We might have been keeping you in suspense on what’s going on in the kitchen so let’s talk about that, shall we?

So far, our cabinets, granite, oven/microwave, sink, hardware (knobs and handles), and faucet have been installed. The walls have been painted a nice neutral color. The area in the kitchen where we were adding the hardwood has been filled in and has gotten it’s first coat of the stain. Everything is coming together SO beautifully.

What’s left? The backsplash of travertine tile, installing all the appliances, and hanging the light/chandelier that will go over the kitchen table. We are super close to being done! It should be another week or two before we can start moving in. The biggest gating item is finishing up the floors because, obviously, if the floors aren’t done, we can’t put anything on them. 🙂

Here’s what we’re thinking for the backsplash over the stove. The only difference is all of our tiles will be square. And, obviously, our cabinets will look completely different and we won’t have that humongous hood.

Diagonal square travertine tiles

We’ve decided to wait until the kitchen is completely done before posting any more pictures of what it looks like. We think it’s better to save it for a Big Reveal. 🙂

Have you ever remodeled your kitchen? What was your most/least favorite part of the process? 

Floors

If our information is accurate, the first coat of stain has been put on the floors today!

On Monday, we stopped by the house to check out the two stain options and luckily, we caught the Floor Guy right as he was leaving. He recommended the more brownish stain so it wouldn’t match the cabinets as much and we agreed. The Floor Guy told us that they would either start staining Tuesday or Wednesday.

Also, apparently (fun fact of the day), when you stain floors, it will darken over the next 6 months to a year to its final color. So, the initial color you choose won’t be what you see a year from the staining. I definitely didn’t know that before this whole process!

I stopped by yesterday on my way home from work to check things out and things are coming along. They sanded the floors yesterday so they are now super smooth and look like brand new hardwood. Since they didn’t stain yesterday, I’m assuming that was on their to-do list for today. Let’s cross our fingers that’s the case!

Family Room

I also talked to our contractor briefly yesterday and he said they’re going to try to paint the back room in the next few days and lay out the tile backsplash.

Picking the color for the back room was a whole other process but luckily, we were able to make a decision. We went back and forth on doing a fun color or a neutral, and finally settled on a neutral. Below is what I think our couches will look like. We ordered them in the store and chose the fabric color from a swatch so we haven’t seen it in person yet.

But since we haven’t seen the couch in the room, it’s hard to know what would look best so we thought the safest bet (since we had to make a decision before the couches were in the room) was to do a nice light tan. Here’s what that looks like:

Kelly-Moore Oyster

We’re planning on getting some fun colorful pillows for the couches and getting some colorful artwork for the walls to spice things up in the room. I LOVE these ones from Pottery Barn.

Sooo last weekend we set our sights on removing the plethora of leaves that had taken over our front yard. We had an enthusiastic volunteer at our side to help with the project (thanks Stephanie) who brought a leaf blower, rake, broom, and shovel for the big project. When we arrived, her first words were, “Wow, those ARE a lot of leaves.” Yep, we weren’t exaggerating.

Luckily, a mysterious kind soul had already cleaned up our sidewalk and most of our driveway so that part was already done for us (too bad though, it’s the easiest part to do).

Exhibit A: You can only see leaves on the front yard, no dirt.

Off to work we went on cleaning up the leaves – I started with the rake, Stephanie started with the leaf blower, and CJ went to the backyard to continue the brick removal. We soon realized that this project was much more difficult than anticipated. The bark on our front yard had become one in the same with the leaves. Want to remove some leaves? Sure. Only if you also remove the bark.

This is in the beginning of the cleanup.

After working on it for several years hours, we gave up. There was no hope in us getting all the leaves off unless we wanted to remove all of the dirt from the front yard. Today, we called a gardener and scheduled regular visits.

Our pile of dirt/leaves

We’re happy to do other gardening in the backyard like remove weeds, plant flowers, or anything of that sort but no longer are we willing to attempt cleaning the leaves off the front yard.

We’re considering putting grass on the front yard (in a few months, of course) which will make the leaves easier to clean up. Otherwise, we’ll have to keep refilling the front yard with bark because there’s no way to avoid losing it when leaves are removed. Our gardener suggested gravel as a second option but that doesn’t make for a welcoming front yard, in my opinion.

What do you love/hate doing in your yard?

