Main Floor Bella’s Room–Week 7

It’s been busy around here.  With summer in full swing we have been busy with extracurricular activities on the weekends.  This means is getting harder to fit in finishing up the renovation.  But we have been slowly getting some things accomplished.

I’m also entering my third trimester of pregnancy.  If I haven’t mentioned this before, taking on a huge renovation project while pregnant is not the greatest timing at all.  Between not feeling great, taking care of the kids, and fitting in a little bit of work on the house, my days are shot.

So let’s look at what we accomplished this week.

First up is a look at our new light fixtures in the family room.  I am excited about the addition of these sconces in the back of the room that gets absolutely no light.

We put the sconces on a dimmer switch so we can have some mood lighting for watching movies.  I really want to replace the ceiling light fixture at some point soon.  The bulbs always tend to burn out quickly and we have the hardest time changing them out.

We finished painting the new hallway and are making progress on painting the new section of family room wall, which was added to lessen the doorway width into the hallway.  You may also notice Bella’s large stroller sitting there.  We are going to have to come up with some type of storage system for her stroller and wheel chair, and most likely it will be in this hallway.  I also have plans to add some type of toy storage system in the hallway.

In the main hall bath the toilet and sink got installed.  You may notice the door is missing.  So this bathroom works for our family in a crunch but we really need to get the door installed to truly make it functional!  Of course the door was currently unpainted wood, so it only needs 8 coats of paint to be finished.  Only 3 coats left to go.

Speaking of the door, while it’s getting painted we are also busy painting trim.  Bella’s bedroom is currently untouched.  We are basically using it as a work station for now.  We did get her carpet ordered and it should be installed sometime late this month.  That gives us a couple weeks to get in there and paint the walls and ceilings.

Bella’s bathroom is almost finished.  The toilet and sink/vanity got installed.  We still need to figure out a mirror and lighting for the vanity area.

Also remaining on the list is getting a closet system purchased and installed.

Our contractor is officially done, so now it’s all left up to us to get it done.  I’m still hoping to get Bella moved into her room at the end of this month (as long as the carpet gets installed in time).  I think that should still be a pretty realistic goal.  As I get bigger with pregnancy I am definitely looking forward to not having to carry her upstairs anymore.

Main Floor Bella’s Room–Week 6

Let’s get another update on the construction process.  Our contractor is pretty much finished up, minus a few cleaning items and such.  Last week he completed the installation of all the tiles.  So it was our turn to get in the rooms and start painting.

I’ll admit having to prime and paint both ceilings and walls takes quite a while, and quite a few coats.  We still are not done, but here is a sneak peak of Bella’s bathroom.

You may notice the painted piece of furniture sneaking it’s way into the photos.  This is the piece we decided to paint and turn into a vanity.  The color actually matches the shower floor tile better than the picture is showing.

You may also notice that the wall color is matching the wall tile.  Total accident, but it works.

We have another coat of wall paint that needs to go up and then it’s time to install trim/baseboards.  Once that’s finished the vanity needs to be put together and hooked up to the water lines and the toilet can be installed.  At that point we pretty much have a working bathroom.

But let’s talk another design dilemma.

Barn doors.  They are creeping up everywhere and I really want to use one between Bella’s bedroom and bathroom.

Here is an example of a barn door between a bedroom and bathroom.

My dad actually has an old door laying around that I would like to convert, but I’m afraid with the 36” opening we did for handicap accessibility, the old door won’t quite be wide enough to cover the space.  But here is an example of what the door looks like.  I would probably paint mine a mint green color to match the bathroom color scheme.

There is also the possibility to make your own doors out of wood.  I really like this double x door idea shown below.  But the likelihood of getting a door like this made is very slim around these parts…we are busy.

Another good option is the lightweight barn door application.  It’s lightweight because it’s a frame of wood with fabric in the middle.  You could potentially use an indoor/outdoor fabric to create the door that would hopefully work all right in the bathroom environment.

I think I have my husband on board for the barn door idea.  Now we just have to agree on the execution of the door and finding the time to get it made/installed.

Main Floor Bella’s Room–Week 4 & 5

As I sit and type this the contractor is working downstairs.  And it’s supposed to be his last day.  I just took these pictures this morning, so you can see how much work we will have left to do once he leaves.

Today they are finishing up the very last little bit of tile work and then getting a finish sand done on all the drywall.

Here is the new hallway looking towards our family room.  And then turning the opposite way and looking towards the front of the house.

Here is a shot from Bella’s bedroom.  Nothing really to see in here yet.

Next we are looking at the bathroom and new shower area (I’m standing in the new walk-in closet).

A close up of the tile.  The floor is a mint green penny tile.

We also added finishing the basement mudroom and stairs to this project.  Again just working on drywall, so not much to see yet.

