A few more updates...

Our painter started on Saturday and was able to sand and prime two bedrooms. This room below was originally the "blue bedroom." The trim was removed from the walls, then the plaster walls were skimmed and sanded. Now they are almost ready for the final coats of paint!

Here are our Glidden paint colors. From left to right: Navajo Sand, Soft Suede, Celery Stick, Barely Jade. The kitchen will be Barely Jade and I think it will look pretty with the white cabinets and butcher block.

New floors in the dining room. (Don't mind the Rosin Paper)

Foyer with new floors.

Living room. Kitchen cabinets are drying on the floor.

Ben took up the bathroom floor and then he and my dad put down the new subflooring and framed out the tub area. Doesn't it look good?

Ben and Jon skim coated the tall ceilings in the stairway. This was quite a job, since the ceilings are so high.

The living room.

Plumbers started on Saturday. They put in the pipes for the new sink and the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Can't wait to have a working toilet in the house!!

That's all for now! I may update during the week if we can get in there to get some stuff done. But we are scheduled to move this Thursday so we'll see how it goes. Thanks for keeping up with the blog, we love hearing all of your comments and encouragement as we go through this process!

The Big Kitchen Reveal!!

Ok folks, here it is! I am now a firm believer in the power of white paint! Kate, Meg, & I primed the yellow cabinets and now they are ready to be painted with the final coat of Glidden's "Swan White." Dad, Steve, & Ben installed the beadboard backsplash. It looks pretty good with our new butcher block counter & stainless sink. We can't wait for Wednesday when the new stainless steel dishwasher will be installed next to the sink!

Inside the cabinets were crackled plaster, so Kate & I chipped away at it and then I put up some new joint compound. You can see it's the darker shade of gray inside the cabinet. When it's dry, I'll sand it and paint it white. The cabinet doors are off to be painted, but it makes me think the kitchen would look pretty good with glass door cabinets.

Only a little bit of yellow remaining!

A closeup look at my plastering work.

Kate!! We are putting cardboard down on the counters to protect them while we still have people working in the house. Did you notice the new floors??? :-)

Sunday Funday

Look closely and you'll see the new butcher block countertop and stainless steel sink. Just ignore those old cabinets and red laminate backsplash! Drove up to IKEA today with mom to pick up these countertops, then my dad measured and cut them to fit. Once the cabinets are painted white and we have a new backsplash, it's gonna look great!

Pretty nice and can't beat the price. IKEA Numerar counterops in beech.

Refrigerator and stove removed for the floor company to come through and sand and refinish.

Sandy did some sanding today. Gotta love the sheetrock dust!

Looking nice and bright!

Hallway plaster came loose when we were demo'ing the bathroom so new sheetrock is going up.

Same thing happened in one of the bedrooms so all new sheetrock went up.

Hardwoods on the second floor! They are covered with sheetrock dust in this picture though.

Front bedroom is skim coated and partially sanded. Hopefully we'll have this room painted by the end of the week.

Ben's beautiful patching job. He's such a professinonal now!

Up this week:

1. Sanding and refinishing floors

2. Painting

3. Plumbing

It's getting there!!! Ben and I want to thank our parents for coming out to help us earn some sweat equity! You guys are the best and we love you!

We have paint on the walls! Well some primer at least...

Meg and Steve were the Painting World Champs on Saturday and helped us get some primer paint on the walls in the living room and foyer. It immediately brightened up the whole space and got us very excited for when we can paint the rest of the house!!

Welcome to the Second Unofficial Demo Weekend...

Mom and Dad got in to Providence at about 1am and arrived along with torrential downpours. Unfortunately for them, they had traveled up from NJ to Providence with the heavy rain so it made for a pretty unpleasant drive. But they made it safe and sound, along with Bella, and their luggage wrapped in black trash bags (since they were traveling in Dad's truck and all the luggage was in the truck bed!).

We woke up early Saturday morning and got started at about 8am. Well, I should say, Ben and Dad got started then. I went on my regular Home Depot run, which is turning out to be a daily trip, haha. Then Dad said we needed some extra laborers to help do some of the demo, so I posted an ad on Craigslist and we ended up with these 2 guys who were great workers. So below are the pictures from the end of the day on Saturday.

The future dining room. Notice the bright sunshine coming through the windows!

Downstairs bathroom. Toilet removed.

Dad framed the doorway, put up new trim, and sheetrocked/finished the walls.

Red counterop - gone. Dishwasher - gone. What's next to go???

Upstairs bathroom. Gutted even more.

Stay tuned for Sunday's photos...

Couldn't resist sending a little 'before and after' magic your way! Enjoy!

Before

After!

Before: overgrown jungle!

After Mom's amazing gardening skills: neat and tidy!

What a difference a week makes. I am truly so lucky to have such great parents to help us with this huge challenge! More to come this week.....stay tuned!

Demo Day 2!

Mom's battle scars from gardening. Those rose thorns hurt!

What a difference Mom!

Wow, it actually is starting to look like people take care of this yard!! Thanks Mom.

Tree stumps were grinded down to mulch.

Dad successfully sheetrocked and patched up the huge hole where the air conditioner was once mounted. I also got a valuable lesson on spackeling, which I will get to put to use for the next 2 WEEKS OF MY LIFE. Haha, can you tell I am sick of spackel???

While we were enjoying Matt & Amy's beautiful wedding in Millis, MA, my dad framed the new doorway between the dining room and kitchen.

You can see the new frame for the bathroom on the left. Even though it takes some space out of the dining room, it is worth it to get more valuable space in the closet-turned-bathroom that was there when we moved in.

Blue bathroom, almost gutted! Ben and my dad broke down the cast iron tub and took out the vanity. Unbelievable. The garbage can lid is catching dripping water from the plumbing.

Top to bottom view of the bath room demo.

**Just a little side note: After working all morning and afternoon, we called it a day at about 2:30. We went back to the apartment and had a few beers, showered, and went to dinner on Thayer Street. We had a great time, and on our way home swung by the house because dad forgot his glasses in the house. We just happened to check the water situation in the bathroom and found out that the water hadn't shut off like we thought and the garbage can lid was overflowing with water! Water dripped through the floor and was dripping through the ceiling of the kitchen. Imagine we hadn't stopped by - that would have been an awful, awful surprise tomorrow night when Ben and I returned to the house. Anyways, we were able to shut off the water and the problem was solved, crisis averted. Ahhh, adventures in home ownership!