Day 299: Easter Sunday

Happy Easter, y'all!

Happy Easter! We enjoyed a lovely holiday at home, enjoying being in our house, on a weekend, together, no travel.

Ahhhh....

Day 292: Sunroom Fix

That's not what you want to see!

So the major complaints from our insurer included the only wood support structures on the house - our back deck and the base supports for the sunporch walls/windows. The base was horribly rotted, but the entire walls are made up of jalousie windows that are all interlocked. We've spent months scratching our heads, researching, and getting expert opinions, only to come up with no solution for dismantling the sunporch while preserving these historic windows (which would require approval by the historic society). So finally, Shannon came up with a plan. He managed to remove the damaged wood and support the walls temporarily while he cut new pieces to size. The new supports are primed and ready to be installed. Now comes the hard part! Stay tuned...

Day 283: Daddy's Little Helper

Day 278: Bathroom Shelving

We've come a long way baby! Shelves are in and filled, door frame refitted for bottom cabinet (separate post coming on that), and spacer framing is up for new trim.

We have plenty of storage now, and are much happier. Hurrah! A fully functional room.

Day 276: Cleaning House

We spent all day Saturday doing some much-needed spring cleaning since both of us were actually in town on the weekend, and we were hosting guests for a barbecue that night. We were exhausted by the end of the night, but delighted with the finished product. We've admired it a great deal today, and it's motivating seeing all of our hard work starting to pay off after 9 months of work! We still have quite a ways to go, and we haven't even touched the second floor, but we're certainly enjoying that the house feels much more homey and everything is a lot more functional than it was last fall. You can see updated photos here. More details to come soon!

Day 275: Knobs

It's amazing the difference small changes like hardware can make. We have all the bottom kitchen cabinets outfitted with antiqued bronze hinges and handles that coordinate with the faucet and countertops beautifully. It makes everything look so much more... finished. Even the un-painted doors!

We also swapped out the knobs on the bathroom vanity from the standard builder grade polished nickel to these beauts from anthropologie. I'd scoped out their in-store selection before Christmas and found it lacking, but a quick trip back a few weeks ago revealed a much more extensive collection to choose from. We chose the white zinnia knobs for the vanity, and the melon handles in white for the cabinets in the bathroom. We loved those so much we picked up some more zinnia knobs in aqua for the upper kitchen cabinets to speak to the aqua bottom cabinets. So far, so good! I love that these small finishes add so much to their respective areas, and really give the sense that they've always been there, even though they're brand new. They give a standard piece that little umph, don't you think?

Day 274: Working down the list

It's no April Fool's joke - the mailbox is finally up! It's the first thing we bought for the house, but it's ranked pretty low on the priority list. Thankfully, with warmer weather finally settling in, it's made us turn an eye to the sore spot that is our front yard. The mailbox was the easiest first step in sprucing it up. Behold! And that's not all - There's a new firepit in the backyard using leftover bricks from landscaping (original owners' landscaping - we haven't done a bit of it ourselves... yet.). And doors on most of the kitchen cabinets. And a new rug down in the newly rearranged living room. The last traces of winter have been removed from the fireplace and fresh logs are settled in for the spring. There are new knobs on the bathroom vanity doors and drawers, and handles purchased (still to be installed) for the bathroom cabinets. It's been a productive week!