The End in Sight?!?

This morning, while the electricians were finishing our recessed lighting (swoon), Ryan and I actually talked about when we would be done with our little monstrous kitchen project and for the first time when we mapped out what was left to do we weren't completely overwhelmed. Yes, we may have oversimplified this project from the beginning which turned our three month project into more like a six month project (fingers crossed) but thinking that this construction zone which didn't even have floors a mere two months ago is turning in to our kitchen, is quite glorious.

Last night, we measured out the Dittra which will be laid down on top of the sub floor so that when we lay down our tiles, they'll be able to move independently of the sub floor and hopefully, not crack (more than you wanted to know, right?). But seriously, who needs (gorgeous) tile when you can have bright orange floors that your animals think is their WWF ring?! (Next time I'll remember to take a video because it was quite amusing.)

Measuring out the Dittra

Cutting the pieces

And if that wasn't exciting enough (and believe me, it was incredibly exciting), I also saw this little wire peaking out...

Dishwasher? Yes, please! And since the wiring for the dishwasher has me so excited, I took some pictures of the electrical work to show off ;)

Lights over the breakfast bar.

Light switch

So, there you have it folks, progress. Is the end in sight? Possibly ;) We're taking a little break to head up north for the next two weekends but when we get back, fingers crossed we'll be putting the tiles down. Get excited!

Full Frame

It's a rather exciting morning here at the soon-to-be Aires household, we have electricians here.... and they might be done tomorrow! Woop woop! Oh, how we're finally moving up in the world ;) Minus the fact that I'm sitting here with no electricity aka no air conditioning. Eh, A/C is totally overrated, right? ;)

Anyways, we spent all weekend working on the house (surprise, surprise) and by Sunday night, we had full brick walls (versus the huge holes we had previously) and fully framed walls. Very, VERY, exciting (trust me). I even managed to do a little framing all by myself and rip up some of the horrible linoleum floor in the backroom. So, we're definitely making progress and just in time for our much needed vacations.

Here's Ryan aka brick master doing his thing to the previously deteriorating walls.

Closing up the hole.

Done!

Laundry Room Before

Laundry Room After

As exciting as brick walls are, framed walls are even more exciting. Especially when it means no more plaster walls!

Back Wall

Left Wall Before

Left Wall- After

Ryan left the gap to the right to make room for the rather large fridge that we have sitting in our family room... Since it's deeper than the cabinets, we wanted to make sure that it stuck out as minimal as possible.

While I'm showing off our walls, here's a picture of the other two fully framed.

Back Wall

Right Wall

Don't they look pretty? And if you're not impressed enough here's my mini framing project.

Above the Bathroom Door

And the start of our backroom floor project (which will be slow moving since it's not quite a priority).

Ryan was just showing me how, I did the rest myself... sort of.

Gross but hey, atleast it's not that nasty linoleum.

Yes, not quite as impressive as our other feats of the weekend but hey, atleast it's progress. And now, I leave you with a picture of our rather clean kitchen (and that itself is a feat of it's own).

Trust me, that's clean :) Hopefully we can make some progress this week on the floors before we leave for Boston!!! Ah, vacation, I can almost feel it it's so close :)

Living Room Inspiration

Since the kitchen work has been just about as slow as watching paint dry, I thought I'd share with you some of my living room inspirations. I'm definitely looking to lighten up the space with light grey walls and a light colored sofa (which I may totally regret) but here's a few rooms I've been swooning over.

I'm getting up the courage to paint my stair risers white. Anyone want to help? :)

A Well Dressed Home Blog

Speaking of swooning...

West Elm

Oh, how I love her. I sent her to Ryan and he told me he couldn't be less interested in a sofa. Now, how, how could you not be interested in this lovely lady? Sigh.

Anyways, back to what I was originally saying writing I like the idea of having our downstairs more neutral and playing up colors more in the bedrooms. We'll see. I'm currently on a search for a fabric inspiration (no dice at G Street Fabrics) so that will determine a lot. What do you think? It's funny because I grew up making fun of my Mom and her neutrals and now, here I am :)

Trial & Error

Friday night (yes, we live very exciting lives) we tackled the second part of the frame for the window wall. This wall was a little different because we Ryan had to build a HUGE frame and then cut out a piece for the plumbing to fit it in the wall. It seemed like an easy Friday night activity but low and behold it was not.

