We should know better by now...

In a word, how would I describe this renovation?

Jinxed.

As in, whenever we say we are almost done or something won't be much longer... then we aren't done, something takes a lot longer or new problems pop up. And all the above have happened! But we are getting there. Since my last post, all the drywall was hung, mudded and taped, we primed all the walls and painted the ceiling, and the biggest step, flooring was just installed in the basement. The flooring sample we picked was a solid chocolate brown vinyl wood plank floor to pick up the same color as the handrail and wood caps... what we got was more of a barn wood/rustic look <perfect for mid-century modern homeowners :/ >... not what we thought we were getting. Kinda stuck with it since its literally stuck and glued down. Hoping it grows on us or we invest in many hall runners :/

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Dear Flooring Companies,
Please make your samples a better representation of the overall variation of a floor and not the best case scenario.

Sincerely,
Bummed OCD-Decorating Homeowner

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Anyways, I digress!
Now I just need to figure out what color I am painting everything down here and we can get on that and put in some baseboards!

Drywall going up and new doors installed!

walls primed...

<record screech> what is that?!!

a leak formed from a pipe above the new lighting.

Of course it did.

New floors going in!

 office space

ceiling leak fixed, phew!

So getting antsy to decorate, ordered a rug and it just came in!

up-close and personal with rug

this calls for some fireplace relaxing...

I think there's something down there... THERE'S SOMETHING DOWN THERE!

I can finally say that aside from some touchup painting and a few other odds and ends, we are finally done with Phase 1: The Main Floor - Living room and Stairs extravaganza. Woohoo! Now we are onto Phase 2: The Basement. Dun Dun Dunnnnn!

Kevin has worked tirelessly to frame up and hang drywall to make a laundry room, my home office, a hallway, and a storage space. We've also had an electrician come in and wire all new can lighting in the hallway and add outlets. As I type this we have a professional drywaller here to hang our hallway ceiling and mudd and tape everything. There is one thing about all this we wanted done spot on and that was the mudding and taping so we knew this part would be money well spent for us not to attempt this ourselves! He will be here through the weekend and a little bit on Monday and then that part should be complete too!

So for your viewing enjoyment, here are some shots of progress. (I'll put further updates up next week!!) :D

Kevin built out a niche area specifically for a piece of art created by Jennifer Espenscheid (of Soma Gallery) and Jeremy Shamrowicz (of Flux Design) we purchased. Been waiting like 3yrs to finally have a place to hang this puppy!! So excited!!

looking for the perfect MCM piece of furniture to go in this spot :D

doesn't look like much here but this is my future home office

our hallway

standing in the hallway looking at the back corner of my office and the storage room

hallway

a laundry room in the making

my office again with a beautiful view of our well pump

my office door at base of the stairs

well pump area in office now drywalled off on a cool angle

my office looking into laundry room

these are the doors for the office, laundry and our workout room/bar in the back 40... (but slow down kids, the back 40 will be for awhole'nother show. focus. one thing at a time)

Time flies watching glue dry

So it has been almost a month since my last post. I think I need constant nagging to get new updates up or they just won't happen timely... so thank you to those who did nag me and you know who you are!

Lots has happened in the last month. We passed our final inspection, yay! and we had the wood wall caps and hand railing stained and installed. I am particularly proud of the wall caps (the wood pieces on both the half walls) and the hand rail because they were of my own design and they are just a little outside the norm and I just love them.

Now that we have passed the inspection for this project, we have steadily started work on the basement (part of the reason I have been falling behind on update posts) and I promise my next post will be more timely with basement progress ;)

But in the meantime, here are a few shots of the upstairs progress. I seriously CANNOT WAIT to start decorating.

Enjoy!

here is my handrail, isn't is coooooo'?

 To avoid seeing any holes from nails or screws, the wood caps were glued down and held in place with clamps and very sophisticated and complicated tools calls "mag-o-zeens" and "boookz" and we had to wait for it to dry... and wait... and wait

so, we got sick of waiting so we took the paperweights off

detail of one of the riser pieces holding the cap up. I wanted the caps and the handrail to kind of float. Really happy with the look.