The 'Great' Remodel of 2012

This year will forever be known as the 'Great' Remodel of 2012...

It's everything we wanted, turned out fantastic, BUT... definitely something I {personally} never want to do again!

I wish I had taken before pictures, but to be honest I just didn't think about it. It all started so quickly and the last thing on my mind {while in the middle of it all} was picking up a camera. Can you say dust, noise, and stress?

New Tile

We got new tile through out the entire house. Laundry room, Kitchen/dining room and both upstairs bathrooms. The tile was BY FAR the most difficult medium to decide on. We went in wanting one thing and came out more confused than ever. After taking our paint sample with us {on the 10millionth trip to the tile store} we came out with the above tile. It's nothing like we wanted going in to this project, but I am VERY HAPPY with it. This picture doesn't show it very well but it has hints of gold tones which compliment my oak cabinets well.

New Hardware

Because this project included paint {which you can see through out the photos} we felt it was time to ditch the gold hardware and go with the bronzed metallic. LOVE THEM! Not to mention the handles and dead bolt that were on the front door were pieces of J.U.N.K. It took an act of congress to get them to unlock with a key {which is never a good thing when you need to get in the house}.

Addition of Crown Molding

We have two partial walls just off our main living area that we added crown molding to. My heart goes out to the good men in my life that put the crown molding up. What a bugger! But it turned out BEAUTIFUL!

New Door , Baseboards and Awning

The door was the stepping off point for this ENTIRE remodel. We were in desperate need of a new door, after a few harsh winters and some extraordinarily wet springs, it had started to rot. The door also faces West, so it see A LOT of sun exposure. Naturally the new door needed to be painted, paint let to base boards etc. etc. etc...

Also, in order to protect our investment we put an awning off the back patio. You can see part of it beyond the door.

With the tile came new baseboards. As you can see in some of the other pictures rather than baseboards above our carpet we have carpet coving. Before the remodel our coving above the tile was made of tile. Tile coving is something I will NEVER do again. Since everything was torn up already we threw down baseboard above the new tile. Love it!

New Paint

..Last but not least...NEW PAINT through out the entire upstairs, including all the bedrooms and bathrooms. Our walls, trim and doors use to be the same color...eggshell white. While easy to clean and versatile they desperately needed some cleaning up. We went with a semi-gloss bright white for our trim and door, and a custom Sherwin-Williams paint for the walls {in satin}. I'm in love with the walls! Truly. They are yummy and warm. Seriously..I just want to hug them they are so pretty! We had an idea of what color paint we wanted, but the painter strongly discouraged the brand we had chosen so we did the next best thing...made our own. While it's a beige it has gold and green under-tones, which sounds awful, but trust me they are wonderful. I was very fearful of getting a beige that had pink, orange or gray under-tones...eek! No scary pinks or oranges in this paint. The paint also tends to change tones depending on the time of day/light that is coming in through the windows, and the lights used in the room. I just adore it. Have I mentioned how much I love the paint?

Now the real fun begins.....re-decorating!! As you can see a few pieces have been purchased {you can see those leaned up against the banister in the above picture} and await placement. The first room to get its final touches will be the guest bathroom. It has taken me {literally} weeks to find some of the perfect elements, but I have found them, and will post the final product as soon as I've got it all together.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to hug my newly painted walls {there's NOTHING like a fresh coat of paint to make things better}.

**This project was a pure labor of love. I've got some good men in my life {Husband, Father-In-Law, and Brother-In-Law, and Uncle}, to which I owe much gratitude for the final product. They worked tirelessly, for days on end, for nothing more than thank you's, food, and Mt. Dew. I'm VERY BLESSED to have such willing and able guys to make these things like this happen! Thanks guys! And WE Love You ALL!