which color? holy cow?

we are about to paint the dining room. which color???

HOLY COW!!!!

ps all three pictures are show the same paint sample at different times of day

all of these paints came from the paint store down the street. locally owned and operated the benjamin moore paint store, mountain paint and decorating. i asked the fine gentleman behind the counter

 "and you can make this all treehugger-y and earth friendly?"

his response "we can do anything you want"

well alright then, NOW we're talking!!!

re/staining the floor

DO OVER!!!!

so we decided to re sand the floors.

this looks much better!

loving it!

i like this picture because this is how far i got before i ran out of stain.
7:30 pm trips to lowes ROCK! NOT!

all done!

the final product

love it!!!

the library/dining room

the room once known as the library will become the dining room.

but, until we get the house more situated, the "dining room" is going to become our den. last week i primed our new drywall. now we are ready to paint! 

as you know, the pine floors (mostly heart pine!) in the house need to be redone. we decided to go ahead and redo the floors in the future dining room:

dining room: we rented a sander from lowes

this lowes sander is a pain in the rear end. the sandpaper only lasts like 5 seconds. 

ugh, the price we pay for gorgeous floors!

sanding the floor

now that the floor is all sanded, its time to stain. 

we chose rustoleum kona.

(yo dude. don't judge me on my method!)

first coat

hmmmm....looks a little funky! but i keep going anyway. 

(will this be a problem later? you betcha!)

next picture is so you can see the progression:

before sanding right half of picture
after sanding bottom left
first "attempt" at staining left middle

it is a little uneven

but not too bad right?

uh, yeah....we're going to have to redo that. apparently we didn't take off all of the previous polyurethane. hehe. OOPS!

changing it up a little!

catching up: january 16th ish

so here we are, faced with a new dilemma. we have torn down the walls to the studs. we are getting ready to get ourselves a new washer and possibly a new dryer too! and we start to think....

"where will we put the fridge?" 

"HMM....i ve got an idea!"

"ok, lets here it"

"lets put the washer and dryer in this here guest bedroom!"

"brilliant! and then we could put the master bedroom in the room we were going to make the dining room!"

"yes, and our existing bedroom could become the guest bedroom"

"and then when the dining room becomes our bedroom we get that nice fireplace in our bedroom with an attached bathroom and a walk in closet!"

"we could easily fix that new hole in the wall and close it off  the den!"

"and since we have this awesome new den, we could turn the library into the dining room!"

"and then we could turn the former guest bedroom into a laundry room/office/storage space/craft room!!!!"

"absolutely! and then close off the existing back door and put a french door going straight out the back of the kitchen into the backyard" (instead of into the driveway)

"and then someday we can build a small deck to help make use of a tiny back yard!"

"wow. great ideas. lets do it!"

"sweet!"

dining room will now be the master

another angle

current den, was eventually going to become guest room
will now become laundry/office/storage/craft space

no more plaster! and a little bit of old house love...

i am completely and utterly falling in love with this process. don't get me wrong, we have already had some stressful moments. yes it sucks to live in two rooms. yes, the dust is irritating, etc. but we are lucky to not have many of our belongings here.  its so nice to be living simply. yes. our clothes are in suitcases. we have have only two plates, two bowls, two beer glasses (HAHA. priorities), two forks, one frying pan, one sauce pan and so on. we have a sheet of drywall haphazardly screwed into the ceiling in the bathroom, to prevent the plaster from giving way. we are making due. just fine. 

 i am completely surprised how much i am loving this. ask me again later, i might not say the same. ask nick, he might not say the same.  we shall see. but for now, i love saving this 1920's bungalow. someone before us loved this house dearly, but never invested much more than love and time into it. this our chance to make it live again. it makes my heart happy.  and then, there is the preservation factor. we are contributing to maintaining the spirit of this old neighborhood.  in raleigh, they take old houses like these, in not-so-fancy neighborhoods, and bulldoze them. that is not for us. that is not for this house.  to emphasize that philosophy further, it also feels really good to minimize the amount of things that end up in the landfill. each layer that we pull back i get to reflect on a different time, a different life. its scary. its mysterious. its exciting. its beautiful. i am truly inspired, fascinated and blown away by the emotions that fixing up this house has stirred in me.

okay enough cheeseballishness.

i'll get to the point. 

we are doing the inside in two phases. right now we are working on the front half, which had really bad water damage from that stinkin leaky roof. we have and will have assistance from demos builders for the insulation and for the rehanging of the drywall and also for the roof.  tomorrow we will have the floor re-supported on the "rotten corner". otherwise, here is where we are as of today.

all the ceilings are demo-ed! 

old wiring is cool

the fireplaces are all uncovered and are going to be amazing!

before and afters...

library

before

after

den

before

after

here are some plaster before and afters 

for your entertainment...

den looking towards foyer

before

after

foyer

after

library:

before

after
note: the white door is now a closet. we will be closing off this side and opening it up to the bathroom on the other side of the wall. it will become a linen closet.

 foyer windows and door into library
also known as the rotten corner

and now for my favorite before:

dining room

library

library AND the dining room!