Day 62: The Sofa has Landed

Today Shannon and I made it over to Interior Impressions just before they closed so we could scope out the great sofa I saw on Sunday. He loved it, and our order has been placed. Yay! Everything is really coming together, and I'm happy to say that furniture shopping did end up being just as much fun as it should be, once I got started! Shout to Moms for all her help and solid design advice. Yipeee!

Day 61: I'm in love

Is it possible to fall in love with a pillow?

Le sigh...

These beauts from PB will be mine in a few short days. Why the wait, you ask? I like the delayed gratification of ordering online instead of picking up in store. Nah, but I ordered their antique keys that are available online only, so I threw these in for good measure, and to take full advantage of my 10% off coupon, of course!

Day 60: Furniture Shopping, Day 2

Today we hit the designer outlet shops in West Midtown. The names are a blur, but we stopped at five or six different shops. Only two stood out. The others were great for accessories (I saw a super cool trunk made from reclaimed wood that I might have to go back for!), however.

Interior Impressions and Ballard Designs saved the day! Don't be turned off my Interior's website. True, it's not the best. But their showroom is fabulous, and they have some great deals to be had! I found an awesome sofa I'm taking Shannon back to see, stat.

Ballard's Backroom was another great find, and I left with this adorable bench for our entryway. Their sale was a good one, and you can custom order upholstered items online. You can also buy their fabrics by the yard so you can coordinate as you like. Check it out! I've been playing with different fabric selections all night... love it!

Day 59: Saturday Shopping

Whew! Mom and I are exhausted after a busy day of furniture shopping!

We hit Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Rooms to Go, The Dump and Room and Board today! True to my nature, I peaked at the first stop (CB), and all other stops paled in comparison ;) Seriously, CB and Room and Board had the best selection and were most in line with our taste, but I mysteriously found myself drawn to the sky blue swatches (Exhibit A). What? Like I could ever have a blue couch. I'm just sayin'.

Rooms to Go and PB were no-gos for me, furniture wise. PB has darling accessories, and I love them still, but I was not feeling the furniture.

We'll be back at it tomorrow with a full report.

In other news, I cooked a delicious dinner for us last night, and we enjoyed the Biscuit for lunch today, so the foodie in me is satisfied at least ;)

Day 58: Plans for the Weekend

Mom is coming in town this weekend, 'to help.' When I asked Shannon what we could help with (the smaller projects have dwindled), he looked terrified.

"Why don't you guys go furniture shopping?" he replied.

Riiiiiight, furniture shopping.

There's plenty left to be done, believe you me, but it's larger scale stuff now that we can't really 'help' with, unless we happen to be skilled laborers, which we are not. ;) And it's quite true that I've been putting off furniture shopping, and it feels more like another dreaded 'to do' than the joyride it SHOULD be. But, here it is, time to get it done! So my wonderful mother will sacrifice her weekend to ride all over town with me in search of the perfect sofa (and a few accessories I'm sure;). The woman is a saint!

Meanwhile, Shannon is just about done with his major plumbing project. Hurrah! An update coming soon, in his very own words!

Day 57: What? Day FIFTY seven?!

Are you KIDDING me?!

Man, time really flies when you're tearing a house apart! ;) We can scarcely believe it's been almost TWO MONTHS since we closed on our beloved stone cottage. We've made a lot of progress, but we're really waiting to see some big results once the floors and painting are done! Still a few more things to take care of before we can get there, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Shannon's almost done replacing all the supply lines for the plumbing. He's actually got everything in place, just needs to make some final adjustments and solder everything together, pressurize the system, do some final testing, etc., etc. But it means we're getting closer to no more (new) holes in the walls or floors. Then it's on to finishing the kitchen and bathroom, and THEN - we can PAAAAAINT and finally refinish the floors! Yipeeeee!  

Day 56: Wordle

Check it out - a great visual mash-up based on text from our blog posts. Pretty cool, right? I'm glad it's not all 'trash' and 'horrors.' Thanks to Erin for the tip!

You can make your own wordle here.