Our newest lesson in Home Ownership 101 has been how to pick paint colors and how to paint a room. Although we’ve picked paint colors before and painted before, never before have we had to do it for a whole house.

Tips for Picking Paint Colors

Step 1: Pick a color scheme and overall feel that you want for the room. Wall colors make SUCH a big difference in the room and we never realized it until yesterday when we painted the master and guest bedrooms. Before, the walls were basically a primer and the room felt empty and cold, not “homey” at all. Now, it feels so much more cozy and more like a bedroom… except for the fact that they’re missing beds :). We wanted the walls to be a neutral so the bedrooms are calming and inviting. Also, we can switch around the bedding without having to repaint the room every time.

Step 2: Research colors. First, pick a color that you think you want. Then, find several different versions of that color online (or in color swatches at your local paint store). Once you have a few you like, “Google” them because I bet you someone has already used that color and posted a picture of it online. You can get a really good feel of how it actually looks on full walls before making it official on your own walls. Another good idea is to use a website that let’s you visualize the color in your own room. Sherwin Williams has something called a Paint Color Visualizer which lets you upload a photo of your room and then place the color you like on the walls. It’s super helpful!

Step 3: Bring home a few samples. Paint a patch of each color on your walls so you can see how it looks in the room.

Step 4: Choose a color! This step says it all. Now that you’ve done your research, you should be pretty confident that the color will look good in the space. And, if you totally hate it… no need to worry, just paint over it! 😉

Tips for Painting a Room

We HAD to paint Mr & Mrs Teuben

Step 1: Cover the floors. This is super important. Make sure you buy a tarp or plastic to cover all of the floors in the room. I can’t tell you how many times we dropped a paint brush, stepped on the paint can cover, or who knows what, and were saved by the plastic! We would have paint alllll over the floors if it weren’t for that!

Step 2: Tape the doors, windows, and baseboards. We were able to avoid this in most places because I’m a perfectionist and am able to paint a pretty straight line. But, if you’re not as big of a risk taker as I am (ha! this is probably the only risk taking I really do…anywhere), then definitely tape away. We love the Frog tape found at Home Depot. The paint didn’t seep under it like the blue tape or other brands normally do. Just make sure you really get it in the grooves of the walls so it doesn’t sneak under. That’s one of my fears with tape. Some people are a little too trusting and just go crazy painting all over it and that runs the risk of seeping completely under the tape and you wouldn’t know until it’s removed and dry. Just make sure you get good quality tape and realllllly push it down.

Here’s us breaking our own rule. We didn’t realize until after this room that we should have been doing the corners and borders first.

Step 3: Paint the corners and borders. Most people want to throw the roller on the walls because you’re feeling like your accomplishing something but really, you should be painting all the wall borders first. That way, when you do start using the roller, you can even out the paint and you can get rid of that lined paint brush look.

Ready to roll!

Step 4: Roll away! When you’re buying rollers, pay close attention to the texture of your walls. The more rough of a texture, the more fluffy the roller needs to be… or as the experts call it “nap length.” Once you start rolling, try not to get too crazy at the top or bottom of the walls. The worst feeling is hitting the ceiling with your roller (which we are guilty of) because now you have to touch up those areas.

Step 5: Touch Ups. Walk around the room and look for any areas you might have missed. For walls that are more rough, you may have to go around with a paint brush and get the little areas that couldn’t have been covered with the roller. If the paint is a lower quality, you may have to do a second coat.

Note: CJ is only wearing one sock in this photo. He stepped in a big chunk o’ paint earlier.

Step 6: Clean Up. Make sure you soak any brushes used so you can use them again in the future, clean up the floor covering, take off the tape, and do what you need to do to make sure the mess is gone. 🙂

CJ mentioned a few days ago that he was working on getting rid of all the bricks in the backyard that made up the planter that assisted in the termite invasion. Well, it turned out to be much harder than anticipated because the bricks DO NOT want to break apart and the previous owner dug quite a hole in the ground when he started the brick layers. There’s at least 2-3 layers of bricks below the surface.

so many bricks!!

my adorable husband

working hard

pretending to be handy with the intense rotary drill

The floor had its initial sanding on Thursday. We stopped by the house to see how it looks and the old and new boards have blended together. We can’t tell which ones are new and which ones have been there for ever; they all look exactly the same.

Unfortunately, the Floor Guy came back yesterday to do the second round of sanding but the floor still had too much moisture in it to continue working on it. Because the heater was broken so long, a lot of moisture got in the boards so it’s taking longer than expected to warm up and dry out.

