in my hallway.

So now we have this.

My side, boxes of nightstand gear awaiting a new home.

Husband's side, tv tray for a nightstand since we sold his. ha.

No clothing storage. I bought two bins for now and I intend to reuse them for school supplies and crafts or maybe extra lightbulbs. It's weird how many extra lightbulbs we have, balancing precariously on a storage shelf.

Anyway. I cannot wait. And then I get to figure out what sort of artwork or photography adorns the walls. I'm still not hugely in love with the brown and cream theme, but I love the wallcolor and the blackout curtains are really nice..so hopefully I can find artwork to complement and prettify it.

New Shower Door

The new shower door was just installed. It MAKES the bathroom. It looks so great, with clear views into and out of the shower, no obstructed view because of the stupid curtain. I love it. Have to wait to use it until the morning, but it looks FANTASTIC.

Thanks to Allied Glass for the door and install, great job, very friendly, highly recommended.

Master Bathroom: The Reveal

Over the past month-ish we've been working on the master bathroom. From now on, when I say "we" I mean the husband. I did help grout and stain some woodwork, but 99% of the work was done by him. He deserves the credit. The end result is a masterpiece.

Let's start with the before. The bathroom is approximately 5 x 8..not a bad size, but not gigantic. The vanity and toilet were fine and usable, but the shower...the shower was not more than 3x3 (if that!) and one person could barely fit in there comfortably. It was also HELL to clean. I mostly gave up truly cleaning it the last few years. It just wasn't possible. Even though we're the first owners of this house, we didn't build this house, or choose the finishes, so we have to assume the builder went with the cheapest selections. The shower was awful, after Christmas we decided to remodel - which is good, because I was ready to stop showering it in, remodel or not.  The builder also decided to build a cabinet to the left of the shower. Super deep, super not useful (other than to hold a crapload of towels) and otherwise wasted space. We are going to take back that space.

Before: Shower and cabinet

Before: Cabinet and sink

Before: Vanity and light

The floor was linoleum, not bad, but not interesting. After ten (plus) years in this house, we decided to make the bathroom over. First...rip out the shower and cabinet. Then rebuild the area with niches between studs for shampoos and soaps.

Goodbye shower

Hello larger shower with fancy niches

  

Next - durock (cement board) the whole thing.

Durock/ Cement board

And then, because we are doing this thing RIGHT. Waterproofing. Vapor barrier is in place here behind the durock. We also used a TileRedi shower base which was really excellent for us. Tiled right on top of that no pouring cement or leveling, TileRedi is awesome.

Hello dark green waterproofer

And now...time to tile! also, see that cute little light he put in the shower too, so awesome.  He started with the floor, and then did the ceiling (which was NOT his favorite part) and the walls and niches. It all took quite a while, but he pushed and pushed and got it done. It looks awesome.

 

Tiled shower with a bit of a grout haze

 Then it was time for the rest of the bathroom. Fixtures, and a new toilet and new base cabinet and vanity top. I stained the medicine cabinet because the options to match the base were not optimal for what we need to store, and it looks good. I'm also working on staining the window in the bathroom and its casing. We took down the mini blind and frosted the bottom half of the window, which brings in light and doesn't leave a blind that just gets caked with dust and shower steam.

Hello Eljer Titan 4 Tall Round toilet

Beautiful Chelsea cabinet by Magickwood

Dark walnut stained medicine cabinet and new light fixture

I turned the light fixture upside down. I didn't want the light shining down on top of the cabinet so pointing it up seemed to work. there is plenty of light in the bathroom, especially with the extra shower light. And the shower light is connected to the fan in the bathroom, so it makes it easy to keep the steam down and therefore the mold potential.

The view from the master bedroom

We just went out to Allied Glass today to look at their doors so we shouldn't have to deal with the lame curtain and rod for much longer. I'll post another picture when the new door is in place. My shower this morning was awesome, I didn't want to get out.

UPDATE: The shower door was installed this morning (Feb 27) and it looks FANTASTIC.

Joy Dare: Day 13

3 Sounds you hear

1 - the puppies, wrestling. Each with a little growl as they take turns trying to bit each others feet. It's a ridiculous game, and eventually the small one gets riled and tries to hump the other. Even though they're fixed..and both girls. Go figure.

2 - Earlier today I heard my girls dancing and singing upstairs to the kidz bop tunes on the 9yo's iPod. So cute and fun to hear.

3 - The silent 5pm alarm that says i can stop working for the day. for the weekend. Hooray for the weekend.

At some point in the near future I'll also have some posts of our new master bathroom. The husband has been working on it slowly but surely. Ripping out the old awful shower and extra waste of space cabinet and we've picked out tile, and a new cabinet and vanity and the shower pan came earlier this week.  The finished product is going to be spectacular.