Wall before

So, first thing was first, moving all of our supplies out of the way to have enough room to work. Once that was done, Ryan set off building the frame.

Once the frame was built, we then had to figure out how to cut the frame so that the plumbing would fit..

Ready to go

It almost seemed too easy... until we tried to put it up on the wall and realized it was too tall. First we tried to put it in on the bottom first but that clearly wasn't working so we maneuvered this ridiculously large, unstable frame so that we could try to put in the top first. No dice.

Fail

Ryan tries to use the sledgehammer to force it in but once again, no dice. We measure again and in theory it should fit but, it doesn't.

Ryan measuring again

Grudgingly, we take the frame down and take off the two pieces to the left that don't seem to fit. You see, the ceiling isn't level so when we were building the frame, we had to take in to account the sloping ceiling. Apparently, we did not take this in to account well enough and were left with a too tall left side, boo. So, Ryan takes the two too tall pieces, cuts them down a bit and we try again. No dice. So, we take it apart again and try sanding it down, again, no dice. So, we go to bed as failures. Sigh.

Saturday, after our exciting errands where I found an incredible frame which we will be converting to a blackboard and will be used for the wedding and then the kitchen (I'll share pictures later), we took the wall frame apart again and tried cutting the two pieces with the jig saw and...

Ryan's last attempt

 ...tah dah it fits, finally.

Success!

One full wall framed, one and a half to go. Around now is when Ryan starts getting worried that tiling is just around the corner... 

Sunday, Clark and Ryan worked on getting the rest of the walls ready to frame. That included Clark cleaning out the window and Ryan doing more brickwork (he's quite the brick mason these days)....

Clark

Ryan

While I spent the day sanding down my new frame and picking out new paint colors for the family room (I once again changed my mind on both the paint color and subway tile, sigh). Hopefully this week will entail some leveling of the bathroom and tiling. Ryan wants to tile the (tiny) bathroom first to get the hang of things before moving on to the (rather large) kitchen... After all, practice makes perfect ;)

Happy Friday!!!

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful” -William Morris 

We have a weekend full of projects to do... be jealous, very, very jealous (no I'm not jealous that you have a tan while I'm pasty white... nope, not jealous. at. all.)

Living the Dream

The American Dream that is. Where else can you spend an entire weekend working on your house and end it by watching fireworks on the National Mall? Nowhere. Probably because there's only one National Mall, but that's besides the point...

This weekend was kind of a whirlwind, I actually can't believe it's already Tuesday and I'm back at work, sigh. But we did get a lot done with the house.

On the agenda for the weekend was framing out the window in the kitchen and finishing the ceiling/ putting in the fan in the bathroom. Ryan had already decided he was going to take out the window and put a lentil (sp?) in so he could rebuild the entire frame and make it more steady.  You see, when the previous owners replaced the windows, they kept the original (or just old) frames in so they were not in the best shape (note: they still had the weights in the frame). Since Ryan was going to frame out that wall and cover it with drywall, he thought it would be best to replace the window frame.

He started the day by taking out the window...

He then replaced the wood that was above the window with a steel lentil to make it much more stable.

Cutting the steel lentil.

And re-did the brickwork above the lentil. Enter our friend, Clark, who wore a matching shirt just for pictures (jk).

Safety First

Once the brickwork was set, Clark and Ryan set out to build the frame.

And put the window back in... just in time for a massive thunderstorm.

I won't mention that once the window was in we were out front drinking a beer when the clouds started rolling in and we realized the window wood exposed was untreated and about to get dumped on... which led to us scrambling out back to staple plastic over the wood JUST in time.

While Ryan and Clark were working on the window frame, my Dad and I got the ceiling covered in the bathroom.

Starting to look like an actual room.

Monday was just as productive as Sunday as Ryan got the wall around the window framed out (with the help of my Dad).

Finished Product!

We also put in the bathroom fan (with the help of Ryan's fence jumping skills for the vent).

Ryan in the neighbor's yard putting in the vent.

My Dad cutting the whole for the vent.

So we now have a large part of the kitchen walls framed out, the upstairs bathroom supported (thank god), and a ceiling/ fan for our bathroom PLUS, we got to see the fireworks on the mall. Why, happy birthday America. Nothing like spending the weekend living the dream.