Day 31: Gangbusters

A great day. And we needed one!

We had 3 awesome helpers today -  big huge thanks to Mark, Nicky & Marianna for making the work go 3x faster than usual!

Here's the damage for today: The guys demoed the roof on the back porch, as well as the 'outhouse' aka the storage closet on the back porch. Marianna and I emptied the debris from the basement, and cut out the kitchen cabinet and half the floor in the kitchen (Oh, and Nicky helped with the floor and made us look bad;). Good news and bad news there. Good news is - there are hardwoods underneath. Bad news is - they're only under half the room ;) The rest is just sub-floor that's not in the best shape. The eat-in part of the kitchen used to be a bedroom so those hardwoods (once you get past the three layers of linoleum look fabulous). The original part of the kitchen I guess had linoleum over the sub-floor originally. I never knew linoleum could be 'original.' Until I read this article that is!

Anyhow, we had a great time and got a ton done. Thanks again to everyone for all the great help!

Photos from our day below - what there's not a photo of, unfortunately, is Mary tucked into the cabinet to saw through the bottom - priceless.

Day 31

Day 30: 1 month mark

Well, things are coming right along - slowly but surely! We're at the one-month mark and can hardly believe it!

Work this weekend will include demolishing a portion of the cabinets, as well as the roof of the back porch and pulling up the rest of the kitchen flooring, giving one more coat of primer to the cabinet doors and drawers, and more bathroom tile work. Restoring tile is a lot more work than just replacing it!!!

Day 29: Vintage Love

View of our fabulous chandelier from below... love it!

Day 28: Countertops

We've narrowed it down to two... what do you think? We like them both, but I love one more than the other...

Day 27: Packing has begun

One thing I've learned over the years, and you can take this to the bank. You may think you're a normal, super-clean person, but I guarantee, the minute you start packing your house - you will find some crazy things!

Exhibit A: Child Mary, clearly a dork. Yes, this is an audio recording of Phantom of the Opera. I could recite it to you aloud now, if you'd like. Shannon didn't believe me, so I had to give him a little taste. Needless to say, he was all at once horrified - and impressed.

Sadly, adult Mary, not much better. The DVD is already packed, or it would be Exhibit B. ;)

Day 26: Mailbox Monday

Our new mailbox arrived today and it's absolutely gorgeous!!!! Don't you agree? This is what I've come to - being excited over a mailbox! ;)

After falling in love with the timeless look of copper mailboxes last fall and watching the trend spread through Jefferson Park, Mary researched and price-compared tirelessly for the weeks surrounding closing and finally found a great deal online.

And now it's here! With our personalized numbers and all! We can't wait to install this beauty, and we're sure our postman will be just as delighted!

No more picking up our mail at the post office and being chided for no mailbox.

Tee hee!

Day 25: Primetime

Day 25

Today was a bit more leisurely, being Sunday and all. We slept in and had yummy home cooked breakfast, and then headed out to pick up our new toilet at Home Depot. We're thinking of just camping out in the parking lot ;) The Macks were in town, so they stopped by for a tour of the new place, and provided sufficient oohs and ahhs, but then it was time to get back to work!

We primed the backside of all the cabinet door, gave the entire kitchen another coat of primer, and primed all the drawers. Woooo - hoooo! Things are moving right along, and once the rest of the floor is removed the kitchen will be ready for paint!

We also picked out beaded board and trim for the downstairs bath and came up with a plan for an awesome DIY mirror project! Stay tuned :)

Day 24: Prep, Prep, Prep

Staying focused.  We spent all day working on the kitchen and bathroom.  We have been doing pretty good staying steady in these two areas because they need the most thought and work before we move in.  Mary spent part of the day prepping cabinet doors and drawers; scrubbing and scouring inside and out with TSP, wipe, rinse, repeat (About 30 times!!!!).  What a hard worker  :) Then we laid them out in the dining room and put a coat of primer on the fronts.

Shannon spent most of the day working in the bathroom scraping and prepping grout in the shower.  All the loose grout is removed and there are places to repair/regrout.  We also got some products at Home Depot Polyblend Grout Renew that we are curious to try out and see how good they work.  A coworker suggested it so time will tell.  Towel bars, tooth brush, soap holder, and other stuff on the walls have been removed as well.  We are also looking at how to reverse the swing direction on the door.  It should make it where we can shoehorn a 48 inch vanity in there!!!  Stay tuned for that!!!  Yes pedestal or open style sinks make a room more "airy" and "spacious"  but they lack storage and counter space.  We are going for functionality over "airy-ness." ;)

If these old walls could talk, I wonder what they would say?

While scoping out wiring and plumbing through the medicine cabinet opening Shannon saw something on the other side of the drain (which goes up to the second floor bathroom). Turns out if these old walls could talk, they might say that little Johnny got an A- for his writings on The Twenty Eight National Parks.



No time to read it right now but pretty cool considering there are now FIFTY eight national parks! Just flipping through shows some cool old brochures.

These walls might also tell us How to Prepare Meals because I found a cookbook with that very title in there!  Maybe this has our new favorite meal hidden in it!!!

