Yippee for a newly painted house!

Back of the House Before and After

Before

After

French Doors Before and After

Before
After

Before and After outside paint

Front of the house before

Front of the house after

I can see!

The plastic and tape have been removed from the windows and the painters are almost done. Once they leave, I will begin to take pictures. I can tell you now that it looks AMAZING! The dark brown against the brick is so pretty and really gives that natural effect we were going for. The Brown is exactly the shade we wanted and if anyone has experience with painting, you understand my excitement. Pictures to come very soon.

This isn't fun anymore

I think I hit the renovation wall. The painters arrived at 7 am this morning and I was happy to see them. However, by 6 pm when they were still here, I just about lost it.

The windows and doors are taped up and you can't go in and out of the house. So when I arrived home at 3:30 pm after a long day; once I got in, there was no going back out. We can't open the windows and I am starting to feel like a caged rat.

I just happened to go and check on the Koi pond, when I uncovered one of the painters sweeping dirt into the pond. Then I see that my pond pump is off. Nothing nearby was unplugged so I started to freak. Of course the painters had no idea why my pump was off. Fortunately one of them finally admitted that they unplugged something on the upper level patio. Sure enough, that was the problem. I have no idea how long it had been turned off, but I was not too happy and they knew it.

It probably wouldn't have been such a big deal if I hadn't been living in a renovation zone for the past week. The living room still has no furniture back in it and until the job is complete, the master bedroom is our domain. I just keep telling myself it will all be over soon.

Vegas Baby!

So as you may already know, we decided to put tile in another hallway. I'm not sure why we didn't think of it before we started, but oh well. Unfortunately, the vendor we used did not have any more pieces or our tile in their California store. They did however have our 28 extra pieces in their Vegas store.



Not wanting to drive to Vegas I spent all day Wednesday driving from tile store to tile store, looking for a match. After hitting up 30 stores, I admitted defeat. I had no idea how many different variations of the same tile type there are out there. There is different finishes, colors, patterns, colors all which can be a close match but not close enough when the tiles are up against each other.



So on Thursday morning we drove to Vegas to have some fun and pick up our tile. We stayed at my most favorite Vegas hotel, the Paris and had a great dinner and some drinks. Before we went to bed, we picked some Keno numbers and waited until the morning to find out if we won.



Holy Crap! I won $400.00 bucks. Well that was fun.



We picked up the tile at 10 am in Henderson and got home about 3 pm. When we came home we were happy to see a good deal of the work was complete.

Moving right along

The tile in the kitchen, entry and living room is complete. We are also the proud owners of new base boards.
The grout is done and the tile is polished.

Now we just need to paint the base boards to match our new shutters.

Renovations Day Two

The Bathroom Wall tile was laid today with the trim and bullnose.
Bathroom wall tile. We went with a slightly darker color.

No longer are we the owners of tile smaller than my feet. Now we have big beautiful tile.

Living room is cat approved.

Renovations Day 1

I can't tell you how impressed I was this morning when the tile man showed up on time at 8 am on the dot this morning. When I came home at 4 pm this afternoon, to my amazement, 80 percent of the tile was laid. It's beautiful, and it makes the living room and entry look much bigger. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Renovations

This week we are starting some renovations on the house. The tile guy comes out tomorrow and we will be replacing the nasty old ceramic tile with big beautiful travertine tile with a chizzled edge.

We have also decide to take out the carpet in the living room and take the tile all the way through. It may take some time getting used to not have carpet in the living room, but I think it will be much better.

Now more worrying if the dogs will track in mud from the back yard onto the carpet.

We will also be taking out this ever so lovely builders quality vanity from the guest bath and replacing it with a new modern one.

This tile is as small as my feet and the grout I'm sure was white once when they first installed it 20 years ago.

Now it's grey.

Better view of ugly tile in kitchen

Hi

I know, I know. I am the worst blogger ever and never update. But then again, no one actually reads this blog so I guess it's not that big a deal.

I am back on the work out train and loving it. In the mornings the dogs and I walk two miles and in the afternoon, I hit the gym. I ran 5 miles on tuesday and today I attend spinning at my new gym. I have been working out consistantly for the past month and I feel so much better. I am trying to get my time down on the 5k to under 29 minutes. It's hard as I really am a slow runner. So I have been doing some treadmill work at least thee times a week.

The house is going to be painted on Sat. I am so excited to see the results. We have been talking about this for almost a year. I say almost because we moved in on April 15th 2008. I can't believe our first year as home owners is almost up. I have to be honest, it was one hell of a year. It had more ups and downs than a roller coaster. However, its been a fun ride and I would have changed a thing.

So it's exterior paint on Sat. and all new tile in the entry, kitchen, living and guest bath on Monday. I will post before and after photos for your enjoyment.