Jesse and I will hopefully be tackling painting this weekend in the bathrooms, so we can get fixtures installed next week.

Looking for final pictures on our bathroom?  We still have the chandelier to hang and some final trim to paint and install.  Everything is functional so getting in there to finish things up is taking second place to getting the main floor areas usable.

Main Floor Bella’s Room–Weeks 1, 2, and 3

Hello my name is Kristen and I am about 1 month behind on my life.  Life keeps going all around me and I get further and further behind, hence the giant lapse in blogging.

But hey I’m here today, so let’s take a look at what has been going on.  These pictures were actually taken a week ago, so I’m going to go back in time a week to tell you our progress.

The contractor started work on Bella’s bedroom and bathroom.  The first few weeks were hit and miss with our family being sick, and the contractor having his own issues.  When he was here, he was working on things like plumbing and laying subfloor.  Those activities don’t lead to particularly good pictures.  The past week he started hanging sheetrock.

Here is where it looks now.

Looking from the hallway into Bella’s bedroom.

Looking at the shower portion of the bathroom.  If you look closely you can see the floor is lowered so that once the shower floor and concrete get installed it will be flush and a true “roll-in” shower.

Looking straight into the bathroom where the vanity and toilet will be.

Looking to the left where the walk-in closet will be.

Also as part of this project we are going to updating the hall bathroom, so it’s been stripped down and ready for new tile and paint.

And as far as our Master bathroom goes, we are currently able to use the shower and the sinks…and low and behold we finally have a toilet installed.  But it’s quite a mess as we have a lot of additional things to get installed/purchased.

I will give you a hint and tell you the hubby was productive this past weekend, and our bathroom is looking a lot better….pictures to come….you know…at some point!

Master Bathroom Remodel–Week 5

It’s still not done….wah wah.

Here is where it was at the end of week 5.

Lot’s of things are left to be done before we can call it complete.  But let’s just focus on what is left to do before it becomes functional.

1.  caulk the shower

2.  install mirrors and vanity lights

3.  install tub

4.  install chandelier above tub

5.  install toilet

The majority of the things left to do in the bathroom are up to Jesse and I.  But we have to focus on the bedroom and bathroom on the main floor so our contractor can keep working.  This means no time to finish up the small things in our bathroom for a couple of weeks.

So let’s take a peek at the progress going on downstairs.

Framing for the bedroom portion.

Framing for the bathroom and walk-in closet portion.

We had a little hiccup as we started to frame the bathroom when we realized the steel beam supporting the floor below was not in the location we thought it was.  So we spent half a day trying to rearrange our bathroom layout.  In the end we had to put up a false wall and changed the layout just a bit.  Basically we moved where the toilet was going to go.  The new layout makes more sense plumbing wise, but our walk-in closet took the brunt of the reduced square footage.

What’s Really Going On

This post has been a long time coming at least for me to explain what has really been going on around here for the last few months.

This is a picture from our vacation, showing Oliver goofing off on our boat excursion.  It also shows my ever growing belly.

I’m pregnant.

I’m about halfway through the pregnancy at this point.  And it has been a difficult pregnancy.  I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the third one and I’m busy taking care of the first two.  Or it’s because let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger.   Or if it’s just the luck of the draw on this one.  I struggle to get anything done, and by anything I mean getting up in the morning, taking a shower and brushing my teeth is a battle.  Let alone getting the kids ready for school, cleaning up the kitchen, doing the many loads of laundry, working, helping with the house remodel, doing bills…..which are all falling behind and suffering as I just try to survive each day.

So that pretty much sums up the lack of activity here on this blog. 

But I also dread getting dressed every morning because my maternity clothes are 7 years old and I hate all of them.  So I will be needing to figure something out and quickly so that I actually have something to wear.  Which might mean I actually sew something for myself.

Also my daughters legs are growing longer, but her waist is still super tiny.  This means the shorts that fit her around the waist, are well, a little short.  Kind of worried the school is going to tell me she is inappropriately dressed in her short shorts!  So I might have to make something for her in the near future.

And all that only happens if I can manage to make it past getting the kids off to school and actually having the energy to get anything done.

Oh and also thanks to my husband for putting up with everything right now.  I know it’s hard to understand when you are not going through it all yourself, and instead get to look at the huge mess around us, and the fact that I go to bed around 8pm every night.

Master Bathroom Remodel–Week 4

Last week was dedicated to finishing up tile and getting paint on the ceilings and walls.

This week should be the fun week, where all the finishes get installed.  If we are lucky we could be using our new bathroom by the end of the week.

Notice the weird middle space in the picture above?  It’s not for a urinal.  It is going to be for storage, but exactly what kind of storage remains to be figured out.  The original concept was going to be open shelving.  Now I’m beginning to rethink that idea.