Grand transformations

A lot has changed since my last posting. The school semester closing off got in the way of me keeping a more steady blog, along with a few interviews and the holiday/family season. I haven't been able to keep up with pictures always either due to forgetting the camera, or early sunsets, so I apologize.

The cabinet guy has officially completed all my cabinets, so yay for that! They look absolutely stunning and I can not wait for them to be installed into my home.

The above are labeled as to the proper placement of them.

 Below are all my kitchen cabinets, including the open corner cabinet. The cabinets with the missing center panels are the display ones that will have glass in the front.

 The picture below is the new cabinet face of the linen cabinet in the hallway. Good picture for an idea of what the cabinet color will be in sunlight.

The cabinets can not be installed until the texture has been done on the walls in the kitchen and bathrooms, and the walls have been painted. After much stress, the heater has been officially fixed, so the drywall and patching could finally dry. Texture will be up tomorrow throughout all missing areas in the house. Thursday we are meeting with the painter and possible carpet installers. Hopefully paint will go in Friday, Saturday, and at latest Monday. That means cabinets can begin going in Monday, finish on Tuesday. Granite can then go in Tuesday and Wednesday.. and then I can begin moving in finally!! Oh and the kitchen appliances will be delivered on the 3rd, so yay for having a fully functioning kitchen then.

The bathroom is pretty much done and looks awesome (sans cabinets and sink of course lol)! It's exciting to see a bathtub with enclosure in the new location and walls everywhere.
First picture is the view of the bathroom from the new doorway in the hallway. The second is the view of the bathtub area from inside the bathroom itself.

 The below view is the opposite side of the bathroom view while standing in the bathtub.

Kind of exciting to see it huh?? And the bedrooms look so much nicer too! They took off the closet doors and started to tear out the poor shelving in them. Without the old closet doors, they look freaking huge. The rooms look amazing.

My future bedroom below. You can see where the door use to be and is now patched up, and the amazing closet :].

 A better view of the vanity.

 View of the opposite side of the room from inside the closet. See the lack of popcorn on the ceiling???? :]

 The other bedroom below! Once again a view of where there was no wall and now there is.

 And a view of the full room without the mirrored closet doors and new wall.

I can't wait for everything to start happening like a snowball going down a hill soon. In the next week the house will change from looking like a construction zone to a completed home. So exciting! I promise I will update more frequently now.

Much love!!!
<3 Kathy

Progress in pieces

Although it is lengthy, progress is being made. The kitchen is almost ready for cabinets and paint, which is awesome. The lights were put in last week and all the whole's were touched up. The drain behind the refrigerator was pushed back so now our painter can come in and made it look more like a room than a construction zone.

The upstairs bathroom officially has a dropped ceiling! With the recently installed lights and new air vents (we unfortunately had to replace the entire heating and air conditioning units because they were original from the home.. 31 years old and not functioning one bit), it looks pretty spiffy actually.

I'm not sure if you can see in the picture, but they started to put up the sheet rock to close off one of the bedrooms. 

 The tub is hopefully getting installed on Monday, so after that is in, it will DEFINITELY start looking more like a bathroom and less like a gutted space. Hopefully once the tub is in, everything else will start falling into place much faster.

I'll post again a little later today with the inspiration pictures I was talking about from my neighbor. Sorry for the delay! School is over now, so hopefully I'll have more time to keep you all updated.

<3 Kathy

p.s. - With every negative there is always a positive. We did have to spend more money than we had originally anticipated due to the overhaul of the heating & a/c unit. However, they replace all our vent covers in the whole house for free, and they look sooo much nicer now!

New happenings!

The demo continues in my home every day. Since I have last posted the new door placement has been cut out  for hallway access for the upstairs bathroom and the supporting wall was removed as far as demo.

First the doorway: the view from both the hallway as you approach, and then the view out of the doorway from the future bathroom entry.

Next the supporting wall being removed: now you see them, now you don't!

 One of the things to note in the picture is the lack of insulation on the wall behind where the tub used to be. The original builder of this home never put it in, which was illegal even for that time. Yay for my contractor finding this and being able to fix it.

Next I'll show a wide view of the bathroom as of now:

 The frame is being put up in the bedroom, and the second picture will probably be one of the last I'll have where I'll be able to see into the bathroom from the bedroom. You can also see in the first picture the beams that were put up for the dropped ceiling we'll have in the bathroom.

And lastly, we have light!! Or rather, lights :]. Canned lights were installed in the kitchen a few days ago, and today they installed them in the stairway and upstairs hallway. Only place left to install lights now are both bathrooms, my vanity, and the laundry room.

 Before..

.. and after!

Entry way lighting 

 Staircase lighting! You can see the hole where the previous light was.

That's enough updates for now. Tomorrow I'll post about some changes we made to our plans in the kitchen and windows. I will also include inspiration pictures from my neighbor :].

<3 Kathy

Can you say Demo??

Last Saturday morning was when the demolition of my future home was supposed to begin. I was away at the time with my family for Thanksgiving, so I was unable to go and see the "damage" until later that night. Garrison swung by a little before I planned on leaving my parents house just to see what progress has been made it any. And whoo-wee! When he walked in, the kitchen was no more...

 The first picture is the doorway to the right as you enter the home. The second view is from the living room, and below is the picture from the corner where you see the doors above.

Well, they sure as heck weren't waiting! Demo was well on it's way, and it was only the beginning!

