The Garage (aka Why We're Moving)

It's true, the reason we even entertained the idea of moving out of the house we just renovated a little over a year ago is because of the garage space.  Hubs has no room to do all of the things he loves; welding, wood working, and of course working on Betty the Blazer :)  We extensively looked into adding an additional garage to our current home but it just wouldn't work with our current land set up.

Meet Betty!!!

Boy oh boy do I love this truck!  She's super duper fun to ride in!!  I'm not sure you can tell, but the back seat is open air.  Just ridin' around town is incredibly entertaining for us!! F-U-N.

She's also the main reason I haven't parked my car in the garage for more than a week since we moved here.  Hubs just needs more room to play :)

Garage Site Before

I'm a BIG tree person so imagine my disappointment when taking down this two huge trees was the only choice we had for the garage site.  It was very important to me that you couldn't see the garage at all when sitting in the back yard and we had this huge side yard that ended up being the best choice.

Garage Site Cleared

Even looking at it now makes me very sad for those trees.  The bright side is that hubs will have his dream garage and I'll be able to actually park in the garage too!!!  And even better, it's hidden from most of the house view.  YAY!

Will post progress soon!!

"Old World Charm"

Good morning!

I'd like to share a few of my decor ideas with you.  When we designed our current house we made it very much like you'd see if you were to go out and purchase a new build home.... the colors, the lighting, etc. were all very safe choices that appeal to a very broad audience.  Don't get me wrong, I love love love our current house, just excited for a change!  In this new house I've decided I want something more unique, with more character, and I've decided on Old World Charm :) with my hubs approval of course.  Fortunately he and I have very similar taste so I think it'll be an easy sell.  Here are a few of my almost-made decisions.

Kitchen

I just love the feel of this kitchen, the colors, the floors and the stone arch over the range.  Chris and I do disagree on wood in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure he's going to win that battle.  We have it now and it's just a pain to keep clean.  I may go for some wood look tiles if we can find some we like.

I did decide to go with the side by side refrigerator freezer set like in the kitchen below, it was my original inspiration and I still plan to use more ideas from it.  I also love the two island set up but the space just wont allow  for both.

Here's one more kitchen inspiration I want to throw in there :)

We have vaulted ceilings in both the living room and kitchen.  I found this light and just LOVE it!  It's large and heavy and everything I want in an above island light fixture.  I think it'll look great on a dimmer!

I also decided to go with a farmhouse sink in the kitchen.  We have the single large bowl in our current kitchen and it's so much better for us than the double bowl.  This will be great too because it's quite larger than your average single bowl and we'll be able to fit pots and pans in it!

More Light Fixtures

She's a beauty!!  I plan to put this chandelier in the entry way, it's just perfect.

I think this will look amazing in our formal dining room!  You'll walk in through the foyer and see the teardrop chandelier and look to your right and this will be hanging above our cherry dining set.  Lovely :)

I plan to put a few of these in both hallways instead of the traditional ceiling lights.  It'll add a great touch of Old World.

Master Bathroom

While I'd like most of the house to be Old World, I think I may mix it up a bit in the master bathroom.  I fell in love with the picture below because of it's serene spa-like theme and really want to emulate it's feel.  It's more modern that my normal taste but who wouldn't want to feel like they are in a spa while in their very own bathroom?!

Doesn't this just look relaxing???

Here's the chandelier I choose to put over the over-sized chest in the bathroom.

Ooo lala!

And I'm still deciding on the faucets but I think my husband will really dig this set!

I plan to put one of these on either side of the 2 master bathroom mirrors - I'm still undecided on these though, I'm hoping they'll tie in the Old World to the modern features I chose.

Guest Bathroom

This is what I want to put in the guest bathroom as the main light fixture.  The faucet below will complement it perfectly!

The crystal handles are what did it for me!

This would look great on the wall in the bathroom.  I'm still not sure about this one, it really depends on how much light the chandelier provides.  We'll see!!

Office

Is this too big to put in a 15 x 16 office?  I just love the fixture and I'm hoping we can make it work!!

It's 26.5 inches long by 20.5 inches wide by 16.5 inches high.

