One year, many changes

So here I am, blogging after a year -- mostly so I won't fill up your mailboxes with the numerous pictures I'm about to post. We purchased a house a few months ago. Since then we have been remodeling -- by "we" I mean the people we hired. We can barely keep our dishes done....we aren't about to try and do this stuff by ourselves. :) Anyway, I'm excited that it finally looks like progress -- instead of tearing down, we'rebuilding. Hooray!

So I'm just going to give you a small glimpse of the place:

The Living Room -- this front room was darkened by a lava rock wall fireplace. This was Brian's least favorite thing about the house I think (unfortunately the exterior of the house still has this rock.) We had the lava rock removed and a new mantel and fireplace put in. We are going to have a brick surround, but haven't gotten that far yet. Also, I was very happy to cover up the Crayola Orange-Red wall -- I am typically drawn to the color orange -- but not this one.

The Kitchen -- what started as a laundry/kitchen/dining area with dark gray cabinets and a drop ceiling, is a beautiful, much brighter kitchen. Tomorrow we will be getting the countertops "templated" to be installed in a couple of weeks. Also, there was a wall full of small closets that we knocked out and turned to a section of coat closet/lockers/pantry. Not a mudroom, but as close as we could get!

Lastly, I'm not sure you can tell much from these pictures -- but let me describe because I think this might be the best change we made. The original stairway to the basement was right off the small entry. It was a "U" shape stairway with a weird cupboard in middle. Brian was not fond of the turns in the stairs (perhaps too many E.Q. service projects moving furniture???) Our smart Realtor suggested that we ask about having them straightened. Well, we did....thus eliminating one bend in the stairway, the weird cupboard, the hall closet (unfortunately) and opening up the entry. I think it was a great change -- the entry is much more inviting.

Oh, and don't worry -- the floor isn't pink. (I know you are surprised given my lifelong love of the color pink.) It's actually wood flooring now. The pink is just the painters paper.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll be completely finished and moving in. I know everyone says that construction always takes longer than it's supposed to -- in our case it's taken more than twice as long. Luckily (and not so luckily) we haven't yet sold the house we're living in. But now's the time -- if you know of anyone looking, let us know!