Some Before Pictures...

Just to put our progress in perspective here are some pictures we found on Zillow (posted by the previous owners). These pictures don't actually do justice to just how bad the kitchen was before we completely gutted it (which was relatively easy as the cabinets were hung with finishing nails).

i'm thankful for wrecking bars

it started with the floor. i assume there are photos of our kitchen floor. the wandering zig-zag beige tiles made me dizzy, the tiles were cracked as per poor installation, and there was a 1" toe-busting transition step from the dining room. too long had the wood floor underneath been kept from us.

i am thankful for my 7 1/4" diamond blade because it cuts through tile and grout like a hot knife through butter. the basic strategy is to cut out the grout with the saw, then hammer and pry up the tiles and fiber-board with a flat wrecking bar. in the end, the tiles look much better as a pile of rubble in our driveway. i am thankful for the pile of rubble in my driveway that once was my kitchen floor.

dust is the biggest problem. we set up a drop-cloth "kill room" to keep the bulk of dust out of the rest of the house, and we used a combination of shop-vac, water spray bottle, and fans to control the dust as best we can. since the dust is largely composed of tiny fragments of ceramic and glass, i recommend a mask of some sort.

underneath, the wood floors are a bit beaten, but i think they will salvage nicely. they will salvage nicely when we get around to it, because apparently this is only the beginning.

intrigued by the growing pile of rubble in our driveway, our neighbor randy stopped by to see what we were doing. he is often amused by our projects. "cool pile of rubble," he observed.

"check out our floor," rebecca bragged.

"nice," randy agreed politely. "hey, if you knock out this wall, your kitchen would be totally awesome," he suggested.

"cool! that's the best idea ever," rebecca agreed. "here's a hammer," she offered making swinging motions.

i swear, it happened just like something along those lines. almost exactly similarly. in any case, the wall at the end of the kitchen is coming out. as the pictures show, we are committed - which is to say that all but the timbers and some wiring have been removed.

as it turns out, all this talk about removing walls has made us aware that we are, in fact, missing a wall that probably should not have been removed, so i suppose we'll be correcting that oversight as well.

good bye ugly tiles.

Southern Inspiration...

The Color Red

Rather then spend huge amounts of time and money stripping and restoring all of the bricks on the windows and chimney we decided to paint. It was important to us that the painted brick look as natural as possible and that it not come out looking like a cartoon version of brick. While doing some research I came across an extremely detailed report on the selection of pigments for red washing for the restoration of Montpelier (article on the Montpelier Curatorial and Restoration Blog). They hired several experts, did detailed colorimetric analysis and ultimately selected Benjamin Moore Mayflower Red as the most authentic pigment.

To be honest, I'm entirely over selecting colors and I have come to hate color cards. I decided that if Mayflower Red was good enough for James Madison's old mansion then it would certainly do for our little ranch-alow. Without delay or bothering to buy a sample quart I had Kelly Moore match the color came home and started painting the brick window sills.

Here are the results...

Alternatively, I considered having paint matched to hair samples from Alger, Finch and Zuri. It might not have been authentic but we do seem to have an affinity for their particular color red... I wonder what our chimeny would look like with a white stripe down the middle?

Thank you to everyone who came on Saturday. We had such a great time! We feel so lucky to be able to share our home with friends and family!

Time Lapse

At 9pm last night Mark and I danced across our newly finished floor! I can't believe it's almost done, seriously I can't. This porch has been a BIG project and for months every bit of progress has been hard won and not at all obvious to the untraied eye (note the lack of pictures between months 4-10).

1 year- Isn't it amazing?

Day 1

Day 7

Day 14


1 Month

1.5 months

4 months10 months

11 months

Fun With Photo Shop

I love our little ranchalow (ranch-bungalow) painted white! I'm currently trying to figure out the rest of the color scheme. We are planning to paint the eaves "Haint Blue". Haint's, as the southern lore has it, are the bad ghosts prone to haunting. Painting the eaves Haint Blue is said to keep them out of your house. I don't know about ghost stories but I love the effect. For the trim we are thinking a dark forest green. While playing with colors I thought I'd throw in a gravel path, some stripped awnings and window boxes.

House Painting Part I

We started paining the house today...here are the first round of during photos.

A BIG thanks to Kieth for all of his help:)