before & after

remember this post? well, as part of what i'm now going to dub "the great house renovation of 2010", steve and i gutted our fireplace and redesigned it. here's the before once again. i hated everything about it. the so-called mantle was extremely narrow, so you could barely rest anything on it. forget about decorating it for the holidays. there was no room. i hated the inset. i hated the moulding. i hated the boring, beige tile. did i mention i hated everything about it. oh yea, there were silver louvers surrounding the firebox (we took them off before i took this photo). i hated those too.

before

and tada, the after!

steve designed and built the mantle. i painted it in urbane bronze by sherwin williams. it's also the trim color on the outside of our house. i love it. this was our first attempt at laying tile and grouting. the tile is a mosaic made of glass and marble. we changed the silver louvers to black. and steve took out the inset in the wall above the mantle. it's so much more substantial now.
i think it's much more "pacific northwest". and it better suits our style and the style of the house.


and here's one more look of the before and after, side by side.
what do you think?

the state of things

this is our living room currently. like right now. steve and i took a mini vacay this week to a nearby resort where we relaxed for a few days. we ate wonderful meals, slept in, and watched u.s. open tennis all day. while we were gone our first floor floors were refinished. we arrived home to a mess. every wall had to be wiped down. they were coated with a fine sand. kitchen cabinets needed to be emptied and cleaned. chandeliers disassembled and cleaned. like i said, a mess.

this is how the floors now look. they're beautiful. workers reinstalled baseboards yesterday. they're here now to paint them. tonight we'll be able to move back our furniture. we're in the home stretch of our renovation projects that we started in february. it's been a long haul. but we're super pleased with the results. i'll take photos next week so you can see too. and hopefully by then i'll have found the camera cord so i can download the photos.

progress and a giveaway

this was last week. steve and a friend removed the dining room windows, made a BIG hole, and filled it with gorgeous new french doors.
as you can see (below) there's still so much to do. such as, trim out and paint the doors and replace the siding on the back of the house. (this was a huge debate between hubby and me. he wanted to do a different finish under the porch roof, such as painted cedar shake to match a finish on the front of the house. i wanted to keep things simple, have just one finish on the entire back of the house. i think i won, but as you can see, nothing is up yet). excuse my scraggly plants in the planters. i refrained from potting anything new in the container pots until the porch was done. that's on my way -too-long to-do list for this weekend. i'm also thinking of painting the adirondacks.
anything exciting on the agenda for your weekend??

and....thanks to carlee and tiffany at deliciously organized, there's a pixelimpress giveaway. pop on over there to enter to win a set of these.have a great weekend!

progress

this was our backyard last friday morning. the start of building the roof to our new patio.

these two (steve is on the right and his handy helper on the left)


and their supervisor spent 12 hours friday and 12 hours saturday building the roof. it is done. it is beautiful. it has the heavy hardware i requested.
the triple pane window will soon be french doors. it leads to our dining room. can't wait for those.

this is a glimpse of the final product. i love the ceiling!
good job, honey. nope, make that superb job, honey.

at last! the kitchen reveal

finally. photos of the finished kitchen. after some slight major tidying of the kitchen this morning, i took some photos. here's the post describing our mid-way work. kudos to hubby for all his hard work. he tore down ugly backsplash. tore out tile granite, piece by piece. installed undercabinet lights. the granite is geriba beach.
he fitted a new cabinet to hold the farmhouse sink, which i love! and he loves it that i love it, because that means i do most of the dishes. (the sink cabinet will darken over time to match the existing pieces.) we ordered the sink online. it's a shaw. it shipped for free from florida to seattle... and thank goodness because it weighs 160lb.
the pendant over the sink is by kichler. it's finish is midnight chrome. the paint color is slate by restoration hardware. and we love it. question... do you paint your ceilings? steve and i always have.

