Welcome Home Wednesday

I haven't updated you all on any of our recent home renovations but it's not because there hasn't been a lot going on. There definitely has been. These are just cell phone pictures, I'll take some better pictures when it's all finished!

Our most recent project has been the downstairs family room. It started out looking like this when we bought the house back last September...

Then we tore out the wall in-between the family room and the downstairs bedroom. We also tore out the paneling around the windows and tore out the bar and used that space to turn the 1/2 bath into a full bath and that's where it stayed while we gutted the kitchen and rehabbed it.

Once the kitchen was done, my dad moved the door going into the bedroom down closer to the stairs so that it wouldn't be right in the middle of the family room. Re-drywalled the wall into the bedroom and replaced the outside door. He also foam insulated around the windows because there was 0 insulation, you could acutally see clear to the outside around the windows. He also added can lights and then gutted the basement bedroom and re-did it and also gutted the half bath and made it a full bath (which I still need to blog about soon.) And then it became a catch all room for all the tools and stuff we needed to work on other projects around the house. That is until about 2 weeks ago when he started framing in the wall of windows and around the fireplace!

He then dry-walled around the windows and fireplace and then mudded, sanded and painted all the walls in the basement to match the gray we have upstairs! He also stippled and painted the ceiling. Then he hung the t.v. over the fireplace and built a new hearth on the fireplace. Monday, we moved the sectional in and yesterday my dad painted the fireplace insert black, as you can see in these pictures above, it was a bronze color. Today he's laying tile in the hallway that leads to the bathroom, laundry room and garage.

The short term plan for the rest of this space is to add built in shelves on either side of the fireplace, add an exposed beam style mantle and tile over the brick around the fireplace and on top of the hearth. We will also be laying ceramic tile from the outside door, over to the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom, laundry room and garage door (which will hopefully be done soon since he's starting on it today.) Then eventually we want to tear out the carpet that's in there now and add something else whether it be new carpet, carpet squares or tile we aren't quite sure yet and of course new baseboards. I'd also like to add a plank wall or ship-lap to that back wall and we'll need new faux wood blinds up on the windows for a little privacy. I imagine we'll have them open most of the time since the windows give us so much natural light and such an open, airy feeling. They look out onto the patio so it's nice to have them there. We will also get a sofa table to go behind the couch and an end table at some point soon too.

So that's what we've been working on lately. I haven't really updated much because it's a little overwhelming with all the work that is going on. I'm hoping to do a post about the downstairs bathroom next. It took on quite a major transformation and looks really amazing now!