Full frontal Garden...

Yes people, this is the mess that is currently our backyard...






























































This one is where our little herb garden is going to go! I can't wait to have all the herbs right there in the backyard instead of paying Publix for them! :)

Electrical superstar :)

Brent successfully relocated two power outlets this week. This is pretty cool, as I really had no idea he was this handy! Oh, yes, he TOLD me he was this handy, but I was skeptical to say the least. I doubt no more people!

First he moved an outlet from the living room wall (the other side of the kitchen wall) through the wall into the kitchen, so that our wine fridge will have power!


























Then he changed a light switch for a light we no longer need (it will be hidden behind the fridge) into a new socket for our coffee maker! I am so proud!!

FloridaRoom/Den

Colour change complete!

Before












After






















Hrmmm....so in these pics it doesn't look that different. But it is....REALLY! the old colour was kinda turquoise-y blue and the new one is a greyer blue. I like it a lot!

Garden

These are some of the wide variety of plants that are in our backyard right now. In the spirit of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" I would like to repurpose them. As of this moment, they are so badly placed in the garden that it hurts my eyes! Anyway, no major planning is happening backyard-wise yet, but thought they would make pretty pictures for ya'll!



















































































And, does anyone out there have any idea what kind of plant this is? We also have an enormous (8ft or so) one in the front yard...

New Kitchen!

Our new kitchen has arrived! Well, it's all in boxes, and will be till next week at least, but it's very exciting :)






























We got a great deal on a discontinued series of cabinets from Cabinet Liquidators (same company as those Lumber Liquidator commercials you see on TV) they were really great to deal with. They told us that the cabinets we wanted were discontinued, but asked us to send over our dimensions and they would see what they could do with the random "leftovers" in the warehouses. This is what they came up with:












































































The counter tops will be butcher block instead of the grey granite in the pics. We are pretty excited!
The counters will look something like this (no pics yet!)

Kitchen wall

Brent has pretty much finished the moving of the kitchen wall. Yes, it was only a foot, but for a first attempt (or any attempt really!) he did an awesome job.

Why were we moving the wall you ask? Well, the opening started out about 6 feet wide. We wanted to make the kitchen "eat-in", so thought that extending the counter out past the door to make a "bar" with stools on either side, would be a cool idea. Well to have enough space to do this and still walk around the other side, we needed a bit more space. Here's where the wass move came in!

Here is the unpainted, but finished project!


























Brent also did more kitchen demo! Fun stuff...I hope he left me some :)

Master Bedroom

So one room done! Well except for the floor refinishing which will get done with the rest of the house.

Before











After










All white before, and is now a couple of lovely, soothing greens :) It was our first try at merging our very different decorating tastes, and I think so far, so good!

The floor is very much looking forward to being refinished, this is what the terrazzo currently looks like:





















Hopefully it will look like the "after" in this pic when it's finished:

Week One Update

One week down... A lot has been accomplished this past week, despite some setbacks with the popcorn ceiling...let me just say this. HGTV failed us. As most of you know, Brent and I are avid devourers of HGTV, and about the only other thing we watch is Food Network and the Travel Channel for Anthony Bourdain. We had been lulled into a false sense of security by Flip This House and Property Ladder (home flipping shows for those not in the know!), people are ALWAYS removing popcorn from their houses and apartments, with seemingly NO problem. Spray the stuff with water, let it soak in for a few minutes, and it scrapes right off like cottage cheese....

I CALL BULLSH*T.

This did not happen. We sprayed and sanded and sprayed and sanded and scraped - REPEAT - for HOURS I tell you. It was hard work for very little reward. In fact it seems what we may have been rewarded with will be lazy craftsmanship by the original contractors....visable seams and stains on the ceiling that were sloppily covered up by lazy-arse workers who couldn't be bothered to tape and mud the ceiling as they should have. GRRR...

So we are now about 2/3 the way through this atrocity and I am glad to say it's on the back burner till after the kitchen is installed.


Here's what the ceiling looks like before and after scraping. We will be doing a lot of repairs to it when all is said and done...oh well, lesson one learned! :)













While Brent was struggling with the ceiling, I was on linoleum removal in the Kitchen. Yes, the floor we ALL thought was wood in the kitchen, was actually VINYL! Good for me, as it was a matter of just pulling it up strip-by-strip. Sticky and gluey mess? Yes, but at least not solid wood!























So Brent has moved over to kitchen demo. He likes this stuff....A LOT! We are expanding the doorway from our living room into the kitchen another foot wider. This means pulling out drywall, moving light switches (read "live power") and phone sockets, as well as relocating the vertical beam that is currently residing at the end of the wall right now. Sounds like big stuff to me, but Brent assures me that with the right research, he can do this alone. I believe him :)

Here are the progress pics; before, during and almost finished:


























Our roommate Bobby came over to help out for a few hours on our 2nd day - he was so gung-ho about scraping the ceiling, that Brent had to tell him not to do such a great job, as he was making Brent's side look shabby! Haha! Bobby Also got in on priming the Florida Room and also some kitchen demo - then we stopped for a beer break :)























While Brent was working away in the Kitchen, I was prepping the house for painting. Removing a myriad of hooks, nails, screws and the like from the walls, removing the pink vertical blinds (sorry Mum, they had to go...) and then spackling the remaining gaping holes! Here I am after sanding the spackle in the bedroom...















Not to mention the mirrored tiles that were on the walls in the Florida room (Australian readers read: Family Room) - I dont even want to think about counting the number of years bad luck Brent and Bobby incurred whilst pulling off those tiles....EEK!























Now the painting begins! Priming EVERYTHING!


This is the before priming and after priming of the bedroom...not sure it's as obvious from the picture, but the walls were really yellow from cigarette smoke. You could actually still see where the old owner had hung pictures...GROSS! I also repainted the ceiling - I was surprised what a huge difference it made. It looks like new - well except for the annoying popcorn. Painting textured ceiling is not fun by the way. Especially when you specifically ask the guys at Home Depot what is the BEST kind of roller for the job, and they totally and utterly fail by giving you something useless! If anyone's interested, a roller with at LEAST a 1 inch nap/pile works like a dream on the textured ceiling :)

And here's me in my fabulous painting gear :)

































Here is the Florida room priming in progress...you can see for some reason, the old owners had painted the ceiling in the kitchen and Florida rooms the same colour as the walls...very odd. As soon as the walls & ceiling were all white, it was amazing how much bigger it looked. No wonder ceilings are almost always white! I love our blue fan in the Florida room....Brent hates it - not sure what the compromise will be yet ;)
































Then onto the hallway....it's pink, like the living room. I cannot wait till it's not!






























Brent's kitchen demolition is going very well. We only have two counters and some cabinets left.









































We're hoping to be able to sell the original GE appliances thet were in there, they are in really fabulous shape, and someone doing a retro kitchen could definitely use them - and of course we could hopefully make some money back!