the faucet is kohler. another great find. while we were at it, we upgraded our dishwasher to a bosch. unbelievably quiet. since our family room with the tv is adjacent to the kitchen, a major plus. we honestly don't even know it's on unless we see the laser light shining on the floor.
we splurged and got the custom fitted sink grid for the sink. i was worried about scratching the sink. this alleviates all worries.yes, i like a lot of stuff on my counters.
mini roses from mother's day from pixel and her daddy. i love the paris photo. it's alicia bock. she actually sent it as a gift note with some photos i bought from her. perfect for my little frame. the backsplash is 19x19 porcelain tile and we love it.inlay bone bowl from maui. and an oil painting i snagged at a garage sale for $4. it came in the most hideous black velvet frame. i removed the glass and framed it with a target frame. the little suitcase holds our cell phones while they're charging.
here's the before.
and again, the after. we love it. it suits us and our house.
thank you, honey, for all your hard work on the kitchen!

weekend agenda

first, as in this should be done tonight, is finalizing our carpet selections. this'll be the third trip to the carpet store. we have mostly hardwood on the first floor, except for the formal living room, which is being converted to my office. there's carpet there now, but we're replacing it. we found a good choice for that. a dark greige wool berber. and while we're at it, we're replacing the carpet on the stairs. it's in desperate need of a facelift. it's sagging. it's tired. i'm tired of it. this was my front runner. godfrey hirst, boulevard.

that was until we found out how much it is. we'll choose another.

second,
is my shipping desk. it's getting a facelift too. in sassy green.
and third, is recovering this pinboard from pb in this fabric,

which i've showed you all before. it's my fave.

have a great weekend.

what's happenin' round here

a couple days ago, i received the fabrics i had ordered from calico corners. as i unrolled them, this little girl strolled in and found the perfect height chin rest. thank goodness she doesn't drool. the fabric she's resting on is for recovering our kitchen chairs.
do you notice all the upheaval in the background. pixel's in the dining room, which i currently use as an office. across the hall is the formal living room, which we use as a formal living room, which means it never gets used. it's becoming my office. see those french doors? they used to be the entrance to the dining room/current office from the hallway. now they're the entrance to the formal lr/new office. got it. good. the dining room has another not enclosed pass thru into the kitchen so it wasn't a totally enclosed room. which meant i could always see my work. and think about how far behind i am. not good. now my office will be totally enclosed. oh, and the dining room is becoming a dining room again. with a huge farmhouse table and mismatched seating. totally informal.

the color scheme for the new office is chartreuse and purples (aubergines and plums). colors taken from this fabric. i'm going to use to cover my immense inspiration board. it's 3'x4'. i love this fabric. i talked about it here.

in totally unrelated news, i found steve upstairs (in his makeshift greenhouse) the other morning in this position.
if you look closely, there's his cell phone and he was on a conference call at the same time.
he was using needlenose pliers to pluck out the scraggly seedlings. i'm scared.

i'm starting to see...

the light at the end of the tunnel on the kitchen facelift. the granite measuring technician (yes, that's my terminology for him) was here today. he brought in the digital arm that sat on a tripod and downloaded all our measurements to autocad. my, how technologically advanced we've become. and how poorly level are cabinets are.

we started with this 2 weeks ago. and a vision. (ok, seriously, i have wayyyy too much stuff on my kitchen counters.)
steve started slowly removing tile backsplash piece by piece.

and installing and hardwiring undercabinet lights.
and look, he even did it with a smile.then he removed the tile granite, piece by piece. and the drywall, down to the cotton candy pink insulation.then he lowered the outlets, put on new snazzy black covers that will blend better with the new tile backsplash. and he put up new backing.

then yesterday, which happened to be my birthday, the crown jewel was installed. our new farmhouse sink. ahhhh. she's a beauty. here steve and his assistant are analyzing how unlevel the cabinets are.

followed by a little discussion.
followed by a little laser light frolicking. (see my paint swatch? the room's getting repainted, but we still haven't found the right color.)followed by a well-deserved cheek-to-cheek rest.thank you, honey, for all your hard work on the kitchen. he's done it all so far. and without one complaint. my hero.