House - Paint and Cabinets

We've been doing lots and lots and lots of painting. It feels like the painting never ends!  For one reason or another, we're are having to paint every room of the house.  And even though some rooms are pretty low priority, we figure it's still easier to do now while we can slop it all over the floors.

By far the hardest room color choice was the one we'd be using through all the hallways and main living areas.  I definitely wanted to go more grey than brown (cause I'm trendy that way, and a follower), but we were still going to have beige carpet.  I tested 4 colors in few different rooms and put them next to our carpet and tile samples.  This is a pretty horrible pictures, I know.  They all look the same. haha.  But in person, and in different lighting, they were quite different.

From left to right --
1 = too purplish
2 = too yellow/beigeish
3 = WINNER
4 = too bluish

We had the ceiling scrapers/painters do the hallway along the staircase since it was super tall and awkward.  Here is what it looks like when they were finished.

The more and more of that yellowish brown color that gets covered up, the happier I get!  

Here is the kitchen, primed/painted and ready for some cabinets!

Cabinets delivered yesterday!  Whohoo!!!  

Dad started to unpack and get them ready for mounting.
Notice the second fireplace in the back?  Loving how much brighter the room feels with the fresh paint and pretty fireplace.  What type of mantle should we put there?  A TV will go above.

Brick-Anew

One day I was scouring the web for fireplace brick painting techniques when I stumbled across this product called Brick-Anew.  They advertise a kit that helps you transform ugly red brick fireplaces into pretty fresh looking brick.  I was a tad skeptical, only because the detailed "how-to" instructions were no place to be found, but there were so many user submitted before & afters that I decided to go for it.

When I got the package in the mail, it came with a 10-minute instructional DVD.  This was starting to sound overwhelming...  You basically paint the entire surface (brick and mortar) and then follow it up with 4 more colors using varying techniques (brush, roller, sponge...)  to create variations in every brick.  I was watching the demo thinking it is not for someone like me...perfectionist... likes things symmetrical... etc.  But alas, after a solid weekend of non-stop brickwork, we had two amazingly transformed fireplaces for a couple hundred dollars.

Before

Base Coat.  Already such a difference!

Done!

I just love how it still looks more natural looking, as opposed to just solid painted brick.  It looks even better now with the room painted.  I did the same thing to the smaller fireplace in the other living room.  =)

Halloween 2012

We celebrated Halloween first with the Beta kiddos, then again briefly on the actual holiday.

Happy witch.

Scary Witch

Witch who hasn't quite got walking down but wanted to Trick-Or-Treat

Witch wanting to hang with older neighborhood kids.

Witch getting candy from G-Ma for mommy to eat. 

House - Moving Stuff Around

A lot has been happening over the past month or so. I'll try and explain!

First, we got fumigated.  Peace out wood-destroying-pests.

As an aside - whenever I see a tented home, I think someone may be inside cooking meth.

Then came all sorts of fun stuff...  Notice a few things in the pic below:

1. The small doorway to the dining room in the back was moved over about a food to the right.
2. The full wall to the left, along the hallway, was extended a few inches.  By doing #1 and #2 (insert potty joke here) we will now be able to accommodate regular 24" depth pantry cabinets and our fridge along that wall.  We only had 1 ft of depth there before.  Pretty useless.
3. We now have a gas line running over to the back wall for a cooktop. You can't see it now because...drum roll please....
4. All our ceilings have been patched up, scraped of the hideous "popcorn", re-textured, and painted.  What a world of difference that made throughout the house!!
5. Can lights were moved around some so they will be more appropriately symmetrical with our new cabinet layout.
6. The short wall in front was extended another foot or so in to the kitchen on the right.  Pretty much just so it covers the whole cabinet that will be there. 

Doorway moved from kitchen to dining room. View from entry.

 (I'm just realizing this post is going to get long.  Bare with me)

One thing I wanted in this kitchen was a cool range hood over our cooktop; not a microwave.  I also wanted it to be more centered on that back wall.  Here is is again, before.

Moving the cooktop location to the left, meant that the exhaust had to extend further to the left.  Of course it can't be that easy though!  In order to move the exhaust to the left, the AC duct in to the dining room had to be moved to the left as well.  And this ducting happened to be coming straight down from the middle of two upstairs bedroom closets.  Good times.

This is probably getting hard to follow.  But basically what ended up happening was my dad moved everything around, resulting in a larger closet upstairs for BK, and a smaller closet in what we're calling the guest room.  The AC duct running between the two new sized closets, in to the dining room, with space for the stove exhaust to run more center to the wall.  Ok, it's kind of hard to explain.

Here is BK's closet, about a foot bigger.  Girl will need all the space she can get  =)
So now the new AC duct is basically running down in the wall, where the new patching is on the right.

And then opposite that black wall is the guest room, which now has this smaller closet.
 

Pumpkin Patch 2012

With all the house stuff going on, we sort of ran out of time to take Brooklyn to a "cool" pumpkin patch, so one evening after work, we headed over for some quick fun at a small pop-up place.  We were probably only there about 15 minutes... just long enough to get a few pics before she we got bored.