new closet

A few updates

Forgot to share photos of our newish rug in the back family room and corner table for the TV. This Craigslist find allowed us to move the coffee table to the front living room, which now looks less goofy and empty than it did with just a couch sitting there lonely.

In the back FR, you'll see swatches of paint colors that we are trying out in hopes of lightening and warming up the room a bit and not clashing so much with the cork floor. A new couch and/or sectional is in our future. We'll probably stick with a sage green but might have an accent chair in red.

We also got a smaller console table for the front entryway and moved the bigger wooden Hardwood Artisans piece to the dining area. The light cherry buffet is now near the eating and Elliott's play around around the corner.

Nothing is 100% set, but we are getting there!

some photos of where we live now

Last night en la casa vieja

Not sure if that title is correct, but I do have Spanish on the brain lately with all the contractors from El Salvador, Bolivia...

Here are some last photos of empty rooms with new colors (and a perfectly matched color in the blue office room that required touch-up paint after we expanded the closet opening. Our sample was too small to match, so John just eyeballed it. Way to go!). The old house is mostly packed up but there will be a fridge and some clothes to deal with in the morning, in just 9 hrs. I'll have to take a few photos of all the boxes and a last glimpse of the old place in the morning if the camera battery holds out. We have two chargers, but who knows where either one is!

Rounding a corner

It's been a busy... week and a half! and day. lots of contractor stuff. lots of money. lots of stress. but now that the floors are done and construction-ish stuff is done and basement cleaning is largely done and packing is mostly done and painting is underway, I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Carpet is up hardwood upstairs is done and drying. Corner in den is now w/out FP and is painted. Pink bedroom is painted peach (one coat yet to go). Upstairs not painted yet. Wall that was shortened is all done, though floor replacement in isn't finished but can be walked on and will work for now. Basement is a lot cleaner, as are lots of other surfaces.

Generally, though there is still a considerable amount of work ahead, I'm remembering why we entered into this and am excited about the move.

Week of contractors

After two days of having contractors at the house, we now have an open floorplan with much of a wall between the DR and LR removed. Yay! And we have the corner FP in the den/FR removed. I somehow failed to realize, though, that this would require repainting two entire walls in the FR as well as the whole FP/LR/DR wall (24+ feet) and all three ceilings. Oh, and the huge closet in the blue office now has an opening for 5' of folding door so we can use the whole space, but that means the whole wall around the closet needs to be painted, too.

So now we're looking at matching three colors if we don't choose something else in addition to choosing three colors for the other 3 BRs.

Wish us luck!

Our new house - empty!

Our new house is now vacant, except for a few boxes here in what will be my office. Photos are labeled in their titles but wanted to get a few pics up quickly. Sorry the formatting isn't great.

The wall you don't see in the (blue) office will have folding doors so we can make use of the big closet.




















MBR - we'll be taking up carpet to expose hardwood. No plans to paint but that could change.

























Family room - we are getting rid of fireplace to make clean corner and pulling up carpet. Probably doing cork. E will have wooden kitchen and play area at the part of room closest to kitchen -- the full width from where carpet currently starts to under extra AC unit, I think.





































We are going to take down the wall separating DR and LR (have to move structural beam) to increase open flow.




































Paint in E's room will be either pale blue or both blue and yellow.




































We plan to have an art &craft area for E on the "wood" floor in the finished half of the basement. Carpeted area will contain our current basement office furniture. There will also be a futon for spillover guest (I didn't include photos of the currently pink but will be peach guest room on the main level). We might also give E some floor space for trains.