Noooooooooooo!

As most of you may remember S-Money and I remodeled our first home.
Before:



During (yes it got worse before it got better!)



Almost after: (Why I cant find the final pic is a mystery to me dang it!) This will have to do:




We loved that tiny house. We put our whole hearts into it and learned a LOT in the process. We took a few risks (like our black kitchen and front door) and all in all fell in love and had a hard time leaving our little home. It was a wonderful time in our lives full of hard work and bumps in the road.

We were nicely rewarded for our work with an asking price cash offer the day we put our "For Sale by Owner" sign up followed by a waiting list of interested buyers. In the in end we had a very near 100% return on our hard work! It was an amazing blessing and a labor of love. Upon leaving our little home we experienced a tiny bit of sorrow knowing it was being purchased to use as a rental...ugggh renters in our cute house? Lame. But the time and the offer were right for us to leave.
So over the fourth we had some visitors stop in that said they looked for our cute house but had no luck finding it...I guess its because it looks like this now.....

Not my favorite. Its been painted white...the house the trim, the front door the trex decking...they spared the front steps or so I thought...but I drove by today they had put astro-turf on the front porch and down the front steps trailer park style.

Seriously...how sad. There is not much more to say.

WOW!

That's about all I know how to say...its been a LONG time since I've done any kind of house update! Don't worry we have been plenty busy around here.....then it finally got nice out...so we've been OUTSIDE!
Lets see what has S-Money gotten done around here:
Back yard leveled and fenced in

Kitchen painted and mostly completed
new roof and fascia
Hallway ceiling raised sheet rocked drywalled and painted
Master closet finished (minus flooring)
Dining room window trimmed out
Laundry room door moved and trimmed out
washer and dryer purchased and stacked neatly in new spot
master bath back to functional
year supply of firewood chopped and stacked
trees trimmed
A mini carnival planned and carried out...(not house related but totally post worthy!)


chimney stone picked up and ready to apply
swings up and functioning
and TONS and TONS and TONS more checked off our LONG to do list!

I'm so happy to report that although my posting on this blog has been minimal our work on our home has been CRAZY! I have so much to post and put with pictures that I do believe its been little over whelming to know where to start. But my guess that anywhere is fine. It feels so good (especially for Sean) that the large projects that include lots of demo and inconvenience are behind us now. I feel as though the rest is the FUN part of picking out the jewelry for our home like back splash materials, pendant light fixtures, flooring, cabinet hardware and other FUN projects that have more to do with decor then construction! And hopefully that means our life here at Casa Smith will return to more fun things like crafts and dirt bikes! In the mean time....I've gotta a LOT of catch up blogging to do! I have a head full of fun posts if I will just make the time to get them all on here!
Also...Sean is headed out of town this weekend..(no shock there is seems to be out of town A LOT lately) while he is away....I may just redecorate the family room....! Coolio!
Also I'm considering saying goodbye to my 1950s fridge. Although I've ALWAYS wanted a retro fridge and have LOVED looking at it...I would really LOVE a more organized fridge...try not using your door shelving for 20 seconds...(it doesn't have any) and see how you like it...its kind of a bummer!

One request....

Dear Sean,
Do you mind just changing this:


in to this:

Here is a slide show incase you need more details before you get started
Please and Thank you!
Love,
Your Wifey

A VERY permature reveal.....shoot me!

I cant hold it in any longer...I know there is a lot left to do to finish up...but seriously I LOVE this kitchen. I cannot keep it all to myself!

Although because I'm feeling the need to preface the whole post with....excuse the shims...the lack of cabinet trim...and back splash and hardware..ect ect...I'm feeling silly for posting! It is clearly NOT finished but people...I've had NADA for a kitchen for so long that I'm feeling SO spoiled with just this!
This weekend will consist of sealing our counter tops..trimming out the cabinets AND the window and possibly even getting rid of those shims you never know!

So....here goes....
BEFORE

And the same view AFTER:

and a few more....




I can't even begin to list all the things I LOVE about this kitchen...mostly because I'm wasting SUPER valuable nap time...I have to get the living room REPAINTED while OBizzy is snoozing...so I totally don't have time to explain EVERYTHING that is here and all that is to come...but that just means I'll have to update this silly blog again soon right? Off to paint!

Kitchen Part One!

We survived. Seven whole weeks without a kitchen...we are sick to death of chicken noodle soup (ok S-Money and I the kids were in heaven). It was a very long haul but our kitchen is so close to being finished. At this point we are totally functional...but still have a few important details to finish up!
So I figured I'd first need to start with before pictures....this tiny kitchen is in the center of the home...and when I say center I mean it. It sort of looked like a hallway with a giant stove in the middle. I kept telling Sean.."If we chose not to blow out the wall and just paint the cabinets I'm good with it...if we can get that stove out of the middle of the walkway its weird." It had a window and that was what won me over. The last house although a gorgeous custom home had no window and I missed having one.
So here goes...the Hoopty kitchen BEFORE

Thats it! Thats the whole kitchen. We call the house (among other colorful words) the house of built ins because they are everywhere. It must have been the thing to do in the late 40s and 50s. I had 4 count them people 4 useful cabinets. The others had really odd built in things in them that made them totally nonfunctional. Clearly that wasn't what sold me on the kitchen it was more this...

