House Progress

Since we haven't really done anything to the house since school started I haven't really posted anything here. But because I had a streak of creativity this week I decorated two new parts of the house:

Here is Daniel helping me hang the curtains. You can't really see the blue on the bottom, but they're really pretty and I'm so happy that all my planning worked out.

And here:

I decorated our dining room mantel! It's beautiful isn't it? I love it, but this photo is a little dark.

Here's another view of the mantel in which I show that the rest of our dining room should also probably be decorated, but I'll get to that in time. I also need to paint that room. I do like the color now, but it's just too dark for the lighting in that room.

Living in an older home

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our new house? Because I really do. I practically float around my kitchen making dinner and snacks for my family.

One thing has been nagging at me since we moved in though. Well, since we had to remove the lead pipes in the bathroom really. Lead poisoning. I've been seeing billboards for lead safe St. Louis around town and so a few days ago I thought I'd look up the web site. Most of me thinks, this is silly. Our home is fine. I have no reason to worry. Part of me though thinks, we live in an older home. Our bathroom plumbing was lead. Some of the paint on the window sills is cracking. What if it's lead?

Turns out you can get lead testing done for free here in St. Louis because of the high number of lead poisonings that are found in the older homes in this area. So I called to schedule an inspection. At least that will let me stop worrying about our house is slowly killing us.

Twilight Zone

While Daniel's parents were here he and his father hung the fan in Charlotte's room. What a life saver! She no longer wakes up sweaty and cranky from every nap I give her. On the other hand I've found out that our house is haunted.

Here is why:

All the upstairs fixtures in our house are on pull strings. Annoying and not very good for resale. We wanted to replace the fixtures anyway so Daniel was thinking he'd wire switches behind a picture rail that he'd install and then down to a switch level. When we went to go get our new fixtures we decided to go with fans so that there can be more circulation of the air upstairs, cutting down on our heating and cooling bills. (I have a point here so stay with me.) We found out that you can get remote switches for your ceiling fans. You mount them on the wall just like a regular switch, but they run on a 9V battery so you don't have to run wire down the wall. Whoever thought of this idea was a genius and saved our family much time and frustration. We both jumped on this idea and never looked back.

Dan hung our fan in the master bedroom right away because I thought my body might melt while sleeping up there in the August heat. Everything worked great! The wall mounted remote switch works so well I can't even believe it. We didn't run into anything weird until a few days after Charlotte's fan was up.

Now in the middle of the night her light will mysteriously turn on. The fan doesn't switch on or off or change speed, but the light will switch on. It will eventually wake either of us up and we turn it off for her. Luckily it doesn't wake her up. The weird thing though? It only does this at night and only in her room. Both rooms run on the remote wall mounted switch, but only hers turns on. Strange very strange.

Dan says that there must be something else around here on the same frequency as the remote. Or that something is wrong with the wiring of the fan. You know what I say? I say we're haunted.

Not a Photographer

Well we're done working on the house for now because Dan's school started up again last Monday. He came home last night all depressed because he's going to have to take Saturday to study. This is exactly what most of his Saturdays were like last year, but somehow he must have thought it wouldn't be the same this year. Yeah, right. So I thought I'd share a few photos of our house in this stage. I'm not a photographer and I had a hard time getting good angles to show off the rooms, but here's my best shot at it.

The Entry:

We found this table on Craigslist for $20. Originally it's a sewing machine table where the machine sits inside and the top flips open and then the machine comes up, but the insides are broken. We're just using it as a hall table so that doesn't matter anyway.Do you like the circle rug? I love it.

The Living room:

If you're looking at this photo thinking, "Why on earth did she put horns above that mirror?" The answer was that my husband thought it was a funny, funny joke to hang them there. I like having something above the mirror, but those belong in the bedroom with the other cowboy stuff.

Notice the horns are gone. I thought this shot showed the paint colors nicely. Again, I haven't put out our decorations yet or put any window treatments up so it looks a little bare, but I'm just excited that the furniture is in! I thought this showed the layout of the room well. We kept going back and forth about that rug orientation. We're living with it like that for now and then I'm going to switch it and see what we like best.

The Bathroom:

It is very hard to get good photos of such a small space, but here's my attempt.
Those shelves are there until Dan can make the built in shelves behind the shower. That'll be a while so I decided to paint the shelves we already had and put them there in the mean time.

