Kitchen renovations

The kitchen renovations are in full force and going great, we area almost ready to start the staining process, we are a little nervous but I think we will make out just fine with a little patience. I am so excited to finally get the room finish, I have been waiting for 2 years since we moved in to get this finished and it makes it even more exciting to know we did it all our selves. I can't wait to post pictures of the finished work.

Working on the next project

We have been planning on remodelling our kitchen since we moved in 2 years ago, we had to make some modifications to fit in our fridge and freezer as it was too big to fit in the space we had. We took out some pantry cabinets and made them fit in but it left the kitchen a little unfinished looking. We have been so focused on completing all the other changes we left the biggest job until everything else was done. My husband will be building the cabinets themselves and already has a start on them. He is on vacation next week so we will likely see a lot of progress then. We will be also replacing the fronts on all the cabinets and staining them a darker color. The home renovation industry has taken a real big swing lately with people trying to improve the value of their homes. If you are in the market for a renovation but are not sure how to get the job done on your own you might what to take advantage of the many great Minneapolis Remodeling specialists that are available to offer you affordable and reliable renovation projects. The team at Minneapolis Remodeling Construction, LLC have many years of experience helping people unlock the value and potential of their homes. There is no job too big or too small to have a consultation to see what they can do for you. Our homes are our biggest investment and it pays to have work done but you definetly want quality work or you could make a headache for yourself. I can't wait to have our project done, it really is exciting to see work in progress and of course the final results.

Great renovation projects

We have been turning a lot of our renovation attention to the interior of the house over the last few months. As our house is older there is a lot of upgrades that need to be completed. We have been adding molding to a lot of rooms that never had any installed when the walls were re-done a few years ago before we moved in. The latest little project we undertook was replacing the ancient doors on the main floor with modern and larger doors. My husband did all the work and found it a lot of fun, cutting the openings bigger and shimming in the new door frame and door. The next project we are considering is installing new doors on our cupboards and building a few extra cabinets and a pantry in the kitchen. If you are looking for some help finding Home Improvement Ideas for your house check out the link above to get some great ideas and tips.

Decorating Time

There are good things about this time of year, yes the days are starting to get longer, which is nice not to go to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. The days are warmer which means the snow is melting, which is great. The best thing about this time of year is it's tax season, now I know this isn't exciting time for everyone but for us we usually get a decent refund and that allows us to catch up on Christmas bills and allows us to by some new home furniture we have been wanting to finish up some renovations in our house. The bad thing about buying an older home is that there are always renovation projects to work on. We have been working on our new master bedroom for the last year and with work completing on it we are now starting to look for new bedroom furniture to finish up our new private oasis. Hubby and I did all the work ourselves and it is really great to see it finally coming together. Now that this project is coming to an end we are moving onto probably our most ambitous project, renovating our bathroom. It currently only has a small walk in shower and we are re-vamping it to have a full shower/tub. I am so excited because it is too hard to squeeze into this little shower, especially if someone is squeezing with you.LOL. We are also taking the time to look for bathroom vanities as ours was custom built into the bathroom, made from plywood and looks aweful. I will be very happy to see this project finished so we can move onto the kitchen.

The Handy man

As I think back over the years I have to laugh at some of the projects my husband and I have gotten into. When we first got together we were renting a place and were both really just starting out, we didn't have much for tools, a handy pack my dad had gotton for me when I first moved out, with a hammer, screwdrivers and that was about it. We both liked creating things on our own so we had to be pretty creative with our projects, I still remember the first thing a little step we built for our son to crawl up into his big boy bed, we wanted it to match his bedding and made it with the Jigsaw addition to our tools. It actually turned out really good, looked cool and was sturdy. Now as the years have gone by we have advanced our projects and tool selection. Our most recent job was completing an unfinished attached garage in our house to our new master suite. It was a lot of fun and yet another opportunity for hubby to buy tools he didn't have. He needed some good wood boring bits to drill through the framing for the electrical wiring. This was by far our most ambitious project yet and I have to say after a year of work it is almost finished. We even started practicing with a router to make our own decorative shelves and again this allowed us to ad to our tool selection again with some router bits sets It's a good thing our home has a big basement because it is almost full of tools but it does make a great workshop and keeps the mess down there. Now if you think I'm crazy yet the next bit project we are starting in the spring is to add cupboards and reface our kitchen cabinets. This will be a very exciting and challanging job that we are really planning out and taking our time with, some new cutting tools are on the horizon first to be sure we can make all the cuts the way we want them and to have the kitchen look great when it is done. It can be frustrating at times but in the end our projects always turn out great.

