HaPpY NeW YeAr!!

I hope 2010 will be the year we finish off the flooring on the main floor and upstairs! Living with primarily subfloors for over 2 years has been hard. We have been under MAJOR renovation for just over 2 years! So now that most of our large remodel projects on the upper 2 floors are complete the house is starting to feel like a home. Our last and most expensive remodel will be the Kitchen. So we will have to save up for that expense. Bruce has been home on RNR from Kuwait and has been a big help to finish up some of our projects that were left undone prior to his departure.

Mantel

Bruce built this fireplace mantle- I was impressed! I didn't know that he was such a great woodworker :) It's hard to see... it needs a coat of paint. I told him when he gets back he will have to make us a new one for the living room. :)

Tile Work Grouted

Bathroom Floor Grouted. I need to upload a better picture. This will have to do for now.

Shower Grouted.

Fireplace Grouted

Jess learned an important lesson grouting, never grout with dry skin. The grout literally eats holes through your skin and has VERY sore fingers because of it!

Bathroom Floor Installed! YAY!! Bruce is becoming a pretty good little tile guy. But he hates doing tile work. He will love his "vacation" in Kuwait to get away from the tile work.

Dinning Room Floor installed and New Light is Hung

Today we installed the dinning room floor and Bruce hung the new light. Our house is starting to feel like a home.

GUEST BATHROOM TILE

Close Up Picture of the decroative tiles... in the shower.

Today Bruce put the tile on the shower walls in the Guest Bathroom.

We wish you a Merry Christmas! This is a very special Christmas at our house. It's the first year we have actually had a Christmas Tree up since we have been married. Second Bruce has been deployed to Kuwait and he was able to come for Christmas.
Jessica's Christmas wishes are coming true this Christmas. Bruce is home for the Holidays on RNR and he is even helping her put the house back together on his RNR. Bruce says "he gets a year long vacation in a sand box" so he is happy to work on the house when he is home. He has been a great worker!

BEST HUSBAND AWARD!!

I have the best husband. He has worked so hard on the house within the last 5 days he has been home. We have worked long days and late nights. He has not complained... he has worked really hard. THANKS HONEY FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!! Needless to say we are not bored over RNR. :)

Picture on the Marble Wall

Jess was showering the guest bathroom one day... and discoverd a "swirl" in the fake marble wall that looked like a "guine pig" with hair straight out of the movie grease.... winking at her. Look a the picture and see if you can see what Jess saw. Good enough reason to remodel the bathroom... when you can see pictures of animals staring at you in the bathroom. LOL

GUEST BATHROOM RENOVATION

GROSS!!! The previous owners tooth brush in the sink drain. We discovered this grusome discovery when we ripped out the sinks and vanity today. NASTY!!!

Remy is not happy that we started tearing his bathrooom apart. Remy loves to hang out just inside the door of this bathroom next to the heater.

Bruce made the comment today that we should go on Renovation Realites... and Jess joked that the show wouldn't have "what not to do" because Bruce knows how to do everything the right way 99% of the time. We have exactly 14 days while he is home on his RNR and we are tackling some big projects. Bruce decided we could get our upstairs guest bathroom done in the time he is home on RNR. Jess became a little hesitant about the bathroom and said "are you sure we are not getting in over our head?" So We started to take the engineered "plastic" marble tub surround off. If you know our experience with doing any project in this house... their is always a hidden mess. Sooo...hidding behind the plastic crap was rotten dry wall. So we ended up pulling it out. Tonight we are going to replace the dry wall with cement board and red guard the walls. It will have time to set for 24 hours.

Family Room Painted

Jess fixed the dry wall and painted the family room Spartan Green while Bruce was away. The house is coming together... and its really starting to feel like a home.

The New Fire Place

The Fireplace is nearing completion. The But its getting closer. It will be awesome when we complete it. All of the travertine on the wall is "scrap" from our masterbath travertine. Bruce figured out how we could get the most cuts out of the scrap and Jess ripped down the tiles.

Entry Painted and Travertine Installed

Jess fixed the drywall and painted the entry Spartan Green. Bruce being the awesome husband that he is layed 18x18 (walnut blend) travertine on his RNR. The house is really starting to come together!

