A lot has happened since September...

I took a look at our blog today and thought, gee, we haven't posted anything since September. Then I looked at it again and realized we hadn't posted anything since September **2012**!!! Whaaaaat? It's been OVER A YEAR since we updated this thing?!? *shakes head while rolling eyes*

Well, a lot has happened since September 2012. It's been a year and a half since we moved into our house in Christiansburg and a full summer, two Thanksgivings and two Christmases have happened since we last checked in on this blog.  In addition to all sorts of house projects, most of them totally unglamourous (like replacing our garbage disposal, weatherizing, repairing a sump pump, etc), we started an organization called Downtown Christiansburg, Inc. (DCI for short), we've made new friends, celebrated my Mom's 50th birthday, won some ADDYs, celebrated my step-sister getting married, I turned 30, Dave ran for Christiansburg Town Council...and didn't win (all the incumbents were voted back in), then the holidays happened again and we visited lots of family and friends and generally had a jolly good time. I think, instead of giving you one HUGE LONG post, I'll break them up until we're caught up. This may not happen in chronological order.

For today's post, since we're just getting back into this, let's look at a house project:
You may remember our over-the-stove microwave. Well, it stopped working last Spring and started spitting sparks out the top and zzzzt-zzzzt-ing at us when we turned it on. We decided to take the opportunity to just replace the whole thing with a new hood instead of a new microwave (soooo much cheaper!). It gave us a ton more room above the stove, and the lighting was much nicer--it really opened up that side of the kitchen.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Yay, right! Something to note, we do have our cabinet doors up! I'll make a separate post about that soon for you.

Catch up!

Wow, we can't believe it's been a month and half since we moved into the house, and a month since we updated anything on here!

Needless to say there's a bit to catch up on. We showed a glimpse of the kitchen as it (mostly) stands now in the previous post, but here's what's happened since the last real renovation update...which was at the beginning of July, oy.

So after getting the sink area built out, the cabinets required quite a bit of repair as we prepped them for paint.

Putty!

Re-lamination!

Serious repair.

 

Cabinet doors, all sanded all ready for putty.

Tools of the trade.

Next up was sanding and painting. You don't realize how much surface area cabinets have (inside and out) until you have to sand (and then paint) every square inch...

Keepin' the dust out of the rest of the house.

Sanding!

Deglossing! This really helped dull any varnish that was left after sanding.

Keep deglossing!

We left a time-capsule photo on the wall before we re-closed the tops of the cabinets. Let's just hope it's not us who finds this years from now.

New trim.

Status check, after all repairs, sanding, deglossing, and trim work.

For some reason we didn't take that many photos of the painting process, which either says something about our desire not to get paint on our cameras, or the fact that the 3 coats + primer we had to put on were grueling and left us with no energy to document the nightmare that it was.

First coat of paint.

Paint is magically (yeah, right) done!

Next up was the counters, we chose a birch counter top from Ikea. We really liked the warmth of the wood and the fact that it would allows us to cut and install it ourselves.

Sanding.

Polyurethane.

Curing.

Finally time to install!

Like a glove.

On to appliances!

It's alive! We picked up this gently used flat-top stove for a song at a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store.

The appliances were a bit grungy, both from the previous tenants and all the construction dust.

Transformation from repair to counters.

Christina enjoying some sustenance in our now-stocked (and cluttered looking) kitchen. Doors, drawers, backsplash, walls, and floor still to go.

So there you have it, we are now up-to-date! We'll try to make sure it's not another month between posts...

The kitchen! Must finish the kitchen!

It's been awhile. We moved in just a little over two and a half weeks ago. The week leading up to the move and the weeks since have been crazy, so we've been kind of ignoring our little blog here. Sorry blog. Progress on the kitchen has slowed since we moved in, but since our last post, we have managed to cut the counter tops, prime the cabinets, and get the first coat of paint on half of them. We are currently storing anything and everything having to do with the kitchen and cooking in the basement and have been using paper plates/cups and plasticware, a portable single electric burner, and the microwave. The worst part is not having a kitchen sink. Thankfully, this upcoming weekend holds no major obligations for us, so we'll be able to make a big push to at least get the counters on and the sink in. So, anyone out there who just loves to paint and has nothing better to do this weekend? Bueller?

David cutting up some sausage. I should take the chance here to thank my awesome mom for cooking us up the biggest BUNCH of meat to use for dinners. So much easier to just pop that stuff in the microwave and serve it over spinach, toss it with some noodles, or throw an egg and avocado over it! No cleaning meat grease in the bathroom sink!

Stayin' classy.

Folding table as kitchen storage.

Hey there dishwasher.

The Tour

We've been busy repairing cabinets in the kitchen and prepping them for paint. Unfortunately, that does not make for a very visually interesting update, so we've decided to take you on the grand $0.05 tour (something we should have done in the first place). Just so you know, these are all 'before' photos, and as such some are already very out of date. Anyway, off we go!

You've already seen the outside, but we'll show it to you again just for good measure.

View as you walk in the front door. 

Looking back towards the front door.

Living room, kitchen to the right.

The other end of the living room, stairs to upper level.

Upstairs hallway.

Upstairs bathroom sink.

Upstairs bathroom toilet and tub/shower.

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3...yes, these are very exciting. They have closets too.

Back downstairs now, looking from the living room into the kitchen.

Our lovely kitchen.

Kitchen, looking back towards dining room.

Overlooking the dining room.

Dining room, looking back towards the kitchen. That open door is the office/den that is off of the front door.

Office/den (that's the front door you see through there)

Dining room, looking towards laundry and bathroom. (we love that wall by the way, it's patterned concrete block and goes through into the office as well)

Laundry, garage through the door.

Downstairs (full) bathroom, see the shower stall reflected in the mirror.

To the basement!

Basement, looking back towards the stairs.

Our super fun storage room/root cellar, it's underneath the back porch.

View from the back yard.

And last, but certainly not least, the garage!

Well, there you have it. Now you know...and knowing's half the battle.