A large window (this one was even a crank window and although super cool....totally cold you might as well open it in the winter.)
And THIS window in the dinning room

These windows make this area they are so huge and so bright I fell in love instantly!
Its amazing what a little sunshine can do.
These pictures seem so foreign now...I bearly remember that odd space anymore. The new kitchen now has more cabinets then I have stuff for and more counter tops then I've ever enjoyed in a home! PLUS Sean and I poured our own concrete counter tops! They turned out darker then I wanted but SOOOOO awesome and it was pretty easy I'd do it again in a heartbeat! We opted to NOT pour them in place but pour them in forms in our living room...sounds insane...it was I will now have to start over in that room but it was worth it!
My good camera is visiting good friends right now....so I don't have new pictures BUT I cannot wait to reveal my kitchen its just what I have always wanted! Its white sunny and to me HUGE (but I had a glorified hallway before remember?)! I can't wait to show it off!
AND THEN.....well on to MORE projects my dinning room is going to be so awesome!

Barn Door Steal....

Ok so I've just been totally inspired...ok I totally want to copy this idea...you see I'm not sure if its inspiration if you just steal the idea...because its awesome and will totally work in your room instead of a door....and I love it...! (I had a design teacher tell me once...Design is all about OTHER PEOPLES ideas....but it would be nice to think of them on my own JUST once a great idea out of my OWN head....)

So I was reading on Grand Design...(Nikki is awesome seriously lots of talent the chicks in this family got a TON of creativity.) Nikki is going to be totally famous someday...and I worked with her was friends with her enjoyed her company and her sister and I have known each other for a long time...she did my hair for my wedding even....SO I think when Nikki is a famous designer...I can say I totally know her! Weather she will admit to knowing me...that's another story...regardless she is talented...while admiring her talents on her blog it led me to a new blog (new to me). Its so stinkin cool and I LOVE this door idea and I really think it would work in my room...now that I have closet (ok almost) and it will save the space a real door would take up...PLUS my brother might just build it for me.....you know he does that kind of thing!
Here is a quick phone (blah I know I'm too lazy to use the good camera) picture of my space....



By the way my kitchen is lookin awesome...we are pouring counter tops (concrete) tomorrow!!! Yahooo!!! Its a DIY first for us...wish us luck! (and yes by US I mean...mostly S-Money love that guy!)

Kitchen and a little behind the scenes!

So the kitchen/master closet/ bathroom extravaganza is totally underway. So that means....my house is blown apart my babies are living in chaos and every spare minute of my husbands life is spend WORKING on this shit box. Don't get me wrong there are days we love doing this...but this house has not NOT been as much fun as our first when we didn't have children running around....and we got to do a lot more of the work together.

Either way we are making progress...slowly but surely and hopefully by this time next week the dust will be clearing out.
Here are a few pictures of the progress going on....its showing signs of improvement kind of....
Our rockin new years party....

That WAS the kitchen.

That WAS the hall bath...its going to be the master bath just off the walk in closet we added.

Kitchen all insulated!

The kitchen as it sits today! (and yesterday...and the day before!)

This is progress people....when people do these transformations they show the before the after sometimes some in between but leave out all of the ugly details...I'm just gonna throw some out there in case there are those who think they might want to tackle this or something like it.

IT BLOWS!
We tore our out kitchen people that means no kitchen sink...we also tore out a bathroom that means NO bath tub as the other one just has a shower. I have two small children..the younger of the two HATES showers! Awesome!

We only have one bathroom...and loads of dirty workers in and out of it...my dream white tile looks terrible.

I seriously do not enjoy a bathroom kitchen combo...I don't like dishes where I shower and I dont like to wash dishes where I potty....the whole thing is making me nuts.

This is a very old house...very old prior to us living here it was empty for we think two years...we never really used the new bathroom much until we tore the old one out...now we know there were roots in the line. It has backed up twice...wouldn't be a problem IF we had two bathrooms but we tore one out....so that was terrible. It is now fixed cross our fingers! ;)

Its cold here in Prescott. It snows sometimes we are lucky that its normally gone by noon the next day. We tore our kitchen walls out....just in time for a giant storm and a boat load of snow that decided to stay FOREveR! After several weeks with NO insulation in the center of our home.....I was ready to give up. It might be true I almost cried when Banker insulation pulled in front of the house!

There is more much more that has gone into this like the plumber that took 4 extra days and thought bringing his 3 kids would be cool...one complete with stomach flu...or the tree that fell on the house during the storm.

Will it all be worth it? I really hope so...I hope that it will not only be worth it but my husband will forgive me for falling in love with such a piece of crap (the house just to clarify!)!