Game Room Choices

This faucet is perfect for the wet bar!  Just what I was looking for!

The handles are super cute and will match my choice for the bathroom fixture below.

I want the sold cross handles, as pictured in the main photo.

I thought this light would look great on either side of the mirror in the game room bath room.  Charming if you ask me :)

That's it for now!!!  Will be back with more soon!!

Another Kitchen Light Idea

In response to Chris's comment - What about a pair of these hanging over the island?  It's 3.58 ft high by 21.5 inches wide.  I think it'd make a statement!!

New Floor Plan!!!

Hi!  So the architect (who is also our general contractor) just finished up the floor plan for our remodel!  I'm super excited about it because C and I we're driving ourselves crazy trying to draw up the plans using PowerPoint... which if you've ever used PowerPoint before you'd know that drawing things to scale is near impossible.  Anyway, check it out!

Current Floor Plan

I apologize if it's hard to see... The picture was taken with my iphone and the floor plan was previously all rolled up.

Okay, now on to the floor plan!  Parts of the layout are quite odd.  If you look to the top right of the Family room, that's the current master bedroom.  The master bathroom is very squished and the shower and toilet area are not made for anyone over 150 pounds or taller than 6 feet.  

You'll also notice that to the left of the foyer they walled in the opening and added a door in the hallway to make that another bedroom.  

And all of the walls have different textures throughout the house and where there is no tile on the floor there is nasty DIY-gone-wrong stained concrete.  Definitely in need of a makeover!!

Now for the exciting part!!!

New Kitchen/Master Suite Floor Plan!!!

I've tried pretty much everything to get that picture to rotate correctly and it just wont let me.  It should be rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees.  Also I got a little pencil happy and started making notes about lighting, floors, and some small changes to the structure so sorry about that too.
If you can get past all that you'll see that we're moving the kitchen to the old master bedroom so that it overlooks the pool and is more accessible from the living room.  The garage is being converted into the new master suite too!!  That will also walk out to the pool area.  Yay!!!

Below is a large view of the old version of the area above just to give you a good idea.

I'm super excited to get to work!! Demo starts a week from today!!!

Update: 8/24/11

Finalized Floor Plan!

Here's the finalized kitchen floor plan:

Again, I'm so sorry that it's side-ways.  I cannot get it to flip!  The sink area overlooks the pool and the range area backs up to the master bedroom.  

Master Bathroom, Closets, and Pantry area:

Master Bedroom:

The door on the top right of the screen walks out the the pool area!  The french doors at the bottom open up to a private patio (future project... not in the scope of the reno).  YAY!

Kitchen Kitchen Kitchen!!

Current Kitchen

Teeny tiny galley kitchen...

This wont work for me.

New Location!!

That's the hubs!  Hard at work :)

We decided to move the kitchen from the front of the house to the back of the house where the master bedroom used to be.  It's that room with the red wall.  You cannot see it from here but it's overlooking a beautiful pool area so we're hoping to open up that wall and either do a wall of windows with a buffet underneath (idea pictures down below) or do folding glass doors.  What do you think??

Outside Looking In:

The above picture is looking into the living room.  You can see that triple door in the demo picture above.  So that little window you can barely see behind the tree on the left is the current window looking out over the pool.  It see's something like this:

Alternate View:

So as you can see there is a ton of potential for a great view of the pool area!!

Idea 1: Wall of Windows with Buffet Counter

Could also double as a serving or bar area to the pool?

Idea 2: Folding Glass Doors

Obviously we don't have mountains like this in Texas but you get the idea.

Idea 3: Wall of Windows

As you can tell I have a ton of choices here!!  

Overall, THIS is the kitchen I want to emulate:

Isn't she a beauty!?!?!  I've already bought a similar fridge and freezer set, I'm just in love with them!  I love everything in this photo down to the column details and wooden middle island countertop.

Hopefully mine will come out just as breathtaking!!!

No Curb Appeal! Suggestions??

I need some opinions!  The house we just bought has NO curb appeal.  It has quite a large front yard with beautiful large trees but the front of the house is hidden by a walled brick courtyard and plethora of trumpet vines.  TRUMPET VINES!  This is a new beast for me... Apparently they are terribly difficult to get rid of but we're going to rip em out and try our best!