Dan and I both thought that the hotel shower curtain rod my dad insisted we get was a little silly, but now we love it. It makes your shower feel loads bigger, but doesn't take up any larger footprint in the room. What a great idea.

Well, that's it for now. What do you think? There's still no window treatments in any of the windows and it sort of feels like we're living in a fish bowl, but that will come as soon as it can.

I was going to say

I was going to write this post about how we finally chose the family room colors together. How there's a beautiful blue above the picture rail. We painted all the wood trim too. And today we were fondly calling "Operation Gobi Desert." The color for the main part of the wall is called Gobi Desert. All that was going to happen.

Then Dan inspected the stain in the ceiling that kept coming through the primer. The stain was wet. Turns out that the T-joint in the plumbing to the vanity in the bathroom was s-l-0-w-l-y dripping down onto the ceiling and that's why the stain kept coming through. Dan went to work trying to fix the darn thing without having to completely rip everything to shreds. He was hoping to salvage some of Operation Gobi Desert. Then Lowe's was out of stock for the part he needed. Then the Home Depot apparently didn't even carry that part. We were forced to abort the mission.

At 6 PM he found the part he needed to fix the leak.

Tomorrow will be Operation Gobi Desert.

And Operation Bath time. (We were both skipped yesterday and were planning on this morning before the leak happened.)

Word to the Wise

I just thought I'd give everyone a heads up on texturizing walls.

Even if your husband tells you that you don't need to tape and cover the wood trim in the room.

And even if the mud used to texturize the walls is water soluble.

And even if you have an awesome friend that comes to help at the drop of a hat to hold the cardboard piece in front of the trim

And even if he does a very good job at it. (Thanks so much Aaron!)

You will still need to tape up the trim. You will be thinking this on the third hour of wiping down trim in one room. Don't let him fool you. His sincere chocolaty brown eyes might make your reserve weaken to follow his idea, but stay strong! You do not want to spend three hours wiping down trim.

Photos...Finally

So I'm really tired and don't want to post much, but I thought that since I finally remembered to take my camera to the house and bring the chord to connect it to the computer I'd post pictures. Here goes: Dan sealing the tile on the shower surround.
The gaping hole left after the bathtub disaster.
More hole.
That part on the left was the junction that caused all the problems I believe.
In the emergency my pots were used to collect some of the water and plaster.

My new kitchen, mostly unpacked.
The chords hanging in front of the canisters are for the undercabinet lighting that isn't quite finished yet.
That's the pantry in the corner.
Can you see the plate rail above the fridge? I think I want Daniel to build a shelf above the fridge to put pretty things on. I'm not sure yet. Plus, that's on the very bottom of the list so we'll see if it acutally happens. I'm so proud of what my husband can do.

I feel like sewing today

We really felt like we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then the ceiling caved in on us. Literally. Right now there's three huge holes in our living room ceiling where soggy plaster sagging with the extra water weight crumbled at the first touch. That's the bad news. The good news is that Dan found the problem and it was simpler than what we originally thought. The bad news is that this whole problem is because one of the connections in the PVC plumbing to the tub had no glue on it. It wiggled and jiggled until a pocket of air was caught inside it and built up pressure and popped the juncture open. The good news was that all we have to do to fix the plumbing is put glue on the thing. Now we have to wait a couple of days to let the room dry out and then patch up the hole. Luckily we had cardboard covering the whole floor before this happened so the hardwood underneath was almost completely dry.

Also, Charlotte has a cold which means she's crabby. She slept-ish from 11:30 to 1:15. Then a little after 3 I could no longer take her crying so I packed her up in the car and headed for our friend's house. She fell asleep on the way and has now slept for about an hour. I'm not getting much done over here.

It's when that happens that I tend to get online and inspired by other people's designs. I really feel like sewing today. Here are some projects I've been envisioning for myself lately. I want to make either a white or yellow v-neck dress with a ballerina waist and an A line skirt. I can't decide in my mind's eye to do cap sleeves or puffed sleeves. Also I would like to make a fall type dress for Charlotte. I have some plaid fabric (thanks Grandma LeAnn) with coordinating floral. It's kinda springy in the look, but if I used the plaid as the main fabric I bet I could get away with it. And if I can't sew I would like to find some botanical prints to frame for the walls in the living room. I think they would look really pretty in there. I think we're going to paint the walls a warm toned tan color, but I still have to ask Dan what he's thinking. Barring that I would like to start a new quilt. I decided that I'd like to make a quilt for Charlotte's eventual big girl bed. That way it can look just exactly how I want it to.

