Between Two Pheasants...

After the devaststing news that our bathroom plumbing would be a cool 10 Gs, we put our bathroom goals on pause to save a few extra bucks. We finally launched on January 9th which means we are already 10 days in! Here are a few photos of our progress: End of Day 1

One month later and a lot of progress has been made on the kitchen. Ugh, but it's not done. We are inching toward the finish line. OF COURSE it always takes twice as long as you originally plan. After the cabinet doors and drawers were in, Tom and Nate took out their aggression the counters and back splash. By far it was the most gratifying as well as messy part of the reno. We are so lucky to have talented and amazing people in our world. Tom and his lovely wife, Betty, are our neighbors who have renovated/restored several homes. (They also give us fresh chicken eggs and figs from their tree) They gave us the confidence that we could take out the counters ourselves and even offered to help. While they worked, I pulled out all my mom-tricks to keep the girls occupied outside. In process pics:

I don't even remember how many areas of wallpaper we've removed by this point--it all just runs together. I do know that after the old office's paper is removed, we just have one more to go! Hooray! After we moved the office to the guestroom (which used to be Cinderella's room, btw), we started to remove the wallpaper. It actually came off fairly easy but there were a few issues. Like the stairway and 2nd floor landing, the plaster was in bad shape in a few places. It was crumbly in a few spots. We also found evidence that the thick, striped paper was actually the second wallpaper in this room. We found some beige paper with tiny red flowers on it. There was a considerable amount of glue behind the wallpaper (joy). It's the yellowish-brown stuff in the picture below: And the windows were in bad, bad shape. This room, located on the South-side of the house, gets full sun so one of the windows takes a beating. The glazing had pretty much disintegrated t...

I took a few pictures of the progress made at the house over the past few days. Check it out! Goodbye wallpaper, goodbye yellow walls, hello white primer!  

It's Thanksgiving week and we have a lot to be thankful for. Right now, I'm thankful for Jesus. Not the man of 2,000 years ago, Jesus the Painter we hired. Yep, our DIY capabilities have run out in the entryway/stairway/second floor and we are asking  paying Jesus for help. One thing we have been extremely thankful for since moving to this house, are our wonderful neighbors. They all love their old homes so much and many have called this neighborhood home for 30+ years. They have so much pride in taking care of their properties which has provided endless inspiration for us. They also aren't afraid to share their opinions about good and bad contractors. During a discussion in the 'hood with our lovely neighbor, Carole, owner of the Italinate-style house below, she recommended using the painter she has worked with for 18 years. An experienced old home pro. She let us know they would both be over on the weekend. Alrighty then! They came over to discuss our "un...