Day 55: Plumbing Progress

Check it out! Shannon's made a ton of progress on the plumbing, including hooking up his new utility sink downstairs and replacing most of the supply lines. Lots of soldering involved, which he loves :)

Day 54: Primed Kitchen

Day 53: Working Away

Day 52: Mantown

Day 51: Powertools Mania

That hole in the floor wasn't going to cut itself!

Day 50: Drooling over paint

I've been drooling over Martha Stewart's paint colors at Home Depot for weeks now. We're all set on colors for the first floor, and won't be painting the second floor for quite a while, but I can't help myself from looking!

So far I'm loving sea glass, but I'd also love to do one of the bold cheeky colors like persimmon or bougainvillea. You can peruse her gorgeous collection and choose your own favorites here.

Day 49: Cutting Lead Pipe

Observe as Shannon, our very own master plumber, is interviewed by yours truly as he cuts through lead pipe using only tin snips - amazing!!!! ;)

Day 48: BR Self-Portrait

When taking breaks, we've resorted to sitting on the edge of the tub in the first floor bath, because there's not really anywhere else to sit right now. It's too hot outside. We used to have chairs, but now they're covered in paint, tools and/or debris. As is much of the floor! ;) Anyhoo, we took this lovely self-portrait with our beloved green tile in the back round and I just had to share.

Day 47: Comic

Hi-larious. While helping us work on the house one weekend, Mariana found this cut-out comic strip from the AJC in the kitchen. It had fallen behind the fridge I guess. Anyhoo, on the front, there's the cute funny about cats, ha ha ha. But I think what's on the back is even funnier - there are a TV listings for New Year's Eve specials for 1993, and Billy Ray Cyrus is one of the featured guests. Too funny!

Day 46: Double Trouble!

Today our sweet friend Naama came over to help with a couple projects - giving the cabinet doors another priming, and priming the rest of the kitchen where the base cabinets used to be. We also picked up the rest of the supplies for the bathroom on the main floor, including sconces. We cleaned everything out and put the new equipment in (vanity, toilet, taped out mirror, etc.) to try it out before we commit to nailing everything down. So far so good! We also removed the old trim from the doors in the bathroom to make room for new trim to cover the bead board seams. And, Mary had her first soldering experience! She also cut the new vent in the floor of the kitchen. Fun times!

You can check out today's pics here:

Day 46

Day 45: Back on Track

Today we did a little bit of everything! We dismantled the old base cabinets and tossed them in the quite full dumpster, removed some toe-molding upstairs, scraped some paint, did some more plumbing downstairs, and for the finale - pulled the old TP holder out of the wall in the bathroom to make for a nice smooth surface for the bead board. Hurrah!

Shannon also rented a super scary looking tool from HD to cut a piece of pipe in the kitchen, but the chain wouldn't fit between the exterior wall and the pipe itself, so sadly we could not even use it! We found a work-around and were able to fit the piece we needed to the pipe, so it's all good.

Check out today's photos:

Day 45

Day 44: Vanity

So now that the bathroom is all cleaned out, we're working on getting it ready for this our fabulous new vanity! He's still hanging out in his box taking up a decent chunk of floor space in the living room, but before too long he'll be home sweet home in his new green digs ;) Our tiny first floor bathroom is just 78 x 89 inches, and the shower and closet take up a good bit of that. But we taped this 48" bad boy out on the floor before we bought him, and it looks like it should fit just fine. Gotta have that bathroom storage! Especially since this will serve as the master bath AND guest bath for quite some time.

Day 43: The Wonderful World of JELL-O

You may recall that Shannon found this wonderful meal planner in the wall when he pulled out the medicine cabinet in the first floor bathroom. The meal planner was overshadowed by the book report on the state parks, so we hadn't paid it much attention. However, while taking one of many breaks today, I was flipping through and found more than one recipe and corresponding photo for dishes that involved JELL-O.

This is one of my favorites. The caption reads: Tomato aspic made with Jell-O is a bright, savory salad to serve any time.

What is tomato aspic, you ask? I didn't know either, but a quick google search turned up this hilarious article. Turns out it's grossity gross-ness, just like I thought.

Day 42: Empty Bathroom, Full Dumpster!

