Before and After

Hi Friends, I hope you had a beautiful Christmas. We certainly did.

My last post was about taking down a wall at the last moment. Here I wanted to share the results of that action. First I want to apologize for the dark pictures, the flash on my little camera just does not do the job. Secondly, the before pictures are not recent, but taken about 2 years ago, they still give you an idea of how much things have changed and why I feel like I am rattling around in this new bigger space. LOL.

This first before is of the wall we took down, on the livingroom side, through the door you can see the old bedroom.














This is the new space, where the old bedroom was (new bedroom is through the door there).














Here is the same space from the kitchen area. Click on the picture for a large view and hopefully better detail.















This before is from the kitchen, you can see the old livingroom, and diningroom as well as the computer wall (which was removed).















Now the new space being used as kitchen and dining. The kitchen will be changed a bit in the future, but for now it is pretty spacious.















From another angle, the dining area which used to be our livingroom.














We are happy with this increase in space in alot of ways, though we have realize it is going to be alot harder to keep things as warm and we will be using more wood. Our little 800 sq feet was easy to heat, this new space, well you get the idea.

The extra space is wonderful for having company, at least now we can have dinner guests and have friends and family spend the night without having to get them a room elsewhere. It will be even better once we complete the upstairs next summer.

Hard to believe there is a new year just a few days away. So I want to wish you all a

VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pre Christmas Insanity

Have you ever noticed how insanity strikes just days before a major holiday or event/party?

Well it struck our house. Now mind you we had plans on doing this but I was pushing to wait until after the holidays. Our oldest daughter and family are coming for Christmas. Kirk has been talking about taking this wall down. It is the wall between our old bedroom and the rest of the house. All I can see it the mess and frankly I am cleaned out. I say ok, reluctantly, if he doesn't make a big mess.

Well I have to commend my hubby, he did not make a big mess, he was very careful, putting up plastic and removing the drywall in big chucks. No smashing demo.
















This is from the bedroom side.

And from the living room side, where the computer sat.














A view from the kitchen of the wall.















With the drywall down, from the bedroom side.














Here is the room after the wall is down, beams put up and computer in its new temporary position. Sorry the pictures are so dark, to far a distance for the flash.















The kids will be here tomorrow, so I will be back after Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all, may your celebration of Jesus birthday be joyous.

Just in the nick of time & A hole in the wall

I have to tell you all about our Sat. morning. We needed to get our Christmas tree and there is weather comin in. So we get going up the mountain in the jeep. It is a good morning, but there are clouds to the North. It is about an hour up to the tree line and about 1/2 way up we also found the snow line. Pretty soon the snow was about 2 feet deep off the road area, so we started looking for the right tree, pretty soon we found it. It is a bit to big for the jeep so we stuck it in as far as we could and headed down the mountain with about 4 feet of tree hanging out the back end.
We got home just in time, Kirk got the tree out of the jeep and this is what moved in. It began snowin and did not stop till sometime after night fall. This first picture is 15 minutes after we got home.















And this is how well one could see, you can't see our neighbors house over there behind the trees. Can you imagine coming down a mountain with a snow covered road (dirt road) in this stuff, it would have been hard to see where the road was.















Here is what we woke up to this morning. Most of this fell yesterday afternoon. And yes there is our tree, it will be ok, besides we are still remodeling so it can't come in yet.















Speaking of the remodel, today Kirk cut out the new door way. Here you can see where the old window was and where the new door way is going.
















The opening is cut out and the bottom plate being removed














The old bedroom door has been moved to it's new location in the new bedroom, trim is up. Part of the trim work is done on the old window, now door. You can see the steps to the stairs leading up to the studio.





















From the inside of the new bedroom. Again you can see the stairs that lead to the studio. What a difference this change has made. We are now connected to the new part of the house.















We also got the closet poles up, so now I can move our cloths over there. Tomorrow I will be cleaning the floors and getting ready to move in.

