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Friday, June 1, 2012

Remodeling 2012 edition

This year seems to be the most intense remodeling year yet! And expensive (grumble, grumble..) We had a budget, and it was good. One of the perks of having a very sick family (haha) is that you get to write off A WHOLE LOT of medical expenses each year on your taxes. We exceeded $6000 in medical expenses every year since 2005... so returns have been nice. THIS YEAR- knock on wood- nothing crazy has happened. No pregnancies, surgeries, almost dyings... it's been a pretty calm year. I have a feeling we may owe money on our taxes next year.
   Anyway- I'm getting off subject. We had a budget.. and the budget died. I went to Lowes every single day for two weeks straight. "We forgot this" "We need more of this." "This isn't the right of this" .. Im pretty sure 200 dollars of this remodeling project was devoted solely on trips to Lowes.
   But let's not talk about money spent.. lets talk about money SAVED! We did this all by ourselves! :) Was it worth the money saved? I don't know. I gained 10 pounds from stress. I do not like having my house out of order... and I had no choice but to deal with it for a couple of months.
  All this was started in March- here we are in May and it's still not done. We have a few finishing touches to do.. on every project- but for the most part. It's goooood...
 In these last 3 months we:
 * Turned our crawl space into a playroom
 * Remodeled our kitchen (flooring, cabinets, sink)
 * Remodeled the Living Room (flooring)
 * Remodeled our park strip (weird, huh? Comes with a good story though!)
And now our savings is gone. Hmph.


I'll be posting these in segments we'll start with my favorite! THE KITCHEN:


Please enjoy these BEFORE pictures...






AND NOW THE AFTER!!!!!


All right- so as you can see (or maybe you can't?) we are missing a cabinet it is in repair from a bead board fiasco. Also 3 cabinets have not been antiqued- can you tell which ones?!?! AND check out the new hardware!
See the new cabinet by the fridge??? An excellent place to hide toasters and can openers. Also hides my kitchenaid mixer, and GF grill. I also added some new decor on top of the cabinets from awesome garage sale finds. I love garage sales. It's looking a little cluttered though. 

The new faucet was not a planned purchase. Luckily we realized we had a big leak
when I was glazing the cabinets under the sink. Thanks Woodside Homes
I guess it has been 5 years- it makes perfect sense for it to break.
Also- check out the rugs. I got them 80% off at Lowes. LOVE THEM.



I love the floor... we did a 16 inch tile throughout the kitchen. Then bordered different 12 inch tiles with WOOD tile. It's tile, but looks exactly like dark hardwood. If we had the $$ I would have done the whole kitchen in that tile, but we settled for a border. I really like how it turned out.


Here are some pictures of the process:

 This took forever!

FIRST: primer.. then paint.. then another coat of paint, then antique, and finally protective glaze...
Then the hardware.. oh the hardware.
 One cabinet at a time..
 Tearing up the floor


1 comment:

Chris and Tara said...

It looks so good. And I love the "wood" border. Nicely done.