Mud Room and Music Room Done!

February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day!  Life is good and I have two more rooms that I can say are finished. First, let's take a look at the Mud Room.  I have no real "before" pictures because it didn't exist before the remodel.  However, you can take a look at where we used to hang our coats and throw our boots in this picture.  The mud room occupies the outside door, the window to the left of the door (removed in the mud room) and the half of the window to the right of the door (removed in the mud room).  It also extends out to the closet in the left of the picture.  The closet was removed affording us the opportunity to put a window in, giving the room much more light.

The strange thing is that although we built a mud room effectively inside the living room, we now actually have more space inside the living room.  As you can see in the outside if the mudroom "after" picture here, we can have two chairs and a table instead of one chair and a table.

 I have to say that the mud room is one of my very favorites which is good because it is the room I see most when I come in the door.  This is my view.  The bright spring time green helps to get me through these dreary winter months as well.  And of course you have heard me say it before, I LOVE my aspen door...

The cabinets are recycled from our old kitchen.  I stripped and stained them and David put the polyurethane on them.  NEVER again, but I do like the finished product...

The benches took a long time to finish as we had to do five coats of poly and each took a day to dry.  However, I think they will definitely be able to take the pretty good beating that my kids will dish out.

This is looking back at the door I just walked through.  It is so nice to have a much better insulated door as things stay much warmer now.

And now for the music room.  There really isn't a whole lot of change here except for the fact that we moved an entire wall in three feet so that the room is much smaller.  Hey, the kitchen needed it and it was totally worth it for us.

Here is the room before.  notice that the windows will change as we put in much more energy efficient windows, a necessity in this climate...

Now, you can sort of see the wall that juts into the room as you enter on the right...

This is before, looking at the stairs, the room is much bigger...

This is after, with the top of the stairs now behind the wall...

This is the side of the wall that pushes into the music room...

You can see how it connects now...

This is looking at the old music room from the front door...

And now it looks like this...

So we lost a little space, but it is still just as functional as it used to be, and the space it afforded us allowed us to put an island in the kitchen which is priceless.

Last, but certainly not least, we put new hardwood treads in the stairs.  The old ones were made of very soft wood and were falling apart.  These should last forever, and with the kids growing up and having all of their friends over, we wanted something tough.

That's it for this post.  I will be back next time with before and after in the basement.  I personally think that those will be the most dramatic pictures.

Wishing you all a very Happy Valentine's Day.

~Mary

Kitchen - Before and After

February 8, 2013

So, the next finished room is the kitchen... It is a bit of a combination of our old kitchen, and the little breakfast room next to it.  I will try to show how we combined the two rooms and expanded the kitchen whilst opening the wall up to the living room.

This is the view as if you had come in the front door and were walking into the kitchen area...

Before, there was a wall and a very small doorway into the living room  There was also a wall separating this small room from the kitchen on the left....

Now it is open all the way through to the living room...

Before, I had very limited counter space as you can see the sum total of it in the next two pictures...

Now everything is open and I have much more counter space as well as cabinet space for storage...

I love the island (it has the fruit bowl on it in this photo). It is great for baking yummy treats.  

 I do need help finding some sort of art piece for the wall to the right of the basement door. 

 I welcome any suggestions. 

This is the old view from the dining room...

..

And the new view from the dining room.

And finally, my view as I work in the kitchen.  I get to see much more of the kids as they do their homework at the counter.

So, kitchen is done... up next will be the change to the music room (as it was reduced in size in order to expand the kitchen) and the kids bathroom (which was not in the plans, but ended up being a requirement as we exposed age old plumbing that was about to disintegrate).  That will be followed up by the basement, and finally the back deck.

Until next time...
~Mary

After A Long Silence

February 1, 2013

Wow, it has been a month and a half  since I last posted.  Funny thing about silence, it speaks volumes...

We made it through the holidays with very little fanfare.  Our tree was up a few days before Christmas and down a week after.  It was definitely a minimal year in that department, so I intend to have a super long and fabulous Christmas season for 2013.

I did leave the outside Christmas lights up through the end of January because they really cheer me up.  Two of our neighbors do the same and I love looking out at them every night. David and I took the outside lights down today.

So, back to the inside of the house.  I would say that we are 95% there.  So, over the next few weeks I will try to post a room at a time.  I am starting with the living room because it is the only one that is actually completely finished.  So, here are some before and after pictures.

Before, there was carpet and old windows that made it really difficult to keep the room warm...

Now there is hardwood floor, a rug, and new windows that keep the cold out.

Before, there was a blue wall map and an oversized fabric sofa (that has now been relegated to the basement).

Now, the wall map is more antique and there is another leather sofa (the two ends recline, which I just love, and the kids seem to think is their new toy).

Before, we came in the back door and hung up our coats and took off our shoes and anyone visiting was assaulted with the bad visual of all of our STUFF.  Also, before you look at the after picture, keep in mind the window to the left of the door as I reused it but it is used horizontally.

Now, we have a closed off little mud room to store all of the coats and boots...  It is behind the horizontal window.  

I also repurposed the door to the mudroom  It came from a pocket door that was between the living room and kitchen (you can see the opening in the next 'before' picture).

Before, we were separated from the kitchen with only a tiny little door and closet in the way...

Now, we have an open archway into the kitchen with a bar as separation.  The window next to the bar lets loads more light into the room as well.

So, there you have it, the new living room.  Not only does it look better and is quite a bit more functional, but it is also much warmer as we put in underfloor heating.  It is my favorite place to be as I can sit on the rug and it is all warm and cozy.  It should be good for sleepovers for the kids too.

So, I am in a much happier place as things seem to be coming to a close on the inside of the house.  I will post about the kitchen soon...

~Mary