ANOTHER STEP CLOSER.....

.....TO BEING FINISHED!

Today we finished sanding the bedroom walls and bought the paint! (finally) We went with a warm shade of brown (light) and Matt actually got one coat of paint on the walls earlier this evening. WOW! it looks great and it makes the room look like a warm cozy room and we dont even have the carpet(or ceiling) done yet. I don't have any pictures yet to post but I will hopefully have them on the computer tomorrow then I will make you all wait until the room is finished. This has been a long time coming but we are almost there and we have done the work (except the new window) ourselves! What a feeling :0)

WHAT A MESS....

The renovations are slowly coming to an end and right now the house is a mess with all the sanding of the drywall. This chalky dust is EVERYWHERE. So are you wondering what the kids might be doing during all this work. Well here you see it! They have fun playing in the dust. In this picture it started off with a small white pile of chalky dust, then the boys were driving their little cars and trucks through it making tracks on the mats and then this....they thought it would be fun to make dust angels...oh and angels they are LOL!

MORE RENOVATIONS?......

I guess that is the question that we have been asking ourselves. So continuing on from yesterdays post....We did get up into the attic and what a mess but to our surprise there is a lot of space up there. Now for our big problem, where would we put a set of stairs leading up to the attic? Our first idea can't happen because we would walk right up into a wall so we will have to have someone come in to see what can be done. This attic renovation would give us an extra bedroom so that Blake could move to a bigger room. Although his room is made just right for him, it is teeny tiny with no room to play. We aren't going to look into the attic renovation until the family room and work on the outside of the house is finished. I think we have enough on the go!

This is Blake's room! It isn't long enough for a full twin size mattress in length, his dress is on the opposite wall with maybe four feet in between. It was the perfect little room for him a year ago when we moved in but he has grown so much and has already outgrown his little room. Hopefully the attic renovation will happen and we can move him to another room. Fingers crossed!

WINDOWS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!

What a great way to start off a day. We just got the phone call to tell us that the financing for new windows has gone through. Now we have to sit down and figure out which windows we need replaced first and make the arrangement with the company to get the work done. From what I understand we are looking at around 5-6 weeks until it can be done but it's still cold outside so why hurry. They will have to rip out the old garage door which will leave the house open to the cold and I have had enough of the cold this winter. So that is my exciting news for the day and now I can start thinking about renovating once again.(the picture is just an idea of what the window should look like in the family room. Maybe a little bit shorter in heigth...)

INSTALLING NEW WINDOWS

With our recent home renovations we are starting to get estimates done for windows installation in our home. Withour house being 80 years old it is in need of new windows and doors and hopefully if all goes as planned we will have window intalled in the early part of spring.

MAKING PROGRESS WITH OUR RENOVATIONS...

We have been spending as much time as possible on getting the garage/family room renovations finished. We have a lot of work still left to do but everyday we are getting a step closer. We are looking at around $1300 to frame in the garage door and have a window installed so that will be the first window to get done in the near future. If the other windows have to wait until fall or next spring then so be it. The walls are coming along and Matt has started the crack filing and what a mess but the kids can still use the room at least until he starts the sanding. With Matt being off this weekend I'm sure we will get a lot more accomplished.

***WHAT A DAY....

After having a great ADULT night out last night, we got off to a busy start to our day with tackling some much needed to do jobs in the garage/games room. The transformation from garage to games room is finally turning around but with lots of work left to do, we spent the morning putting up the vapor barrier over the insulation (which really cleaned things up) so that we can get ready for the gyp rock walls. If that wasn't enough work for the morning we started to paint the old garage door (will be a window in the spring) to give it a fresh new look for now, then cleaned and painted the old ugly paint chipping radiator to match the color that the walls will be (eventually)...What a difference little things can make. We enjoyed meat balls and rice for supper, bathed the kids and got them off to bed early. Oh what a day! :0) and very productive...