Ordered new material for curtains, it should be here tomorrow. More to come, see ya soon.
Night.

Ferns, Sills and Fans

Another update. We have been working on the final details of our new master bedroom.

While watching HGTV one day I was this gal do ferns on her wall, I decided I had to do this, so I started looking for the stencil. Finally I found it at Designer Stencils. com they have tons of great stencils, both for regular stenciling and sculptured stencils. So if your inclined to do this check them out, they have a great grape vine sculpture stencil.

So anyway, here is the stencil ready to be mudded. All I did is use drywall mud, but them of course this is new construction and the wall have not been painted before, so it worked fine.















Just spread the mud and trowel it off, and this is the result. There is a second stencil that produces the stem.















The unpainted wall with ferns on it, before stems.















Here the wall is painted, the color doesn't show up well, it is a pretty green. The stems have been added.
















Another view from across the room. The bay window is to the right.
I am very happy with the result. All the painting is done.















Kirk has begun work on the trim, beginning with the window sills and trim.
















We also got the tin up on the ceiling, what a pain in the neck to say the least.
The fan is up, now if I could figure out what I did with the bulbs. Sigh. I have searched high and low..........
















It won't be long now until we can move in. Tomorrow it is cleaning day, time to clean the floors of all the drywall dust, wood shavings, etc., that have accumulated over the last week. Kirk has to hook up the plumbing for the bathroom and cut the door opening into the current part of the house, move a door.
Just a few more days until the kids get here for Christmas. Though the plan was for the upstairs to be ready, that is not the case, so we will share a cozy Christmas.

Until later,
God Bless.........

We are getting there.

Wow, we have been so busy. We are finally getting ready to paint, wahoo.

Over the last several weekends we have been working very hard and of course everything takes longer then Kirk thinks it should. We are coming down to the wire, Christmas is just around the corner (as if you didn't already know that). We have had to modify our plans. We are concentrating on getting the downstairs finished, the upstairs is on hold right now.....it can wait until later, and BTW after Christmas we are taking a bit of a break and are going to veg out.

In the picture below, Kirk is working on getting the drywall up, he is in the closet. The shape beside his head is the upper part of the stair case, under it is a hallway into the bedroom, behind him, (though the white door) is the bathroom.
















If you will notice the blue electrical boxes through the white doorway, you see what kind of looks like a ladder on the left.....that is the pocket door into the closet from the bathroom. So what is the white doorway, where does it go???????..........well into Kirk's new shop area, now he doesn't have to track through the house to........well you know. Yes, one goes through the closet to get to the bathroom from the bedroom. Albeit unconventional, it works and is as it is because we had to change the placement of the staircase AFTER the bathroom plumbing was in conrete (literally).















All the drywall is up and mudding is done, what a royal pain in the...........neck, not only do you get to put the drywall mud on the wall over all the seams and nail holes, but you then get to sand it off. Now don't laugh, but after sanding all this stuff smooth, I had white hair, skin, cloths and BUGGERS! This stuff was like paste in my hair and I have had the honor of doing this 4 times now.............I hate doing drywall, I sure hope it is worth it. Today we textured the walls so they are ready to apply ferns to and then paint, guess what I will be doing this week. What color are the walls going to be, WELL GREEN OF COURSE. Is there any other color (if your me)? Besides what color goes better with wood, after all most wood has a green head before it is cut down.
















Kirk has all the wood up, isn't it pretty, it is really pink.....oh my favorite colors pink and green. LOL.
















This is looking into that closet, notice the drywall dust in the air, now you know why I had white buggers. ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing)





















Here you see the entrance to the new room. RuthAnn mentioned while I was visiting with her that she was having a hard time knowing where these passages all went, so I plan to draw up the floor plan for you all and post it, perhaps your wondering also.

Well, my friends I am off to bed now. Tomorrow will be another busy day and we only have 14 more days until our oldest daughter, Samantha and family arrive....that really translates into 1 and a half more weekends.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you will say Hello in the comment section. Night