Farewell Old House

Demo is going full force over at our new place.  The dumpster arrived Friday (sorry neighbors) creating quite the eyesore in our side yard.  Nick and I walked over today to see what progress had been made.  The trim, kitchen cabinetry and wainscotting were the victims.  There was one old pamphlet from 1969 sitting out that had been found in some crook or cranny.  I felt a little sad!  I have debated what we are doing with the house with Nick over and over, and with others as well. . . are we ripping the heart and soul out?  Will all the character be gone?  Our plan is to modernize the interior, no more mis-match this and that all over the place painted with 20+ coats of paint, but a brighter, fresher, newer, cleaner place to live.  I hope we're doing the right thing. . . I will admit, I am one of the worst decision makers, I second guess everything, but it's too late now.  

Hoping the final result is worth it.

Ikea Kitchen

Here are some photos of Steph and I exploring the ikea kitchen we will be installing in the house.  And photos of the old kitchen as a reminder!  The wall you see of existing cabinetry will be where the sink, stove and counterspace are with open shelving of walnut above, and a white chicklet tile covered wall.  There will be an island in the center with a walnut top and sides, and on the other side of the kitchen that you cannot see, several tall cabinets for pantry and storage along with the fridge.  The back door will become french doors, and around the corner there will be the laundry area and doorway into our master bedroom.

Good News!

We had some good news today!  After posting this sign in our yard for 10 days, not sure if you can see the flourescent pinkness of it, we had no complaints from neighbors about doing a rear addition that violates the side setback under code.  We had to put this sign up for a review period to let everyone in the neighborhood know that we were building a non-conforming structure - the addition behind our house.  I had seen white signs like this, and was very surprised to see that ours would be bright pink, yikes.  But so far so good as far as the complaints go - if someone had said something, we likely would not have the opportunity to build the master bedroom and bathroom and basement addition as planned.  Send some good energy our way though, people can still submit comments for a couple more weeks.  

The night we went to post the sign in our yard we discovered a busted pipe gushing water into our basement - 1" deep - which we had to shop-vac out right after Nick's company holiday party.  Who knew negative 17 degree temperatures with a hole into the crawl space could cause such a thing?

The wall before

This is an image of the interior space before the wall was knocked down.  We'll try to get some photos of the house during the day this weekend so you can see the inside better.  And, this kitchen we are replacing with our new ikea cabinets!

Nick flew out to western Colorado yesterday on his company plane to take juniors and seniors in highschool on a fieldrip, can you believe that? He got some nice photos as usual.

Cool wallpaper

Look above my head up there, that was original wallpaper buried under 3 layers of wall that had been built on top of it! It seems as though every room had wallpaper in it at some point. I'm looking forward to seeing what else we find. I actually really like this one here!

Goodbye wall.

Demo! I think one guy may have done all of this in the past two days. Our once low, 8ft ceilings, were torn down exposing the original 10 ft. ceilings. The 1 ft. thick wall with a short, awkward arch doorway, is coming down to join the two front small rooms in the house into one larger family room/dining room combo. We are actually really digging the brick! Maybe we should have a brick wall somewhere? I was against it, Nick was for it, it's not to late but I don't see it working. I can't believe how differnt the space looks already with these few changes.