Its (Almost) Done!

Big News! The upstairs is 95% done! Finally
I won't over do it on this post with a lot of words, I will however, share A LOT of pictures! 
At the end, I have a few updates about the downstairs :)

Now that you've seen the Kitchen, Master Bath, and Guest Bath, I am happy to finally show you that our living room and dining room are back in order!

I do need to explain a bit about this (now) living room. The before pictures are a little bit boring. Our (now) living room was originally a "study" and the dining room. We demo'd the wall between the two rooms, (location where you see the sofa below) and made this area our living room. 
I should mention too, that the shelves you see in the background were not original to the study, but the fireplace was part of that room. (by the way, when I said 95% done above, the last 5% is finishing out those fireplaces!)

living room December 2014

And below, opposite side of the room (again, this was the dining room of this house).

Why would someone want to have the living room on the opposite side of THIS view?!?

Now that I've cleared that up - here is what the original home owner had as the living room, which we made our dining room. (does this all make sense)?!

Dining room, December 2014

Below, I've done a side by side, of our original front door, and the updated (Decorated for Christmas) New doors :)

March 2014

Front Door - December 2014

Below you will see one of the two upstairs guest bedrooms. The one pictured below, is the only 'functioning' room right now, considering the other is Mr. Kitty's room (for now) and storage. 
I have to say, every time I walk past this room at night, I stop... Can't help but love this tree/room. Picture does not do justice!

As for the basement

Today the trim was being finished - and a few guys started painting the bedroom, bathroom and office space. They will be painting in those areas until Friday. 

I am told, the floors go in sometime around Tuesday, of next week. With the 'finish outs' we were told, it Could be done as soon as 4 weeks, but at the most 6 weeks. (if all goes according to plan)
I do have to admit, the basement is going SO much faster since nothing is in the way down there.

I will leave you with one last photo - one I really want to brag about - Our House, with Christmas lights - put up by yours truly! 

As always, thanks for reading....

The Guest Bath Too

I touched on it briefly in my last post, and maybe I've said it somewhere else - but yes, we are doing a 2nd re-model, of the Guest Bathroom too!!!

But before I get into explaining the details behind the 2nd re-model of this bathroom, let me show you how this room looked when we purchased the house in March.

March 2014- The Guest Bath

March 2014 - black granite And black toilet!

You guys, this bathroom was CRAZY! 
No your eyes are not deceiving you... You're seeing Black carpet, and Black tile, and Black granite, and a Black toilet! And then, Gold, yes, real gold plated fixtures.... But that light -  I Loved that Light!!!! Unfortunately, Brian wouldn't let me keep it :(

We call it our -we don't know what might have gone down in this room- bathroom.

So the first re-model, even though, it wasn't my perfect bathroom...it was still a decent room.
First go around, we didn't get custom cabinets made, and the floors were a bit uneven - but still, it was a fine room for the time. I had chosen 1 inch hex floor, and a white subway tile for the bath-tub surround, and painted the walls the same color I used in the rest of the house. I just wanted a 'clean' bathroom...(See below)

June 2014

Fortunately or not, we found out around mid-September when the guys were working in the basement and took out some of the old ceiling that This shower had a leak too.

I'd like to think God really took care of us during this second re-model, because had they not removed some old ceiling, we never would have found this issue too.

This meant, Every time we took a shower, water was spraying and dripping in the walls, and below to the basement. When they found the leak (again, not until September), they also told us, the walls had already started to grow a little bit of mold, so not only would we have to take out the shower completely, but we also had to address some mold growing in the walls.
But, wait, we couldn't do anything to this bathroom until our master was finished because this is the only one in the house that worked...and Our master wouldn't be finished until mid-November!


This resulted in a slow down of basement work, to focus all attention on the 2 upstairs bathrooms.

In fact, even after the leak was found Brian and I got this text while we were in NY when the actual walls came down in this bathroom.

"Hey guys, This is the plumbing for your upstairs guest shower. There are so many things wrong with this, that I am lost for words."

And, heck, Brian and I are no plumbers, but we did agree, this didn't look right. The hole you see at the bottom of the picture was where the water was dripping into the walls, and one of the turn valves was where it was spraying. Brian and I never dreamed this one would have the Exact same problems as the master. But this time, it wasn't a shower pan, rather just no waterproofing of the walls, and just poor workmanship on the plumbing job.


So, we got back from NY and this was the status of the room - While I had hoped it would be done by the time we got home, it was enough I could see progress... and I knew I could now use the master bath.

As you will see, I changed the tile altogether, different floors, and went a little darker in the shower.
The reason for the floor change, as I mentioned earlier, they were a bit uneven, but also very stained. Turns out the first contractor didn't use a stain free grout, yes there really is such a thing as stain free. But it wasn't entirely the first contractors fault, this room was originally the main entry point of our attic besides the garage, and everyone who came to work on the house was going to the attic through this bathroom! So while the grout stained, the rest of the floor just looked awful from constant traffic!


So I went with a white tile in a herringbone pattern this time. I assume with a larger tile and less grout lines, should any grouting stains occur they won't be quite as noticeable. AND we removed the entry point to the attic - and now, you have to use the one in the garage :)



As of today (December 1) this is the room:

 

I have to admit, this room may be my new favorite room in the house. I made those curtains on Friday, and then found some wonderful paper at The Social Type to fill in my frames!

We hope, for now this is the extent of the upstairs re-model.  At least until I decide on a fireplace. Seriously of all the re-dos in this house, picking a new fireplace has been the Hardest. If you'd like to weigh in on my choices see my post here - (the Very Bottom of the post)! We were told the downstairs has approximately 6 weeks until completion. Not exactly the best news, but hey, people are out of my bedroom (upstairs) for a while....And I'm planning to post soon about the upstairs, you guys its finally CLEAN!