Kitchen Remodel

This house had definitely become quite a project, but its amazing to see how far we've come.  Our latest big project was getting the kitchen remodeled, and this is our last big project for the house!  Can I get a hallelujah?!  Don't get me wrong I love a good remodel, but when life has been a bit upside down for the better part of a year, its nice to finally get all the major projects checked off the list!

If you want to get a good look at the before pictures quick jump over here and check them out!  Its hard to believe that our house ever looked like that!

This is what its looked like just before tear out commenced!

Our good friend Dan did most of the install who is one of Piper's favorite people!  She would just sit and watch him work, and ask him "whats this?"

Thankfully the tear out went really well!  We weren't sure what we would find behind the cabinets, but there were no big surprises!  The morning the cabinets came literally felt like Christmas!

My favorite part was watching the tile go up!  Probably because that meant we were almost finished and I could have my kitchen back! :)

Originally we were a little bummed with the color of the cabinets.  I initially wanted to go with white cabinets I really love that look, but my sister, who cleans houses, talked me out of it especially with small kids she mentioned they mark up pretty easily.  We ended up going with a khakie color, still light but not white.  When they first put them in, and especially at night when we are using lights, it looked a little green which I wasn't thrilled with.  But I really like how it looks in daylight and now that everything is in I don't really think about it anymore!

So here's the new finished kitchen!  Drumroll please.....

I can't tell you how happy I am to have a new kitchen!  The old one was definitely usable, but once the new one was in there was no looking back that's for sure!  I have a beautiful white very deep sink, lovely drawers that you can pull the whole way out without them falling out, more cabinet space, and a dishwasher!!! Not sure how I did it without a dishwasher! I did feel like I was washing dishes all the time, but not anymore!

With the past year being primarily focused on moving in, finishing up projects around the house, and adjusting to life with two kids, I'm excited to start getting things decorated and finished now.  Its actually one of my goals for the new year.  Pretty much all of our boxes of decor have still not been unpacked so I'm anxious to open those boxes up and start getting things hung up and make my home feel more like home!  I'll definitely share some of these project with you along the way! 

Let me know what you think!  Are you working on any home projects yourself? I love seeing before and after pics so feel free to share them if you have them!

Farmhouse Update & Pictures!

I'm back!  It's been over a month since we've moved and its way past time to do an update for you all!  We absolutely LOVE being on the farm.  I can't even put words to it.  I honestly thought a little part of me would miss living in the city, but that is definitely not the case! Ever since we've moved I've been sleeping so much better, (so nice not getting woken up in the middle of the night from crazy people being loud and blaring music at the McDonald's drive-thru) I'm spending much more time outside which is glorious, and its actually fun to have people over now because we have the space to do it!

Let's face it though, we are still unpacking and while most of the main spaces are in decent shape they are of course no-where near what I picture in my head!  Mostly they are just lacking any sort of decoration or design...those items are still in boxes! Part of me wanted to come back and show you these perfect pictures, but in all honesty who knows how long it will be until my house is the way I picture it in my mind.  Silly me, thinking that I would have it all together the week after we moved in! ha  That of course is not reason to not show pictures though!  So here we go...

Before and after's of the living room/dining room and kitchen.  I'll get the rest of the pictures taken, just didn't have time to finish it all up in one shot. #toddlerliving

There are still some big changes to come.  The downstairs bathroom/laundry room (you can see the doors to it behind the dining room table in the first picture) is still incomplete.  We ran into some sewer issues and are waiting to get that fixed before finishing up that project.  I'm currently doing my laundry in the apartment that is attached to the house.  Not ideal, but definitely better than having to go to a laundry mat. I was hoping this project would be finished before the little man showed up but it looks like it will just be getting underway about the same time as my due date.  No worries though, we'll manage!  We are also still potentially putting in a new kitchen this summer just haven't gotten into any of those details yet either.  Part of me wonders if we are crazy trying to do all of this with a newborn and a toddler... 

All in all, life has been going well here on the farm.  We've definitely settled into a nice rhythm and its really been great.  Of course we will soon have to find a new rhythm as my due date is less than 3 weeks away... ahh.  Nope definitely not ready yet.  I think I've been mentally putting it on the back burner for so long to just deal with moving etc, that its just stayed back there and I just think it won't ever actually come! Within the last week though we've welcomed 2 new babies into the Gibbel family so that's kind of shook me out of my daze.  Time to get some baby prep going on! 

Until next time...
Monica

BEFORE Pictures: Upstairs

Like I promised here are the before pictures of the upstairs!  We aren't doing nearly as much work to the upstairs.  The main thing we are re-doing is the bathroom, and some reconfigurations because of the new stairs that are going in.  The bedrooms are all getting new carpet and paint.

For those of you who asked to see a reminder of what the front of the house looks like, here's a picture!

This was taken last summer so its changed a bit.  The right section of the house with the green awning over the porch is actually a whole separate apartment.  The main house, where we are living is on the left (covered by the tree, sorry).


Here is the upstairs:

The kid's rooms are actually larger than ours, they also both have two closets in them?!  Coming from the city with limited closet space, I almost don't know what to do with that much room! We decided to go with our room though, because its located at the top of the stairs and has windows overlooking the front driveway.  There are some interesting color choices going on upstairs so I'm excited to see the transformation with just some carpet and paint.


Thats all for now!

-Monica

BEFORE Pictures of the Farmhouse

We are full swing into demo and remodeling at the farmhouse.  I went in before all the work started and snapped some before pics that I'll share with you today. These are just of the downstairs.  I'll post about the upstairs a bit later. 

We originally planned on just doing flooring and paint throughout the entire house, but as you can see its turned into a much larger project.  We are now pulling out the incredibly steep and narrow stairs and replacing them with a new set so you can actually walk up them normally.  We are tearing out the textured ceilings and walls in the downstairs and redrywalling.  While we have the walls and ceilings ripped out we are running some new wires to add lighting that was somewhat lacking throughout the space. 

Ripping out the stairs caused some clearance issues for your head once the new stairs are in so we are ripping out the small hallway to the bathroom upstairs and putting in a new door the to the upstairs bathroom out the other side. (more on this later with pictures)


Right now the house is demoed (is that actually a word?  looks totally funky but I'm going with it) and the new electrical is going in this week.  Drywallers come in next week, the painters come in the following week.  And last but not least the flooring goes in after all of that is done.  We had to bump our move date back a week but we are now planning on moving in the 3rd week of April, just in time for Easter!  :)

Well... enough talking lets get to the pictures!


When you walk through the front door this is what you see:

The wall that we will be removing leads into the kitchen, since we are pulling the stairs out to the dining room we needed another entrance.

The breakfast nook is right off the kitchen, you also have our second front door there on the right, and then it also connects to the family room you see below. 

Whew... are you tired yet, cause I am :)  and then we have the upstairs yet! haha

Anyways, I'm glad things are started and everything is going well.  I'm so excited to see it all finished and get to finally move in! 


stay tuned... more to come!
Monica