We haven't stopped working on the house!

So we've been gone from the blog for awhile, mostly because we haven't had many days off together.  Mitch was gone for a couple weeks in mid February, then I was gone for a bit earlier this week. So we've been doing tiny bits here and there, but nothing too dramatic to photograph.  But we have made some headway and have bigger headway planned this month, so here are some updates.

First, the living room is pretty much done.  We still need frames on the windows as you'll see, the curtains need hemming, and we need to finish putting on the baseboards.  But for most part, we're done.

Mid painting, Atlas decided to walk on my freshly painted surfaces.

The crime:

White paw prints on my nice hardwood floor:

Irrefutable evidence!  Someone is in trouble!

Once I got past that and repainted the damn built ins, we got to putting baseboards on.  Well not the true baseboards I guess, but the quarter round at the base.

Pre:

Post:

Mitch also put an overhead light in the living room, which had none.

Now, some before and after living room photos.  Before:

After:

Now on to the bathroom, which I have also been working on. 

We picked out a sweet shower curtain.  Its nice to not have an old curtain tacked up to the plaster.  :)

I also did some work on the built ins.  Here are before and after photos. 

Before:

After:

We've taken the wall down to the studs, and after some replumbing/rewiring, we're going to get the wall up and start tiling again. 

And our next project, which we'll do along with the bathroom, is the master bedroom.  We cleaned it all out, and its ready for some demo. 

So thats what we've been doing.  Hopefully we will be better this month about getting work done and getting stuff posted. 

More living room work

oh LORD the living room painting will NEVER END.  But seriously.  I've made some headway.

Primed built ins.

Contrast color on the inside, just like the dining room.

Finished!

I also put up curtains in the living room, which is making it look like a real room.

Shower is complete!

Final tiling step: its grout time!

Grout!  We chose white to match the subway tile.

 I am the master of the grout.  No seriously, I got really good at it by the end.  When we do the rest of the wall, I'm going to be doing all the grout.

Observe my superior grouting skills.

After grout, we added in the shelves, which were a damn hassle.  The how to videos made them look like a snap, but they were not.

We put in some cute retro faucet handles, which were also a goddamn hassle.  They look sweet though.

Here she is, all done!  Looks like a real shower!  I've included the before first:

And after!

Now we just need to get a shower curtain up, but other than that it is done!  Then we can tile the rest of the bathroom.  It is going to look so sweet, I can't wait.

Bathroom: day 3

Tiling, tiling, tiling.  We're getting there...the shower is almost 100% tiled.  Here Mitch is getting started on the second half of the shower.

Making a hole for the shower head:

Getting the holes for the faucets planned out:

Finished with the wall:

Now on to the trim!  I totally love how it looks.  Its classy!

Trim close up:

Now we just need to put on grout and add the shelves.  The shelves have presented some technical difficulties that I don't know if we can overcome...but here's hoping.   Merry Christmas to me: a newly tiled shower!  Tiling the rest of the wall should be a snap.

Bathroom: Day 2

So actually day 3, I spent one day getting the wall ready for tile but that didn't take too long.

Mixing the thin-set mortar. 

Yeah, I was using a wooden spoon.  Its not the ideal tool.  Mitch got a drill attachment that mixes it, so when we did the main tiling I didn't have to mix it by spoon every time.  Here is the wall with the joints taken care of.

We also tore down more of the wall tile because it will be continuous with part of the tub tile.

And now with backer board in place:

Ok, time to tile.  The tiling stuff came to a total of about $140, with an extra $100 for a saw to cut the tile.  We found out after we bought tile spacers that subway tile actually doesn't need them.  Luckily they're cheap.  Now we know.

Here are some sequential progress shots.  We are doing a basic white subway tile, with a little black and white detail in there.  We will be tiling the floor with that pattern, and a ring of it will continue around the room.  There will be a black border on top eventually.  We just got the one wall done today.

There will be little corner shelves where those gaps are.

Rogue was very sad that we tiled all day instead of playing with her.  She brought her toy into the bathroom and kept trying to convince us to throw it.

I feel like now we have a much clearer idea of how to tile efficiently and I think the rest will go quickly from here.  We still need to pull all the rest of the pink tile off,  put up backerboard, and tile.  Oh, and tiling the floor.  Oh, and removing the rest of the brown tile from the built ins, sanding, and painting.  And painting the walls.  So yeah, the bathroom isn't near done yet.  But there is progress.

Dishwasher, bitches!

Our sweet dishwasher finally got delivered.  I ordered it on black friday, the first time in a long time I've bought anything on black friday but the deal was too good to pass up.  Plus now we have a dishwasher. 

We had to rip out some cabinetry to put it in.

After much destruction, dishwasher shaped hole.  The picture is sideways and my ass is too lazy to edit it and upload an upright version. 

Dishwasher!  Atlas is not convinced.

Mitch was very proud of the fact that he did new wiring for it and even put in a new breaker, lucky number 15.  He only shocked himself twice.

There is she is in place.  Its going to be a while before we do the entire kitchen remodel, so she's a bit precarious for now, but totally working well and thats what matters! 

And a close up.  She is a beauty.