Unfortunately I still don't have a house to sew in. My sewing room is currently our storage space. Also I don't have any money to spend on non-essentials...like food. Oh well, I'll just enjoy what all those projects look like in my mind. Sometimes that's the best way to enjoy them. That way I don't have to worry about getting them done and I don't have regret over spending money on things I shouldn't have.

Decorating

I am simply loving all I'm learning about my husband's design style while working on this home. I was worried about this because the first year we were married he showed me a sofa with a southwestern/canyon view mural woven into the back with a coordinating cow hide chair and told me that he wanted to have something like that in his home one day. Also, when I was pregnant with Charlotte he said that if we had a boy he'd like to get a nursery set from Cabella's. Not the cute little animal one, but the real tree/camo one. None of these things fit into my view of what I want in my home. I figured we would both be having to open our minds to new ideas through this experience.

Despite all these previous design "finds" of his I have been delighted with his choices for our home. Firstly, he was the one to fall in love with this house because of it's details. He loves the bench, the molding, the fireplaces, and the stairs. He loves the look of older homes and enjoys the small irregularities that come from people having lived in a place. He loves to bring out the beauty that came from the original architecture, which explains going back to the original hardwood floors. Secondly, he was the first to chose the kitchen back splash, the floor stain color, and the cabinetry. All of these I fell in love with when he showed them to me so we needed little to no negotiation about it. Thirdly, he found all the lighting for our home. He really had to sell me on the universality of the leaded glass lights and also that they matched the rest of the home, but they look so classy. I think they're beautiful and I hope that whomever buys this house in three years will think so too. Lastly, I love that he likes my choices of paint in the kitchen and bath, and the tile I chose for the bathroom. I chose those without even showing them to him because they were good finds or because he couldn't be with me. He's also happy with my choices of accessories.

Tomorrow we are going to texturize the living room ceiling and walls. Pretty much right after that we need to paint them. He turns to me and says, "You're going to need to pick a paint color for this room." I love that he has in his mind that paint is my department. I don't know why it became my department, but just as electrical, plumbing and carpentry are his departments mine is clearly paint and decor. Of course we run things by each other, but I am in charge. Thrilled as I am about this I'm sort of worried about what to chose. I went so dark in the kitchen and so light in the bathroom. I love both choices, but I don't know what to go with in the living room. Our sofa is green and the chair is a lighter green. I put a quilt up on the wall in our last place with matching green, cream, deep red, and peach (well not really peach, but I can't think of a better name) in it and got candles and other things to match that. I'll need to sort of stick to the same theme because I can't change the furniture, but what to paint the walls? I don't know. The rug for that room is brown, green, and blue, but mostly just looks brown. I don't think I should go with green since there are so many different shades of green, but I don't think brown in another room is a good idea. I don't know.

But what I do know is that I've fallen in love with my kitchen all over again. I have a plate rail that runs about a foot from the ceiling on the wall with the fridge. I would love to get some plates to go along it that go with the Swiss coffee white that I painted the trim. I think they would really stand out against the brown and look really pretty. It probably wont happen, but I was picturing it while painting and decided that I love that idea.

Going My Way

Things have just been going our way over here at the new place the past few days! Today at 10 was supposed to be our occupancy permit inspection so the last few days we have been working very hard to be ready. Yesterday we even had some of our very nice and helpful friends over. The spindles are in, all the smoke alarms are up, the porch is primed, the ceiling in the living room is patched, the bathroom is patched, the bead board in the bathroom is painted, the basement has been cleaned, the kitchen sink is in as well as the garbage disposal. We were doing the last big push before the inspection last night and didn't quit until 10 PM (which is the first time Charlotte's been up that late). I felt the conquering feeling of sweet exhaustion as I showered all the gunk off me last night. Did we get everything done for the inspection, no, but we got close enough to where I felt comfortable.

Then this morning the inspector called to ask if she could inspect on Thursday because a family member was very sick. What great news! I mean for us anyway, I hope the family member recovers quickly. Two more days to get all the little things done! It was music to my ears. On the one hand we wont be moving in until after the inspection, but on the other hand we'll have more done before we unpack all our things! Hooray!