Prepwork then mudd the family room.

Living a "RENOVATION REALITY"

I feel like were were living the television show "Renovation Reality" If you have never seen it.. its about homeowners who get in over their heads pretty much. I think we have had a few of those moments... when we ran into some unexpected costs and problems. Well it wasn't until this last week, especially the last two days... I felt like I was living the renovation reality. The two nights before Bruce left we were up until 4 a.m. and back up at 7 a.m. The moment I felt like we were truely living in the reality.. was when were hanging Crown moulding at 1am in the morning. We were having many problems with cuts and etc. As many people know I am much a of perfectionist...so little mistakes can really bother me. Finally I just gave in, I was tired and to stressed. Nothing a little bit of painters caulk can't fix right??

Bruce's Deployment

Today Bruce deployed first to Chicago to meet up with this new unit he was placed with, then will head to Texas and then on to Kuwait. Well he almost didn't make it to Chicago today. The travel agent that was to complete his flight itinerary didn't complete the flight arrangment apparently. He ended up not getting on the flight he was suppose. He was suppose to fly out to Chicago on Delta, he ended up flying American Airlines. It delayed him leaving which only made it harder.

I will miss him terribly in this home renovation process. Things will slow down with school starting next month. It is my first year teaching as a certified teacher. Horray! I am excited!! Progress will also slow down because he knows how to do so many things...that I don't know how to do. I will be busy patching drywall and painting I suppose.

Family Room

Yesterday my brother and his friend Ryan came up and helped us get the wood floor installed in our family room. I don't know that we would have ever gotten it done with out their help. Putting the wood floors in the family room was a last minute decsion, so we had to rip out the carpet and the padding. We did a quick coat of Kilz primer for the stains and what ever bacteria may have been lurking in the carpet and sub floor. The walls in the family room all need to be resurfaced because we tore out the baseboard, upside down crown molding plus there were plenty of other holes from the previous owners. I am going to cover the wood with some cardboard until I get the walls refinished.

Master Bedroom and Bathroom

Well the Master Bedroom is not fully complete, but we decided to move our furniture in so Bruce and I could spend one night in the room we worked so hard before he left. Unfortanatley we were unable to get the Master bath finished in time. We did get the tub lifted into place Still have some touch up painting and door fram moldings to complete.

Master Bedroom Walk in Closet

Today we worked on the putting the closet together. Its not done yet. Some finishing work needs to be completed. Yes that is a mini fridge you see in the closet. Jessica hates getting up in the middle of the night to walk downstairs through the construction zone to get a drink of water. She has tripped and hit her shin to many times. So we will have cold water in supply in our bedroom just for her. When the closet is more complete we will post finished pictures.

Wood Floors in the Master Bedroom.

Tonight Bruce and I worked for five or six hours on the wood floors. They are looking good. We had two little puggies trying to help, but they were in the way more then they helped. I will add more pictures later.

Masterbedroom Paint

We got most of the painting complete in the Master. We have edging and touch up work to do. It is starting to come together. It will be really nice when it is Complete. We are adding a blue accent wall on the same wall that our bed goes against. I will post a picture soon.

Started Fire Place Surround

Today Bruce and I started to tile the fire places surround. Bruce felt confident we could tile this on our own. So far so good. We have approximately 21 Sq feet of travertine "waste" from the master bath remodel. We cut down to create our fire place surround. I love it.. so far. It will be great... and we will up date the fire place... with spending very little additional money. Reduce Reuse- Recycle as they say.

Fire Place Tile

So today... Jessica came across a large amount of tile "waste". We spent alot of money on the travertine. So Jessica wanted to use as much of the travertine as we could. Jessica ripped down the tile "waste" We discovered that there is enough tile waste to do a the fireplace surround. Jessica was excited.... she immediatley wanted to "pop" off tiles- LOL. It was not that easy... the tiles were glued to the wall, we ended up ripping out huge chunks of dry wall. So we took out half the wall . Go Figure... small projects turn into much larger projects. In a matter of a couple hours we tore apart the fire place surround... and re-dry walled. Maybe we will get the tile surround done sooner then later.

The Shower Grout

Today the shower was grouted. I really like the grout color that we picked out. :) It looks great!