Day 24

Day 23: D-Day

Today was D-Day: Dumpster Day, that is! It has finally arrived!!!! Time to do some cleaning and cleansing.  We have been making piles of stuff to throw out so far.   One pile in the upstairs bedroom.  One large pile in the living room.  Three piles in the basement. And a few piles of stuff out side (some of which were there when we bought the house i.e. logs under the back porch).

I'm thinking about it a little more and probably should have had the dumpster put another 8 feet back closer to the porch but I was thinking of throwing trash and old OSB from the kitchen out the dining room window.  We've been trying to stay focused on interior, interior, interior since that's what we want to have mostly in order before we move in.  However, since we have the dumpster is here it only makes sense to clear off the dilapidated eyesore/backporch roof structure as well.  It's probably a little bit of a safety hazard sooooo.  There you go!  It's coming down.  I don't think it will be that bad but I might have added a little extra work with dumpster placement in regards to back porch roof removal and basement clean out.  Regardless we will be clearing out some trash and debris that has been cluttering up our space.  Cluttered house, cluttered mind?

Day 23

Day 22: Vintage Tile Vote

So far, the informal vote is split - 2 for the walls, 2 for the floor. So we decided to do a real poll on the blog. Let us know your vote! We think they're both pretty cool, just not together.

Tell us what you think! 

Should we keep the floor 

 or the walls?

• The floor is totally unique and awesome - it stays!
• The walls are way vintage and in great shape - keep them!

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Day 21: One (wo)man's trash

Check it out! We found this sweet little desk on the side of Sylvan Rd. on our way home the other day. It's adorable, right?

And Shan had the best idea - it'll look perfect at the top of the stairs with our guestbook on it for visitors. Too cute!

(We have the fourth drawer too, just forgot to pop it back in for the pic.) 

One man's trash, right?

Day 20: Retro Desk

We've been hunting craigslist for the perfect retro desk for the office, and were psyched to find this beauty for a mere $20! After a short drive to Dunwoody, it's all ours. We're going to paint it the same blue-green as the kitchen cabinets... eventually.

Day 19: Kismet

Shannon ordered this print of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings, Irises, months ago (April to be exact!). And after we picked the color for the cabinets, I got to thinking... that far wall in the eat-in kitchen can't go naked...  don't I have something that would work well there? I pulled out the print from its storage tube - and wouldn't you know it - the colors match perfectly!

It must be kismet!

Day 18: Kitchen B&A

Photos of the kitchen, before and after priming. Or maybe these should be called the before and DURING photos - after still to come :)

We're getting there, slowly but surely!

Day 17: Built-ins

I found this great pic online with the exact layout of our living room with built-ins precisely where I want ours :) Definitely a longer-term project, but one I hope we'll tackle sooner rather than later!

Day 16: The game of LIFE!

Our dear friend Naams got us the perfect housewarming gift awhile ago now, but we just got around to posting a pic - cute, right?

Day 15: Reupholstery Project

We found this great old rocker on craigslist, isn't it awesome? It was a steal at $35. All it needs is a little TLC and a good reupholstering. But it will have to wait until we buy new furniture and decorate the house so we can pick the perfect fabric for it.

It has an upholstered back panel as well, so if anyone has any tips to help with this little DIY doozie, do tell!

Thanks :)

Day 14: Inspiration

I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but then, what else is new?

I'm so excited to start decorating our new home, but we're not there yet! Doesn't stop me from looking for inspiration... Shannon started it! ;)

Shannon has wanted a vintage 1950's diner style kitchen for YEARS, and he found this funky 50's kitchen at our new favorite blog which perfectly captures what he's going for. Phew! Because I've been a little worried when he says the word 'diner.' But it's adorable and I'm so excited. Then we saw this absolutely gorgeous kitchen with turquoise cabinets and we were hooked!

Since then we've followed oodles of design blogs and sites, and want to know - What are your favorite sources for inspiration?

Day 13: DIY China Clock

image from anthropologie.com

Check out this super cute china clock from anthropologie.

It would be a great DIY project - can't wait to try it out. I think it'd be great hanging in the middle of an arrangement of mismatched pieces with the center one a clock. Mom has a ton of mis-matched china. Hopefully we can make it work!

This, like so many other projects, will have to wait till post-move though... just wanted to share!

Day 12: Fun Freebie

Check out the super sweet contact cards we scored for FREESIES on kodakgallery.com. They're meant to be 'mommy cards,' but we're using them to give to our neighbors (new and old) to give them our new address and blog url.  They're super cute - you choose a photo and message for the front, with your choice of color scheme - and then there's plenty of room on the back for contact info or whatever else you want to include.

Anyhoo - you can get 50 free for a limited time so check 'em out here!

Day 11: A doozie!

You know how they say it gets worse before it gets better? It's worse ;)

But only looks-wise. We've been doing the less rewarding work here lately, which gets old fast, but has to be done. Yesterday we scrubbed all the cabinets in the kitchen and picked up some more paint -s till having a hard time with a color for the kitchen and trim color.