Front View

Street View (Corner Lot)

We're getting rid of the tree closest to the camera but the large tree next to the sidewalk and to the right of the picture are definitely staying!!

Walkway View

Our Progress

We took down the right side of the over grown vines to see what it would look like without them.  In my opinion MUCH better and less swamp like than before.

Potential Changes

Add a drive through Porte Cochere and circular drive.  Has anyone ever done this themselves or have any ideas for me?  We're also planning on painting all of the brick too.

Like This:

But I'm not sure if that would look out of place on our home. Thoughts??



7/26/11 UPDATE!

During Demo

It's MUCH more visible from the road now!!!

More to come...


7/28/11 UPDATE!

Demo Complete!

Yet look how much work there is still left to do... sigh.

Finally, here's the new garage site!!! More on that to come later ;)

About Us

How I Got Here
We moved into our current house in March of 2010 after an extensive remodel and a great learning experience.  It was a foreclosure that needed a lot of work and I posted about that here.  I had been keeping my eye out for another good deal on a home somewhere nearby because we would like a bit more yard space.  The hubs has gotten into wood working, welding, and most notably car restoration on a 1990 K5 blazer we named Betty.  We've only got a 2 car garage so needless to say, I haven't parked my car in the garage for more than a week since we moved into this house!  We talked about adding onto this house with another 1 car garage but with all of the upgrades we did in our renovation it just didn't make financial sense to put any more money into this house.  We decided that he needs a shop, and I wouldn't mind a house with a little more room!

Fortunately for us I found a great house a few months ago that we just closed on this month!!  It's another foreclosure and needs more work than even our current house did but we're up for the challenge!  Since it's more extensive than this house we've decided that we want to do a lot of the work ourselves to save money.  C is a super smart engineer and is quite handy around the house!  That will definitely be a good thing because me, not so much.  But I'm willing to learn!!  We've been watching a ton of DIY shows, it doesn't look that hard... Ha.

This is a great way for us to share our experience with our friends and family as well as get some ideas from other DIY'ers.  Hope you enjoy!

Happy reading!

~T

Our First Reno

Our First Renovation Experience

This home was your typical foreclosure.  Rumor has it that the people who were living in the home were renters and were somehow in business with the actual owner of the home.  Turns out that the owner owed the renter a good deal of money so the renter gutted the house of anything that they could get their hands on.  All light fixtures and appliances were removed as well as the light switches and door knobs.  They even went so far as to tear all of the pool equipment out which left a nasty mess of a pool in the back yard.  Oh well, it left quite a nice canvas for me to work with and my hubs couldn't even attempt to convince me to keep anything!

We were able to get everything below done in about a month and a half - Even with me still living 200 miles away!

The Front

Before...

The day we bought it!

 And after.

You really cant tell that much changed but those bushes up there in the before, those were HUGE rose bushes that grew OUT OF CONTROL.  Not to mention, now the front window makes for a nice Christmas Tree frame :)  We put in a new front door and painted it red.  I love red front doors!!

Just for grins :)  This happened to us mid-February right in the middle of renovations!!  This doesn't happen much in Texas but the snow came in full force here!

The next set of before and afters is by far my favorite and most drastically changed part of our current home.  Maybe you'll think so too!

The Kitchen

Before...

Check out the matchy-matchy vinyl counters and back splash... YUCK

What you don't realize is that those floors are linoleum on TOP of more linoleum... Ew.

Little did I know this would be my favorite part of the kitchen :)

Here we go with the AFTER!!!

My coffee bar!!!

The Entry Way

The walls above were covered in super thick wall paper... I thought it'd be easy enough to tear it all down but no way!  I spent a good couple of hours working on it just to end up having the contractor take care of it.  No bueno.

The Formal Living and Dining Room

LOVE this light fixture!

 The Living Room

Super 80's Wood Paneling!

Amazing what a little paint will do!

 The Guest Bathroom

The Guest Room

The Master Bedroom

The Master Bathroom

The Back Yard