He decided to come back this morning with a team of 10 men (seriously) to whip it out quickly. BUT, yet again, the floors are still not dried out and some boards buckled overnight. So. incredibly. strange.

Because of that, he thinks that there’s still A LOT of moisture so he wants to wait until Wednesday/Thursday of next week to start up the work again. Yet another delay but for a good reason. We’d rather wait until the boards are completely warmed up and dried out so it won’t buckle 6 months from now than rush through the process.

Our floor stain choices

In the meantime, he dropped off some floor stain samples for us. We can choose 2 that we like and he’ll stain a few boards on our floors so we can see what they look like before we chose the final one. We’re going to check out the samples in the house to see which look the best. We want the color to coordinate with the cabinets but not be the same exact color. This is just as hard as choosing paint colors because you never know how it will really look until the whole thing is done. So we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope we made a good choice!

By the way, I’m going to try to be better about taking photos with my fancy camera instead of my iPhone. The quality is soooo much better (obviously).

Lately (probably because we’re getting closer to the house finishing) I’ve been thinking about our first Costco run. We will literally be starting from scratch so we’ll need to stock up on all the essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, food for the pantry, etc. Seems like it will be an expensive run.

I tried to find a good list online of what we should think about needing but I was only semi-successful. Martha Stewart posted this list on her website but it doesn’t seem like a list of essentials for a pantry. Who really needs anchovies and dried porcini mushrooms? Not me.

Here’s another list that’s more helpful than Martha – What Every House Needs. This lists items for the whole house and thankfully, we’ve received a lot of our essentials as wedding gifts. The only thing this list doesn’t cover is essential food to stock up on.

Here’s what I’m thinking we’ll need to start:

1. All-purpose cleaner
2. Toilet paper
3. Paper towels
4. Broom
5. Swiffer
6. Dish washing soap
7. Detergent

I’m kind of tempted to wait to stock the pantry until we actually need that stuff – like flour, sugar, pasta, soup, etc. But then there’s the basics like ketchup, mustard, milk, eggs, butter. Do we wait on that or stock up on that too?

What would you recommend we include in our first run?

We just stopped by the house to pick out paint colors for the rooms. So far, we’ve decided on colors for the two bedrooms and office. Here’s what we decided:

Master Bedroom: Heritage Hills (Light tan)
Guest Bedroom: Nimbus Cloud (Light gray)
Office: Tantalizing (Cream)

They’re all basic colors but will definitely give the rooms more warmth than the ivory shade that they are right now. We’re also going to replace the baseboards so that’s going to make a HUGE difference in the rooms. We’re so excited!!

As far as why our blog post was titled leaves everywhere… The large tree has taken over our front yard and there’s now an uncontrollable amount of leaves. Hence our open invitation to anyone who is a fan of yard work, we can always use your help!

Here’s a photo of our beautiful little house getting consumed by the leaves. Oh, and there’s my adorable husband.

As you might remember, a few days ago were were trying to decide whether or not to keep our island. The decision has now been made! After standing in the kitchen and trying to imagine each possible combination, we’ve decided that the best layout would be to have the cabinet on the side to the right of our pantry.

We hope to have many get-togethers at our house and anyone who entertains knows that people tend to gather in the kitchen. With an island in the middle of our kitchen, there just wouldn’t be enough space for some to stand and for others to cook at the same time. We would end up having the shimmy past each other to keep the ball rolling on the food preparations which isn’t ideal. We want the space to feel open and comfortable and the best way to achieve that is to have the side cabinet.

As disappointing as it is to give up my little island, I know it’s for the best and I’m actually really excited for the new set up. When we were initially designing the kitchen, I kept thinking to myself, “I really wish we could have some glass cabinets to put our wine glasses on display.” That really makes kitchens look that much more beautiful and I’m glad we’re going to have that now. I think it will really complete the look.

We’re stopping by the house this afternoon and will take some pictures to update you on the progress. Our bedroom furniture has arrived so we’re going to try to bring it to the house. The recessed lights were installed in the kitchen this week, hardwood in the kitchen (where the beautiful linoleum used to be) was added, and the fan in our entertainment room was replaced.

Oh, and I must have jinxed us – right after I posted last night, the hot water heater broke AGAIN! So the plumber is here fixing it right now.