Photos will be coming, I just haven't really been thinking about them while working. Sorry about that, but wont you be surprised when you see all the progress!

Fruits of our Labor

The back splash in the kitchen. That part at the end is where the stove will be.
More back splash. The tile is slate. Have I shown everyone the cabinetry hardware? Well, there it is.
The bathroom floor. I'm pretty proud of my abilities to cut tile now. The row next to the tub looks funny in this photo, but I think that's just the light reflecting from the flash.
It's so beautiful!
The first row of tile for the shower surround. Our friend, who used to tile professionally, told us that our tiles were so large we would be best to put up one row and let it set then do all the others. That way the tiles don't slide down the walls with their weight.

Everything is coming together so nicely and looks so great. Today Daniel put up the last of the light fixtures in the main floor. He had to figure out why the wiring didn't work for the entry before he could put up the light. Also we kicked the bird out of the light on the porch. Her eggs were hatched so I didn't feel bad about it. So now all the lights work! Photos to follow.

What's really great now is that we're far enough along in our projects that I'm not constantly worried about Charlotte hurting herself on something. She's got plenty of things she can get into and play with that wont hurt anything. I can actually do a little bit more work!

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday marked three years and counting! That went by so fast! There has been so much that has happened. So here's what we did for our anniversary. Tuesday night I got a message on my phone from a friend of ours telling Dan that they would be fine with watching Charlotte on Wednesday. I turned to Dan and said, "Are you planning something I don't know about?" (Keep in mind that a few weeks ago I did say that I wanted something special to commemorate three years together. I knew it wouldn't be much, because, well, it can't be much what with medical school, a new house, and funds running low.) He said to me, "Well, I don't know what you'll think about this, but I was thinking we would have George and Mindy watch Charlotte for us while we tile the bathroom floor." I figured he was really good at thinking on his feet and was trying to surprise me so I just said, "Sounds fine to me." Yesterday came and in the afternoon Mindy asked me if I was going to get dressed for going out and I told her, "I'm not sure if I should. Dan hasn't told me anything about what we're doing." So Dan comes home to pick me up for our date. We take Charlotte over to our friends' house and drop her off.

Then he drives me to The Home Depot. I figure this must just be a pit stop for what we're really going to do. Then we drive over to Steak 'n' Shake and order dinner through the drive through and head back to the house so that we can tile the bathroom floor for our third anniversary.

Let's just stop the narrative there and analyze the fact that in three years of marriage I still don't know my husband enough to know when he's focused on something that's pretty much all he sees. This is a great trait for medical school. A great trait for a doctor. A great trait for getting into our house on time. Not so great when you want a date night. I LOVE our bathroom tile. And I also love our kitchen back splash which he finished during the day yesterday. He's working so hard and I love him and I'm so proud of him.

Anyway, 10:30 rolls around and we're not finished. I'm stinking tired because I wore the wrong footwear and the novelty of using the tile saw has really worn off. I figured that since we told Mindy we'd be done at 10, I've really got to go and Dan can finish on his own. I head back to our other friends' house that we're staying at for now. Mindy lets me in while Charlotte is sleeping away in her crib. She left Charlotte's car seat in her car so we go out to get it. When I try to get back in I realize that while the deadbolt is unlocked the doorknob is definitely not.

I called my friend who owns the house to see if there's a spare key hidden somewhere and she says her husband gave the spare key to George. We call George. He knows nothing about a spare key. So we decide to call a 24 hour locksmith at 11 pm. Mindy asks if we should call Dan to have him come wait with us. I say no because he can't really leave the thin set for the tiling because it will harden up. He'll just get worried and not be able to do anything. We can deal with this on our own and then he wont have to.

We wait for about half an hour for the locksmith. Which by the way, wasn't all that bad. We counted lightening bugs and had a good little chat. All the while the darn cat that we've been watching is wailing to go out with us and I'm worrying about him waking up Charlotte. She sleeps through the whole drama (thankfully). When the locksmith arrives it takes him approximately three minutes to get the door open. For which we pay him $125.

