Home Remodeling Part 15- General Update

I need to blog now about all that's been done in the past week because hopefully it will be overshadowed this weekend by more amazing transformations.... Transformations I will not be able to capture on film (well memory card) because this afternoon while taking pictures of the house the camera just died.... dead, nothing, zilch. I took a picture, walked across the house, and went to take another picture and it wouldn't turn on. The battery is fully charged and everything. Nothing. Maybe I'll be able to find our old camera somewhere while we figure this one out...

Dining Room
This week Adam laid wood laminate in the dining room with the help of John. It took them quite a bit of time and though it promised to just snap together it didn't really (do things ever work like they say they will?) and took them quite a bit of time. But I'm so glad they were diligent, it's really beautiful and we are waiting on the trim boards to come in.
You can see the floor here, in this picture with Max "painting" he loved to play with the roller, it entertained him for like 20 minutes.

Kitchen
I felt bad for our kitchen. It's the one room we decided to not "completely redo" in the house. We just can't make it fit into the budget right now. But of course it needed painted and all that regardless. I also felt bad for it because it has been the dumping ground for months. It's central to the house, it has the back door access, an entrance to the bathroom, it's off the dining room, and it has lots of counters and a sink. I finally called my mom a couple weeks ago and asked her to come help me with it. I knew there was no way I could do it alone and there'd be no better person to help me out with it, she can get anything clean and she doesn't mind painting.

Before
Remember this lovely wallpaper? I've saved a bit of it for an art project.

I don't have very many pictures of the kitchen, but you can see the green a little by the radiator. The wallpaper is above the counter on the left. And the built in is right next to the door on the left too.

We started early in the morning cleaning out the kitchen, pulling down wallpaper (yes, we still have wallpaper in our house), priming the trim, etc. By10:30 that night we had the kitchen painted. All the walls, trim, etc. You see, in our kitchen, there are three doors and doorways, another doorway, and a built in cabinet. That's a lot of trim. Previously the kitchen had been painted green, walls and trim, so it all blended together. When we started, it didn't seem like a lot of trim, but man it took forever. Tuesday among other things (below) we touched up, replaced the trim around the ceiling, and cleaned. Three Magic Erasers later, I still have more work to do, but we put contact paper in the cabinets, scrubbed and sealed the vinyl, and it actually smells clean and I'm not afraid to put food in there now.

I wish there were after pictures to show, but when I walked into the kitchen is when the camera kaputed.

Max's Room
We'd done the majority of the painting last time Adam's parents were in town, but we still had a subfloor and that was it. I wanted to do FLOR tiles, but it was going to cost $600 to do it (ugh!) and I didn't really want carpet anyway. I was then hoping laying the laminate would be really easy, but since it wasn't I was out of luck with that too. So, I was back to linoleum. Adam thought black and white checkered would kinda go with the retro feel of the house and especially Max's bedding. Since it cost a total of $70 I couldn't not try it and I love it! It makes the room feel so much larger than it is. But of course it was time consuming. We worked on it while we were waiting for other stuff to dry and things like that on Tuesday and Mom is a whiz with the knife, so she was in charge of the trim pieces. Now there's a couple safe places for Max to play on and I feel so much better!

Max's Retro Room. The floor and can you see up along the top where the accent color is bordering the ceiling? I really like this.

Living Room
We also hung wallpaper in the living room on the last wall. It will be painted the same color as the rest of the walls and hopefully will just be a point of interest and something a little different. We learned a lesson today, read all directions, even if you think you know what you are doing. Mom and I hung the first piece and realized it wasn't sticking to the wall very well and we were both frustrated, so I dug the directions out of the trash and soon after that we were on our way. I am waiting for it to dry over night tonight before I finish triming around the archway and paint it.

The texture on the wallpaper. Also, last picture taken with my beloved camera.

So all that's left on the first floor is our bedroom, the staircase, and the carpeting. Ahhhh, that's a good feeling. I need a big nap and some advil, but like the results I'm seeing. Hopefully Friday I'll get around to a crafty and food type update and have an almost finished spring sweater for Max to show off along with an AWESOME soup recipe that I'm in love with. Oh, and if you haven't noticed I've put Musical Monday and Thankful Thursday on hold until after this wave of company is through. I promise I haven't just forgotten about them I'm just too busy to even really check email right now!