Today we scraped old paint and wallpaper adhesive off all the walls in the kitchen, as well as the windows and baseboards and scrubbed the doors and walls to prep for painting.

Shannon's been pulling up all the toemolding throughout the house and has begun pulling out the kitchen floor as well. It's slow but steady.

Here are some pics of our shenanigans today, very entertaining as Shannon put me in a full-on gas mask (him too) to avoid the fumes and paint chips.

Day 10: A tough day

Well Saturday was kind of a tough day.  The quantity of stuff that needs to be done is setting in and maybe a little buyers remorse but I would guess that is normal.  We are pulling up old flooring, scraping, and "cleaning" only to make it messy again. We have quite a few piles of trash some ragged floor and lots of peeling paint so it might look worse now than when the first pictures were taken.  You have to make a mess to make it nice right?  It will probably be better once we get a dumpster and can start throwing stuff in there. 

I'm figuring most people have had this feeling where the mountain seems so large.  As you peel back layers, the lists grow.  Staying focused and accomplishing tasks is definitely challenging when it feels like you are spinning your wheels in a sense.  I think renovation is a mental game.  Don't freak yourself out but know the scale and keep planning and thinking of the rewards.  You have to make progress on something while planning the next steps.  It is a difficult balance.  The devil is in the details of everything! I know it will pay off but it's just a little ugly to look at right now.  Preparation, preparation, preparation.

  Shannon

Day 9: Driving Miss Daisy

Today was Shannon's Friday off, so he spent the day at the house and got a ton done. We had an 8:00 appointment with a basement specialist, and then Shan worked all day at the house.

We're taking the night off and watching 'Driving Miss Daisy,' which was filmed in... Druid Hills! There's a neat walking tour you can do and the website has details about the filming.

Day 8: Vintage Printage

Rosie the Riveter is one of Shan's favorite vintage posters, and after finding it online, we thought we'd share a couple of the other great sites we've found.

Check it out:

Vintage Printables
Art.com
Art E-zine

Day 7: Paint colors

Forgot my camera today, can you believe it?

Tonight we pulled toemolding off in the hall and bedrooms, removed all the cabinet hardware and shop-vacced all the cabinets, and... officially picked our interior colors for the house (we think)! Behold!

SW  7747 Recycled Glass: bedrooms, hall, living and dining rooms
V 5008-8A Woodlawn Charm: lower Cabinets
SW 7562 Roman Column White: Upper cabinets
V 7005-8 Hemingway: kitchen and bathroom walls

SW 7562 Roman Column White: trim, doors, and mantel
V7005-8 Hemingway: Ceilings

It was quite a journey, as we learned colors look one way in the store and quite another when taped up on the wall in the house. We narrowed it down to 2 greens we liked, and planned to do one in the living/dining and another in the bedrooms, but after buying the small sample cans and trying them out on the walls, we loved one and didn't so much love the other, so now we're going with the one we love throughout. Still looking for the perfect red for the front door, but that can wait.

Sherwin Williams has a great online tool - the color visualizer where you can drop and drag colors onto walls in different rooms. It has been a lifesaver! https://www.sherwin-williams.com/visualizer/

Day 6: Going Green

Is this the greenest bathroom you ever saw, or what?

Day 5: Basement Fun

Day 5. Basement time. Here's a list of our top ten from the delightful things we found!

1. The hood to a VW
2. A wolf door-knocker
3. 1960s magazines
4. Brittanica Book of the Year for 1947 (year the house was built)
5. How to Learn Judo book
6. vintage toolbox
7. bookworms
8. prehistoric million-legged insect
9. original windows and doors
10. coupon book for romantic IOUs

Day 4: More more more

Day 4 was a doozy! After running the Peachtree Road Race 10k - our first ever - and a right of passage for Atlantans - we showered and took a quick nap and then headed over to the house to work. Mary pulled up all the old carpet and padding in the living room, and Shannon pulled up all the carpet tacking in the dining and living rooms. He also pulled up all the toe molding so we can paint the baseboards. Now we need to prep all the walls for paint and finalize our colors!

Day 3: Attic Cleanup

Today was attic cleaning day! We sorted through all the junk in the attic, including several bedframes, old rugs and box springs, christmas decorations, etc. and Shannon cleaned out all the acorns, deteriorating insulation, etc. We also made a decent Home Depot run, purchased our first shop vac, met more new neighbors, pulled off old wallpaper, and aired out the house.

Tomorrow is Independence Day, and we'll be running the Peachtree Road Race. What a weekend!

Day 2: Pest Control

For Day 2, Shan sprayed for pests inside the house and in the attic and basement. Fun times!

Day 1 B&As

Awww... our first before & after photos! 

Yesterday, after closing and a delicious celebratory lunch, we headed over to the new house for job 1: yardwork. 

We cleaned off the porch and sunroom, picked up all the trash, mowed the lawn front and back, pulled ALLLLLL the ivy off the exterior of the house, demolished the overgrown shrubbery around the porch, and treated the yard for pests. 

Whew! Being homeowners is a tough gig, eh? 

We love it already... :)