Once we get in I decide to call and let Dan know what happened. He responds, "Why didn't you call me?!" Which makes me a little upset because I was trying to be thoughtful. Which I did a poor job of explaining to him because it was 11:30 and I was tired and exhausted. I had to apologize for that this morning. He then tells me that, "Rich (the owner of the home we're staying in) left his spare set of keys in his locker at school." So the one person we didn't call was the one person that could have solved our problem. Rich is currently in boot camp for the navy since that's who's paying for his medical school. I called Bonnie, his wife, to let her know we got in OK. She felt really bad that she couldn't have just driven back to help us with her set of keys, but since she's in Idaho right now that wasn't really an option.

Exhausted I took a shower to wash all the tile grit off my body and fell into bed.



PS. Charlotte had a great day playing at the Botanical Gardens in the morning and in the fountain at Tower Grove Park in the afternoon. I took pictures of her and of the awesome bathroom tile and the kitchen back splash. I promise to post them just as soon as I can locate the spot we packed the cord to hook the camera up to the computer.

Woo-hoo!

I haven't yet done a panorama-type shot of the kitchen yet so I thought I'd show you the whole room. We painted the walls a rich chocolate color that I was really worried about, but seeing it now I think I chose well. Things are starting to come together and I'm so excited. The cabinetry still has crown molding and molding below the hung cabinets still to be installed and hardware. The sink is going on the slant in the corner so we can look out the windows as we do the dishes (which wont be many because do you see that brand new dishwasher on the left!?).

Here's the view of the kitchen I've been showing each time I've posted. We have new cabinetry. We have a counter top. We have an island. We have a dishwasher. I'm so excited. The island still needs to have the back and corner pieces installed.
I have a microwave!
Pantry and fridge spot. We still have to finish the wainscoting and paint it.
This is the view from the sink to the door to the hallway. The part to the left is where the fridge will go.
More wall. The white part is eventually going to be wainscoting with raised molding and a shelf along part of the wall.
This is further on the wall.

This is the light fixture we have hanging in the middle of the room. It hangs over the butcher block island. I like how the wall color matches the metal.

The front side of the island, which faces the other cabinetry. More storage space and more counter space! YEAH! Daniel really wanted the butcher block top for this island and I didn't really care, but it looks so awesome that I wouldn't want to change it.

This is the tile for the back splash. The little squares (on top) will be cut into strips for a decorative strip in the 6" tiles (below) in the boxes.

So, what do you think? Exciting, huh?

Stressors

This fixing up a house stuff is pretty difficult. So is food poisoning. So is my 15 month old girl. On the plus side I've really learned a whole lot, almost none of which actually has anything to do with fixing up a house. If you want to fix up a house I recommend surrounding yourself with supportive family and friends! It was so great to have Dan's parents and then my parents in town and then when they left all our friends have so very graciously offered to help out. They just showed up! There's nothing like being in a hard spot to make you realize how much help is out there. And also that "out there" isn't as far as you'd think. The medical school student community is composed of such a wonderful and supportive group of people. I'm ever so grateful to be a part of it. I also sincerely hope that I will be able to touch some of them and lift them up as much as they have done for me. They are so SO generous! It's so funny because none of us have a whole lot. We're all strapped for money, time, energy, and resources, but everywhere I turn I seem to be the recipient of so many gifts given to me freely. Everything from manpower and babysitting to some friends offering to let us live in their home while they're gone. We have to be out of our apartment on the 1st and we probably wont be ready to pass the occupancy permit inspection until the second week of July. Our friends are going to be out of town for five weeks starting this Saturday so they just offered. What a stress reliever.

Also, I've learned that it's important to communicate with Daniel clearly and unemotionally. A lot of our disagreements aren't actually disagreements after we talk about them. I've found that if I just tell Dan what would make me happy he works to do it (even if he does think it's silly) and I know that I try my best to do that for him as well. I have a great husband. We're both learning how to navigate things so much more right now.

Learning means we make mistakes. I've found it's important to be kind to myself and to my husband when either of us makes mistakes. They happen. The important part is to figure out what to do from there.

Finally I've learned that it's stinking exhausting to take care of our baby and our apartment in the midst of all this. It's so easy to just give in to every whim she has right now so that I can get back to getting the house done. I know that wont help me long term and it usually doesn't even help me in the short term either. Specific issues I'm working on: mommy gets to shower alone, no you can't have chocolate cookies for breakfast, naps can be taken in other places than your crib.