We stopped in again on Sunday and Monday, and during that time they demo'ed the tile in the hallway:

And the half bath downstairs! Or well, the vanity section that we're replacing anyways. 

It was quite a surprise to see the downstairs area so empty! It almost makes the home feel a little eerie, but at the same time it makes me really excited for what is to come :].

On Tuesday, Gary and I came back to check it out once more. This time there was a trail leading up the stairs..

Lo' and behold, the bathroom upstairs was no more!! Both vanities in the bedrooms were torn out, only to leave the naked lights on the walls.

 

And of course, the bathtub and enclosure were a done deal.

 Purple behind the tub? More deliciousness.

Good bye bathtub! You will be a sink and vanity in no time I hope!

And so the saga continues! Soon the wall to the left of what used to be the bathtub will be torn out, and a support beam will be put in place. The carpets will come out eventually, and the home will smell much more fresh and new. Until then, I await with baited breath to see what the next step will be. TTFN!

<3 Kathy

 

Too many choices!! Lowe's Round 2!

I have no idea how builders and designers make choices on what works best in different homes and rooms.. it's so difficult! Especially when you have 4 different people weighing in their opinions all at once!

We (my mom, dad, Gary, and I) went to Lowe's yesterday to make final decisions on the dishwasher, stove, microwave/hood range, and to take a look at accessories for the home. We made finals choices and sales for the appliances (which are on a 3 week back order from Korea.. crazy??), but accessories were a whole 'nother batter. Fortunately we ended up with being able to make a choice, albeit it was only one thing for sure selected.. the shower stall:

Go figure? We did however look at faucets..

Seriously how do you choose?? TOO MANY OPTIONS!! This is just one section of the EIGHT sections of fixtures they had at this Lowe's.

Canned lights for the kitchen, bathroom, and hallway. At least it's down to 2-ish? For now lol.

A potential light fixture for the downstairs half bath.

And the idea of what I would LOVE to have for my vanity/make-up area.. but it's much too large.

Round 3 of Lowe's will happen tomorrow after I've successfully *fingers crossed!* completed my Black Friday/X-mas shopping. Tomorrow we will have to make decisions on hardware for the cabinets (which we have been avoiding so far), and final light fixtures.
We have an idea of the grey we want for the wall color too, but it's just a little too light. Who know how hard it was to find the right shade of grey? Go one shade darker or lighter and it ends up being too green or too blue. Bah!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
<3 Kathy

Selection appointments for the cabinets and granite!

A few days after we got the keys, we had the contractors begin to walk through the house. We discussed with them everything we wanted completed which including demo and remodeling of the kitchen and bathroom, replacing all the windows, removing popcorn from the ceiling, and getting new flooring. We talked to a few people, and eventually found the guys we wanted to work with. Of course though, with every individual contractor, you want to check out their work space!

So first we went to the Carpenter/Cabinet guy. His name is Enrique and he works at the Oak Mill in Ceres.

This is a picture of the front of his shop. There are a bunch of other contractor-like businesses surrounding his, so it seemed like a busy place. Below is a picture of the workshop itself in action.

 As you can see, there are bunch of different projects they are working on all at once. It's a pretty awesome workspace!

 This is an example of a desk/vanity area they were working on for another client. He was adjusting this one for his client who was 6' tall. He had me sit on the chair and measure to what height he needed to adjust the shelf (for my vanity) since I'm a whole foot shorter lol.

And of course this is a whole bunch of cabinet samples and doors they have that they use when meeting with their appointments. The wonderful thing about them is that they will also make a custom design if you want to combine elements from different designs they have (like we did). Nothing fancy of course because that goes over budget and is completely unnecessary.

Enrique was great with answering all our questions and making any last minute changes we had. He made sure that he adjusted the cabinet above the stove to fit the microwave range, and said he would have a sample of the stained door for us before we would officially sign contracts. So far we like him very much! I'll let you know my full satisfaction after the project is done :].

After met with the cabinet guy, we headed over to the Modesto to speak with our Granite guy. His name was Danni.

Once again his is their store front! Right off the freeway so it's easy to access.

 They had a HUGE selection of Granite, and even tile as well! They also had sinks for sale, which made it really conveinient for us to not have to look for elsewhere. Super cheap! Our bathroom sinks were only $40 each!

And if you look in the back of the picture you'll see they had a mock shower stall made out with tile. They had a rather large selection of back splashes as well and any tile combination you could think of for kitchens or bathrooms.

Danni worked everything out with us right away. We found a granite we loved! I would post a picture but none of the ones I took do it justice. If you look at the first picture of their showroom, it's the black one 4 in from the left on the back. He gave us a quote then and there, and even offered us a discount since we were working with Enrique, his friend and we bought 3 rooms worth of granite and vanities with him. Hooray for affordable, cheap, bulk buying :].

Overall we're very happy with the selections :]. The cabinets and granite go well with the current floor tile, and we're going with a nice light grey on the walls to pull everything together. Now all that's left is to pick out the accessories lol. Kitchen faucet, bathroom faucet, door knobs, light fixtures, etc. We (well me) have a vague idea of what we want.. final decisions will be made on Friday!

I'll post our adventure from Lowe's today sometime tomorrow. Good night world!

<3 Kathy

p.s. - Totally forgot to post this picture before, but this is Gary having the first meal in the new home! Don't you love our ghetto-fabulous stepladder table? ;]