Front Room 2008

The Front room of the house is unclear in it's purpose to us, it appears to be a very large foyer. Right now we are using it as a dinning room, mostly because the dinning room has our couch & TV in it. But since we are moving the Master Bedroom upstairs, we will be converting that to the TV/Family room. Then the Front Room goes back to entry & sitting room. We'd like to install an electric fireplace to add atmosphere, but I'm not sure that is a 2008 goal.

We already painted this room's walls.

So what we need to do this year:
Refinish Floor
Remove Dropped Ceiling
Run Electric for 2 ceiling fans
Tin Look Paper on ceiling
Paint Ceiling
Start working on Box panels for ceiling
Crown Molding
Re-build book shelves

Bathroom #4

We picked up the new vanity, faucet, light fixtures & floor tiles. It took 2 days but everything is installed. The hardest part was removing all the stuff to lay the floor. That & the 3 trips to the store to return stuff & get something we forgot, like floor leveler & return the 8" center set faucet (oops, but we liked it soooo much better, why did we think we could make it work??), and to buy a countersink drill bit (can't you just feel the eye roll!).

The faucet is a Pegasus Oil Rubbed Bronze 4" centerset.

The vanity was just a 30" value pack, I bought different hardware than what came with. The ones that came with were ok, but they are brushed nickel.

We changed the floor to a 12" slate. The coloration of the 18" was just too close to the color of the kitchen floor, too matchy matchy for me!

We also picked up a curved shower curtain rod. Nice! I took my first shower & was like WOW, this tub isn't as tiny anymore!!! It isn't oil rubbed bronze but the curtain rings are & you barely notice the rod.

I have to go pick out some wallpaper & paint sometime. I despise wallpaper but there is really no other way to cover all the flaws in the walls. I'll be looking for something that looks textured but is neutral. We'll do the ceiling too, different paper, so that the rooms look like one.

Kitchen 2008 Goals

Tis the season for resolutions & goals! So I'm going to do our room by room.

Finish stove wall cabinetry & counter, lighting under cabinet
Back splash
Paint wainscoting
Crown molding
Finish ceiling, figure out piecing over doorway
Replace 2 windows
Hardware for cabinets & drawers
Replace door
Level floor in basement
Paint walls
Paint ceiling

Bathroom #3

This area used to be a closet. I removed the paneling to turn it around to eliminate the ridges & found an old doorway. At least this door was removed & insulated. We have one in the back apartment that was just sided over from the outside, so the living room has a door to nowhere. Any ways this room makes more sense to me now, it was an entry. I just never understood why a 2400 square foot apartment had an 8 x 7 bathroom.

This is our floor choice it is an 18" peel & stick tile. I'd love to lay real tile but that will happen when we do the gut, mostly because we'll have to pull up the floor when we do the tub & toilet.

Before:


After:

Bathroom # 2

Bathroom after painting & replacing the old fixtures. We need to add crown. The light fixture, sink vanity & faucet are getting replaced this weekend. Out of necessity & desire. The old faucet is starting leak & the porcelain handles are junk. The sink is too small we are replacing it with a 30" cabinet & vanity. I'm not sure about the light fixture, I guess whatever I see & like.
The heat lamp/exhaust fan is now hard wired into the wall switch, instead of being a pull chain, woohoo!
There used to be a wall to the right of the door, now it's gone. I thought I wanted a half wall to block the toilet from the door but when we took out the upper part the lower was so wobbly it had to go. The walls were weird. This room was an addition, probably from the 50s when they converted to apartments. The wall was sideways studs, lathe, drywall, plaster, paneling, wallpaper... GOODNESS! As heavy as the pieces were you'd have thought the wall would be more sturdy.

We still need to redo the chair rail & base molding. The door trim was painted white & started to flake during our work. I'd love to take it back to wood, but that is a lot of paint stripping.

Minor Bathroom work

Before we ripped out a wall, took down the drop ceiling & fixed the electric:
After putting up some paneling. We tried to strip the wallpaper & smooth it out but there was no hope. We will eventually be doing a total gut job so good enough is fine for now.
Believe it or not the switch plate is level! Guess we should have been more concerned with plumb.
Another pic of the paneling
We primed & painted the paneling, good enough to get us through the holidays

Worn spots on the wood floor in the front room


After rubbing with stain! Some spots are a little darker than I would have liked but there are plenty of naturally dark spots on the rest of the floor.