We've finally made some progress in most of our public spaces-- living and dining rooms, kitchen, laundry / utility / mudroom area. The photos below are obviously not shot-for-shot before and afters for a couple of reasons: 1) it turns out I am AWFUL at taking pictures and can't seem to duplicate a shot even if I'm the one that took the original, and 2) these are not afters so much as durings. We still have a lot of work to do in every one of these rooms. So following each photo is quick rundown of what we HAVE done and a little bit about what's left to do.
We'll go about this as though it were raining (which it will be for about the next ten months) so you've decided to park under our carport and come in through the laundry room door. Which, by the way, we do not encourage.
LAUNDRY AREA:
This is the inside of the door you just walked through ca. August 13, 2012. To help you orient yourself a bit, the kitchen door is to your right and the third bedroom door is on your left. You can see a bit of the tool-storage area on the left-hand side of the photo, and the electrical panel is just to the right of the photo frame. It's dark and scary in here, no? You're just about ready to run screaming from the house, but you don't for whatever reason.
Instead, you back up and take the long view of the same corner, though now the security door is just out of your photo frame on the left:
Oh no! Check out that ill-fitting plywood (see those gaps? Is that safe? You don't think so) into which the electrical panel is screwed! This place is terrifying. The walls are a lovely mélange of plywood, vertical paneling, and shiplap.
Fast forward to September 21. The below photo is sort of a combination of the first two views, with just a few modest changes:
What we've done: painted everything obsessively, added drywall to the wall behind the electrical panel, gotten a gorgeous new washer-dryer which we could never have afforded but for my sister and brother-in-law, covered the tool-storage closet with a curtain.
What still has to happen: the place needs ceilings-- the acoustical tile that's currently overhead is unspeakably ugly and actually missing in places, leaving the attic open to the laundry room. And did I mention we have roof rats in the attic? Yeah. So just have to find out if our tiles are asbestos. If not, we'll rip them down, avoiding showers of rodent crap, and drywall the ceiling. If so, we'll pay someone else to rip them down. And then drywall the ceiling. If you look carefully, you can see I still need to caulk the top of the seam between the drywall behind the electrical panel and the wood paneling. Obviously the ripped-up linoleum flooring is on its way out, to be replaced by 12"x24" peel-and-stick faux slate. We'll grout of course. What do we look like-- savages?
Before heading into the kitchen, you turn around to check out the other side of the laundry room. Flashback to 8/12/12:
It's too horrible! You close your eyes. When you repoen them, you're back in the present day:
Remember to take the tag off that area rug before you photograph it again, you remind yourself. And you turn around and head into the...
KITCHEN.
Flashback:
Ew! Everything about this must be gutted, obviously. It is gross. Those weird doorless shelfless cabinets-- who did that? And there's no place to put anything in here. Though you can't see it from this view, there are also no cabinet doors on the left side of the kitchen. And that fridge holds roughly two bottles of hot sauce and a six-pack of Natty Light-- perfect for a college boy, but not going to work for someone who produces three elaborate meals per day. The oven has no timer, and all the eyes are so tilted that your pots and pans slide off immediately.
Today:
Better, no? Functional stainless appliances (made possible, as with the washer-dryer, by unbelievably generous gifts from our families) make this much more workable and a lot more attractive. My IKEA Billy bookcases were relieved of their book-holding duties and brought in for some extra storage on either side of the stove.
What still has to happen: Um, everything. New cabinets all around, new floors, new countertops, real baseboard molding, new light fixtures, blah blah blah blah fifteen thousand dollars.
You head for the door at the far wall. Well, now you're in the...
DINING ROOM.
You walk through and stand in the living room so you can get the full view in flashback mode:
Yep, that's what it looked like in July (obviously not our stuff). Anyhow, you're standing in the living room, and you can see the kitchen door at the left of the photo, and out the french doors is the electric green lawn brought to you by the Pacific Northwest. I don't really feel the need to say anything about this photo, except that I think that thing hanging on the wall on the right is a snakeskin, not... what it looks like.
And as of today:
Just got that table today. I'm not sure I love it, but maybe once we get some chairs?
Still to do: install new light fixture, hang art, find chairs (preferably cool antiques). Maybe a skinny dresser on the right-hand wall to serve as a buffet and store my kitchen and dining linens? Thoughts?
You turn around to check out the progress in the...
LIVING ROOM.
Circa 8/10/12:
Left side, awful lighting.
Right side.
You're like, wait, why are those window mullions not painted? Why is that gross woodstove jammed into the fireplace? That tile is ugly. Nice archways, though. You close your eyes and flash forward.
Combo view:
What we've done: painted the window mullions (ask my mom about that-- it took SO MANY coats of paint and primer because the wood has some sort of super-tannins that CANNOT be blocked by mere mortals, so Mom painted it for six straight days while Dad reno'd the bathroom), painted the fireplace, ripped up the icky tile, painted the walls and trim, added curtains (love you, $9/pair IKEA Vivan!) and hemmed them, hung a few things.
Still to do: hang way more things, make new throw pillow covers, reupholster the golden corduroy armchair my mom purchased new in 1983, tile fireplace surround, repair damaged wood floors.
If you're digging my old threadbare Persian, you can thank my grandmother, who has told us at different times that 1) it belonged to her mother and is a priceless antique, and 2) she herself bought it at a yard sale in the 60's. I prefer version 1, so I'm going with that. The rug is special to me anyhow-- if slightly too small for my space-- because it was in my parents' first house and also my sister's, and now it's come out to the West Coast to make my first house a home.
Hope you enjoyed the tour! You can just show yourself out the front door. And while you're out there in the front yard, give Ray a high five-- he's probably digging up some bamboo roots, removing a massive hedge, rat-proofing, mowing the grass, etc etc etc even as we speak.
It's so beautiful! I can't wait to see it all in person. It's just gorgeous - you all should be so proud!
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