dry wall for the mudroom

After we gutted and framed in our newly divided laundry room and entry way, it was time to hang dry wall. We decided to do it ourselves to save money ... and this was by far the most frustrating home renovation project thus far.

In the last picture above you can can see the beginning of construction of the archway from the entryway into the living room. This matches the other arches in our living room that lead to our hallway and dining room.

We also go a tankless water heater to put in our laundry room so we would have more room for our washer/dryer.

We next had to sand and mud nails and tape, sand, and mud all the seams.

In the pictures above you can also see the tile we laid in these rooms. They are actually vinyl tile by Allure  from Home Depot. We originally wanted to use real tile, but had a lot of pipes coming out of the floor in the laundry room and thought cutting would be difficult. We needed something easy to install because the clock was ticking down on when our appliances were being delivered. We were really happy with the Allure because of the ease of installation and the "real tile" look, as well as ease of cleaning.

Next I will post pictures of the finished product!

a screen porch turned entry-way/ laundry room

We assume that our lovely 1940s home originally had a screen porch, but at some point washing machines came a long and in a need to find space for a washer the owners enclosed the space. This was done kind of haphazardly...such so that the "laundry room" had an exterior window that looked in to our living room and an exterior door leading to our living room. Needless to say this provides an awkward living space, not to mention the horribly cheap looking faux wood paneling that was used to enclose the space. Some other fun details are that all the electric wires for the room ran on the outside of the walls and the hot water heater was to large and obtrusive for the space.

Below are some photos in the middle of stripping the room down to its studs so we could actually run electrical in the walls and then sheet rock over them. I wish I had pictures of the ugly faux wood paneling and the layers of green and mustard exterior siding and tar paper we found underneath it. These pictures show where the old exterior window and door we removed were and how it did literally look into our living room

 We knew we wanted to overhaul the space for many of the reasons above, but especially since our parking lead us to enter the house through the back door that leads into this porch/laundry room mess. We wanted this room to serve as a pleasing to the eye entry way/ mudroom.

However it would still have to serve as a laundry room and utility room for our water heater. Not liking the idea of having out laundry in plain view as we entered our house, we decide to divide the room into two rooms. Luckily it was long enough to do so. This way we could have our laundry room and water heater behind closed doors and would have a nice entry space/ mudroom when we enter out house.

Here are some pictures of the middle of construction. It shows how we added recessed lighting, Collins building the wall that will divide the two rooms, and Collins framing the empty hole of where the window once was. We also added HVAC vents into the room so it would count towards our square footage.

My next post will show our dry wall adventure. I don't wish the task of mudding and sanding on anyone. We did it ourselves, but after such an experience I truly believe it is something that should be left to the professionals.

Our house (around) one year later: kitchen continued, again

Today I finally took some pictures of what the kitchen looks like to date (July 22). What we have done so far:
- took out old appliances, floor, and cabinets
- primed and painted walls
- installed hardwood floors
- installed new kitchen cabinets and hardware, sink, faucet, counter top, toe kick, and appliances.
- installed recessed lighting
- installed under cabinet lighting

Still to do:
- add subway tile back-splash
- add trim top and bottom of cabinets
- remove florescent light and find a flush-mount light we like 
- case in doorways

Next post will be about our mudroom/ laundry room overhaul.

Our house (around) one year later: kitchen continued

In my previous post I discussed the gutting of the original kitchen and the new hardwood floors we installed. Our next step in the kitchen was designing our blank slate. We were excited to find out that Ikea had reasonable prices on cabinets and counter-tops. Another reason Ikea was attractive to us, is that they have an online planner where you can design your kitchen on your home computer. You put in the dimensions of your room (wall length, ceiling height, doorways and windows) and you can layout your room and view 2d and 3d versions of your design. The engineer in our household (Matt) loved this feature. It took a month or so, but he finally got a layout he liked. A great feature of this planner is that it uploads your designs to Ikea, so when you go to the store a design consultant can open it and go over it with you to make sure you haven't missed any crucial detail. Then they submit the order for you there.

Luckily an Ikea had recently opened in North Carolina and we were able to check out the options in person. After one visit we decided we loved the look of their "stat" white doors for our cabinets (is a beadboard look) with a butcher block top. We envisioned a cottage look with simple white, wood, and stainless pieces.


To our excitement Ikea has a sink with a similar look to a farmhouse sink (DOMSJO). We picked out Ikea's GREJ pulls for our drawers and GRAVYR knobs for cabinets. We got stainless appliances from Kenmore. The walls are Benjamin Moore's - Wickham Gray (which we love for its blue and green undertones). We plan to eventually add white subway tiles as a back-splash.

Here are some pictures of the installation process (Ikea is very easy to install):

Next, I will post some pictures of the finished product with cabinet doors on!

Our house (around) one year later

Collins and I bought a house in the Mordecai area of Raleigh, NC in April of 2010. Many renovations were needed, and we didn't move in until September of 2010. We have lived there for almost a year, so I thought it was time that I blog about our construction projects and life in our home.

We will also occasionally blog about our wedding plans, meals we create, and other topics we find interesting.

Nothing explains a renovation project like some before pictures, unfortunately my picture taking started in the middle of most of our projects, so there are not true before images... however I think you can get the idea.

The first project we tackled was gutting our 1940's Kitchen. Below are pictures of after we removed the original cabinetry and floors. It was a ton of work... here is the gutted look:

We next put down hardwood floors in the kitchen to match the ones in the rest of the house. A lot of people buy unfinished hardwoods and then stain them to match the others in their home. The seller had just refinished the floors before the sale so we could have easily asked them and found out what stain they used. However, we were in a rush because we had appliances waiting to be delivered, so we decided to buy Bruce pre-stained oak hardwoods, which are sold at Home Depot and Lowes. The stain selection is different at the two locations. Pre-stained hardwood does have variation within the box; however our original floors had a large span of color variation. I could not find one at either location that was a perfect match. To solve the problem we decided the use one pre-stained color that Lowes had and a similar color from Home Depot and mix the boxes, this was an easy solution that added a good bit of variation and prevented the floors from looking like they didn't match the rest of the house.

We spent about two nights laying the floor. I would pick the board layout and cut end boards to the correct length and Collins nailed them in. Here are some pictures:

Stay tuned for updates about out cabinet installation!