Day 41: Witnesses

There are now more witnesses to the sad state of affairs at the house ;) I took some co-workers by for a brief tour after lunch today. Their wide eyes said it all - we still have quite a ways to go! The thing is, we've done SOOO much work! But it's been mostly tearing things apart and demolishing, which just makes things look worse. But, we have the rest of the month all mapped out and we're optimistic we can move in in just a couple more weeks! We may not have a kitchen for awhile, but hey! we looooove subway!

Here are pictures from Shannon's work so far this week.

Day 40: We have a blowtorch!

Check out Shannon's sweet new 'toy.' I asked if I could borrow it for creme brulee, but he says it comes in pretty handy with all the plumbing work he's been doing!

Day 37

Day 39: Ceilings, to paint or not to paint?

We've been reading a lot about home restoration and, my favorite, decoration, and ceiling color seems to be a recurring theme. Some camps say it makes a room look darker. Others say it can make it seem lighter, some say your ceiling can blush! What do you think? To paint, or not to paint? And by not paint, I don't mean actually not paint, but rather the typical flat white ceiling paint. I love the idea of painting the ceiling, but I'm having a hard time committing to a color. Too close to the wall color and it could become cave-like. Too light and it may not look like a color at all! Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I'm thinking of maybe using Hemingway - the yellow-ish off-white from the kitchen - for the rooms that will be recycled glass green. But what about in the rooms that will be Hemingway? There's a nice green called 'pale oak grove' by valspar, but i'm not sure if it's too minty white to be paired with the yellowish off-white.

And, yes, I realize I just wrote a paragraph about two variations of white. Who am I?

I'll leave you with this great BHG article on choosing a ceiling color. Which, it's now evident, I need to re-read before blubbering on here ;) In fact, here are a couple more.

Day 38: Long Lost Videos

Enjoy these videos we just found from the back porch roof demo. Big huge thanks to Mark for his crazy good sawing skills. The man is a machine! However, finding these videos have confirmed our worst suspicions, that we now officially love to geek out over power tools. Yes, we are dorks.

We've titled this one 'Sawing off the Roof,' and you must sing the title to the tune of 'Burning down the house.' Enjoy. It's cinema gold.



If you liked that (and who wouldn't?), then you'll love this.

Day 37: Cabinets Demo

Today we tore out the base cabinets (and yes, even the kitchen sink, ha ha) and it turns out they need replacing, so add one more thing to the list ;)

And Mary removed all the window latches and handles to prep for paint.

Slowly but surely...

Day 33-36

Day 36: Update on the Great Tile Debate

So many of you voted in our 'choose our tile destiny for us' vote, and while we greatly appreciate your votes, it turns out - thanks for nothing. Yeah, that's right. You guys tied the vote, just like we did! ;)

But it's OK, we've come up with a reasonable compromise for now. We're going to cover the mint green wall tiles with white beaded board, except in the shower of course (but thank goodness for shower curtains, you won't see the light minty green and the darker forest green together!), and leave the floors (for now).

It's a quick and easy fix, and leaves us the more expensive and time-consuming option of restoring or re-glazing the original tile at some point if we decide to go that route in the future.

Now, comes the DOING part - always the most fun, right?!

Meanwhile, we continue to work on the rest of the house, mainly the kitchen and pluming for now, and the progress rolls right along!  

Day 35: Sideboard

Today I scored this adorable potting bench for $42 at World Market, which I'm actually going to use as a sideboard in the sun room.

A-dorable.

Day 34: Weekend B&As

Day 33: Dumpster Diver

Day 32: Floors & Plumbing

Today Mary demoed the rest of the kitchen floor, and Shannon and his helper Todd worked on the plumbing. If they keep this up, they'll have to buy all new pants! ;)

The old flooring on the right half of the kitchen came up a heck of a lot easier than the flooring on the left half of the kitchen, because these beautiful hardwoods were under it. Know what else was under it? About a million two-inch staples. Grrr... So after sweating buckets for a few hours pulling up the flooring, I felt all proud and accomplished like. All that was left to do was pull up staples. No big, right? Until I saw how many there were and how deep they were. Sheesh! It took me about 30 minutes to do a 2x2 foot square. Craziness! There's plenty left to do. Guess I know what my task for the week will be :)

Meanwhile, down in the basement, Shannon and Todd got down in the dirt working on the plumbing at the source!

See our Day 32 photos here.