Thursday, January 22, 2015

Cottage Renovation: Flooring

We started to install the floors last weekend and boy does it make the place feel like a house again! And I'm proud to say that Bubba and I started and finished this project together. Without fighting. Not ONCE! It's sad, but that's a pretty huge accomplishment when working on a home with your spouse. We can't all be like my favorite TV couple, Fixer Uppers Chip and Jo Jo Gains. LOVE THEM...

Anyway, here is a little sneak peek of our faux hardwood laminate flooring in Fireside Oak. We used this flooring throughout the living room, hallway, bedrooms, and mudroom. We decided on tile floors for the bathrooms since they are so small and we found a nice deal on some very pretty tile. But for now, here is a look at the floor installation process.


Cottage Renovation: Paint Colors

These cottage renovation updates are definitely not real-time. In fact, we are almost done putting in our floors, baseboards, trim, etc. But when it comes to updating the old blog here, it just seems to take me SO LONG!

So, without further delay, here are our painted walls! Ok, I'm missing the master bathroom, and the lighting still isn't complete, making for some not so wonderful photos, but it will still give an idea of what we've decided to go with...

It took us a while to decide on paint colors. For being something that can so easily be changed, for some reason I just couldn't commit to anything. After some serious thought and a little research on paint colors in the home, I decided to try and keep the colors complimentary to each other. For example, when we made over the living room a couple years ago we decided to use a very bold blue called Swizzle Stick. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful and I love it, but it's pretty out there for me. I'm typically very conservative. Anyway, in the living room we did an accent wall in the front of the house in a soft color called Desert Fortress. It's so easy on the eyes, you almost don't even notice it. And since our house is pretty open, we decided it might be a nice color to have throughout the house in order to tie it all together.

Here we have the mud room and the master bedroom, painted in Desert Fortress.





Again, these pictures aren't really doing the colors justice, but it's just to document and give any curious minds a peek!

Next, is the sitting room, which is actually accessed through the master bedroom. I wanted the colors to be different, but not so different that it looks silly. So I went one shade lighter on the paint chip card and went for Riviera Dune. It's very light, and was pretty difficult to see while applying, but I think it's a good choice. We also painted the "alcove" where our bed will be going in the Riviera Dune as another way to tie in the two colors. 


Yeah, the shadows aren't really doing anything to help here....

Then we have the guest room and the guest bathroom. These two rooms are a little further off the color wheel then what we have in the rest of the house, but none-the-less are still very pretty. The guest room got a nice double coat of Lemon Cream. I'm planning to do this sweet little room in blues, creams, and soft yellows, so I thought this color would be a way to bring a pop of color to the house without being something so bright or bold that we would get sick of it too quickly. I also, in the back of my mind, thought that some day when we have a child, whether a boy or a girl, they could take up residency in there. A neutral yellow :)

Across the hall you'll find the guest bathroom in a Woodlawn Colonial Gray. The only color that really doesn't tie too well into the rest of the house. But it's really clean and classic. And considering that I have an affinity for black and white art and decor, I thought this would be my Black and White room. I'm really pleased with how it is turning out too.



Please excuse the HOT MESS that is our house right now, but we are under construction! :) Like I said, I wasn't able to get any shots of the master bathroom and closet, but for the record they are done in Dove White. I'll be sure to get a few photos once our electricity is wired back up and we have some light back there.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Cottage Renovation: New Siding!

We are so happy with our decision on purchasing new siding. We even went with a new color that is just beautiful! It's not quite finished in these photos, but it will give you a general idea of where we're going.

We are going to need to repaint the front steps and our NEW front door. Until then, I'm still giddy about the lovely grey siding!


Cottage Renovation: DRYWALL

It's been a LONG, SLOW process, but we've FINALLY made it to the drywall phase! Thank goodness. It's already taken far longer than expected to get to this point, so I was extremely please to see how quickly the drywall made its way up!

From the side door looking through the mudroom.

Laundry Nook

From the living room looking towards the hallway where all the renovations took place.

Guest Bath

From Master, looking through the Sitting Room.

From the Sitting Room, looking back into the Master Bedroom.

Master Bath

Cottage Renovation: Interior Progress

A quick look at the interior work...

Looking into the Master Bath from where our bed will be. We have TUBS! It's not the clawfoot I wanted, but I guess that can wait a couple years for that....

Looking down the new hallway from the Master through to the living room. The guest bedroom is the opening on the left and the beginning of the hall and the guest bath will be right across from that.

A peek into the guest bath. Another tub and plumbing - yay!

The former Master, will now be the guest bedroom.

Hard to see, but this will be the laundry nook in the Mudroom.

Cottage Renovation: Siding

I loved our old wood siding, but it left much to be desired in terms of warmth and keeping the house well sealed. And with adding on to the house, it would be almost impossible to side the new portion of the house and it even come close to matching. So, we said goodbye to our rustic, original siding from 1929. But don't worry, we're going to preserve a couple pieces to use for projects inside of the house.


No windows, no siding. A naked cottage!

Pa and Pee Wee (far left) working hard to get all of the old siding off.

Our supervisor misses her home!

Cottage Renovation: Master Bedroom

After some careful thought (major stress) and discussion (major arguments) we decided that the best thing for us to do was to move our Master Bedroom from the front room to the more spacious room on the back of the house. Though I was resistant at first, as we move forward, I'm so glad that we made the switch. Now we will be leaving the sitting room open (no door) and accessible only through our bedroom. It gives us a beautiful view and open feel we wanted for our Master Bedroom. We will also now have a Master Bath and Walk-in Closet accessible from our bedroom.

These pictures are from November 23rd. We've done so much since then, but I wanted to make sure I have the progress documented.

This will be the view from our bed, looking through the sitting room. (Excuse the MESS)

Looking from the sitting room towards the back of the house where our bed will be. Originally this area was supposed to be a closet, but Bubba came up with a great idea to utilize the space. We extended the closet wide enough to slide our bed into. We'll have built in shelving inside the alcove along with recess lighting and switches on both side of the bed.

Cottage Renovation: Bathroom to Mudroom

We made it through the holidays and I wanted to post a couple of progress pictures of the house. Take a look at the Bathroom's transformation into the Mudroom.

Looking from the kitchen into what used to be the bathroom. Beginning to transform into a Mudroom.

Looking from the new side door through the mudroom into the kitchen.

Unusual view...this will actually be our master closet, but for now we're look through it to see the two windows in the mudroom.


 
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