Here's the update as to what's happened. We got the plumbing in the bathroom fixed (again) and the sub floor down (again), the porch is stripped (thanks Piersons and Gilkeys), the spindles on part of the banister are in the process of being stripped (thanks Gilkeys). Dan is hopefully getting the counter top on and the dishwasher in tonight. That is if his drill battery will work long enough for him to actually cut the support pieces.

Grandma to the Rescue

So after I published the last post Mom told me that she took photos with her new camera at the house so here's the progress from her perspective.

Front entry sanded. For some reason Daniel thought we needed to vacuum after every sanding. I'm sure he has his reasons, but it was a whole lot of vacuuming.

Now turn to the left from the entry and you see the front/living room.The dark part on the floor was where they must have had a big rug for a long time. We got most of that out, but not all and isn't that the charm of old wood floors? You can see their history.

Walk through the living room into the dining room. Here you see Daniel staining the dining room floor. The color is gunstock for those of you familiar with minwax stains. It looks beautiful.

Here's Dan staining the kitchen floor. That corner area is where our cabinets are going so we didn't worry so much about sanding it down all the way.








Next we have the bathroom demo. It's upstairs from all the photos I've shown you so far. Here are the before photos. They don't show much, but it's all I've got:

This is the yucky black ringed shower surround. Do you see the black in the corner? Gross.

Mostly this photo showcases the lovely blue wallpaper. The white dots you see on it are really fleur d'lis. Very St. Louis. The inside of the vanity is the reverse.

The lovely blue stone top of the vanity. It's going.

Original built in medicine cabinet. It's really deep and great. It's pretty much the only thing that's staying in the room (if you don't count the tub and the toilet).

And now, poof! It's all gone. (Don't you just love that little magic of the Internet? You didn't have to experience the sweltering heat and humidity to get this change. It's just comes to you.)

What you don't see is that since Mom took these photos the vanity is out, the surround is out. We had a minor water leakage spill and lead pipe scare. Also the toilet is out for now. Everything is moving along nicely.

PS. Can you tell the difference in quality of digital cameras? I sure can. My mom's camera rocks!

Take 2

So I tried to post these photos yesterday and it didn't work. They were a few days old yesterday so everything is completely different today, but here's the floor progress anyway:

Kitchen floor sanded.
Kitchen to hall sanded.
Front entry sanded.

The changes that have happened since is that Daniel has stained and sealed the kitchen, dining room, and hall. We can't walk on them today. My mom and dad are in town this week helping so after making them sweat it out sanding, we put my dad to work on the bathroom upstairs. He tore out the shower surround and fixed the plumbing. Turns out there were no shut off valves for the sink so he installed those and then he and Dan found lead pipe that they need to replace. The floor is being ripped up and Mom and I found some really nice tiles that were on super good sale at Lowe's. Also the bath will have bead board around the walls. I think it's going to be really pretty.

Mom and I found a nice round rug for the entry and big rug for under the table in the dining room on clearance at TJMaxx. They are beautiful and will look great on the newly finished floor!

Sorry this post is short and lame, but our apartment's electrical is going funky. The AC wont work, the dryer wont work, half the lights in the house don't work and the fridge and microwave also don't work. To add another little quirk to the mix the dining room lights wont turn off. We've tried. I went to the basement and flipped all the circut breakers. Nothing changed. It's going to be a hot day. I don't want our food to go bad so I called our landlord. I got a busy signal. Great.

Kitchen Light

With 45 seconds left we won our kitchen light on ebay:

Once was lost, now found

Yeah! I have no idea where the cord was, but I let Charlotte play in the front room today and magically the cord appeared. So here's the progress report:

Here's the same corner in the kitchen without the upper cabinets. Today we've started to change the plumbing so the sink can go in the corner.

Here's what was once the flooring in the kitchen. It was under the cabinetry so at one point the countertop wasn't in that corner. It came up after this photo.

I know I didn't ever take a before photo of the ceiling, but this is after it was ripped out. I really like how at one point the walls were green, peach, and light peach.

This was my attempt to show you how many stinking staples there were in the floor. Notice how I say were, they're all out now.

The beautiful new cabinets that are currently residing in the dining room waiting to be installed.

Our new fridge and range! BEAUTIFUL!
Here's the front entry without the blue carpet. Next step-sanding. The before photo doesn't show much of the floor, but here it is anyway: