7 months later, we have a Living Room

Hi all :)

Sorry for the horrible lack of blogging.  I think now is the time to actually breathe after 7 months after Hurricane Issac.  As you know, I was one of the people that flood and had to gut my entire house - and redo a room upstairs because the ceiling fell.  What you probably didn't know was that during that entire demo/remodeling/moving out (parents), we lived here.  It was horrible lol.  I will say that we were lucky to have an upstairs and not forced to live with my Sister for 3 months - she would have killed us.  I mean, she loves us....yea but not that much lol

My hubby and I actually took over little man's room because our ceiling fell on our bed and we didn't have one. Well...in case you didn't know...little man effin SNORES like cutting wood snores.  I refused to share a room with him, so he got moved to the closet across from his room, it was big enough to hold a twin sized bed, a end table and a big suitcase for his clothes.  It was perfect.  (and just so you know, it is now the Kitty room but that's for another blog)

WELL...you will be happy to know that our house is done and I'm pretty much done except for a little touch ups here and there.  Wanna see?  Of course you do, you nosey bastards :p

All the before pics are from/during Issac...

The living room before...

The Living room after...

I know...its FUCKING GORGEOUS!!! :) I love it.

I have the same tile running throughout the WHOLE downstairs.  2 reason, 1 - its fucking cheaper for me and easier for the tile dudes and 2 - The downstairs doesn't really have any breaks and I'm not a big fan of having 3 different tiles in one space.

 This part of the kitchen was an addition that we didn't build.  Remember that picture of Brett using the electric jackhammer trying to get the tile up?  Well we (well, the tile guys lol) had to pour self leveling stuff to get it even.  I thought it was so pretty when they 1st poured it.

This is the tile throughout the entire downstairs except the bathroom.  Walnut wood grain tile, $1.99 sqft.

I'm going to show you guys the kitchen tomorrow...and it has NOTHING to do with the mountain (and I mean MOUNTAIN) of dishes sitting in the sink taunting me while I post this blog.  But here's a preview:

The Kitchen/Dining Room before...

The Kitchen/Dining after...

Yea..it's still yellow - it's a thing in our family, we all have yellow kitchens.  But how about that light! It's so sexy, god I love it.  It originally was like 80 inches long which touched the floor lol but my WONDERFUL father-in-law came over and cut the wire and installed it.  Manly men! 

New walls, new hope

Hello all!

Is everyone else enjoying the brief moments of cold weather we are getting?  I love it - except for the fact that I'm living like a gypsy and I have shit everywhere and it's annoying to have to search for pants or shorts or a jacket lol.  I'm telling you, you really don't realize how complicated it is to live in 3 rooms of your house and then have all your SHIT everywhere and other stuff strategically placed everywhere else.  Its a pain in the ass, take my word for it.

So the house - lets start from where I left off.  In the last blog, I talked about the beginnings of the hurricane and what damage was done and the demo of it all.

Well, I'm happy to say that we have WALLS!!!!!!! The whole downstairs where we took the 4ft off now has brand new sheetrock.  We are in the sanding and floating stage right now - hopefully, texture & paint is next week.  I finally got the wall of my dreams.  I don't think I've ever been so excited to have a freakin wall.

So for comparison - here is a picture from Little man's 4th birthday party.
You see the curtain back there?? Yea that was the only cheap way to close it off to everything.

During this demo pic, you can see it was open.

Well....I wanted to be closed off.  Why you ask? 2 reasons - one I wanted it to be an actual room with a door (a bedroom for my Bubba) and second because I hated the fact that I had to paint that the same as the living room because their was no break. 

Well...look at it NOW:

THERE IS A WALL!!!!!!!!!  We are putting a pocket door, it's the only way we could fit a door without having to rip up the stairs.  I'm in total love with it.

So speaking of demo - demo comes with problems, right?   

You see that tile on the floor behind Little man?  Yea...that stuff wouldn't budge..at all.  So thanks to my cousin who is in road construction, he let us borrow his electric jack hammer and Hubs went to town!

Hubs got it all up - he's so manly (sometimes lol).  Right now its a hurry up and wait game still.  The sheetrock is up but it's got to be floated at least 3 times...le sigh.  I wish they'd just spray the texture and get it over with.  The only good thing is...I don't have to cook right now lol.  Check out the kitchen.  Since everything in the kitchen (except the dishwasher) is good, they moved all of our boxes and totes in front of the cabinets and stove.  Fun times, right?

Sigh, lets talk hurricanes

Hellllooo? 

As you can tell I took a slight break from doing projects and writing on my blog.  2 reason - 1st: it's hard to do DIY projects when you have 2 families living in 1 house.  You see, I'm purchasing my parents house (the house I grew up in) and my parents are building a new house in the country.  My parents are strangely and lovingly attached to MY house.  And aren't really keen on projects that I want to do...cause it's been their way for 25 years and just...no lol.  And I understand, I do...but I pay the bills...and at a certain point you've just got to let go (ANNND Hurricane Isaac sure did give them a swift kick in the ass, just sayin).  2nd - I'm effin lazy, there I said it.  I still have not put the clear coat on my upstairs cabinets, I know...bad DIY-er.

Well...you'll be unhappy to know that Hurricane Isaac destroyed my NEW bathroom...I was able to keep the toilet area because we put up greenboard and tiled the walls (which I'm sooo glad I took my dad's advice on that).

I do have a few pictures on my phone from the hurricane, not much because I wasn't home to see the damage get done.  I did walk (with my hubs) 8 blocks in thigh high water in the rain to get to my house...and then I just broke down in tears. I wanted to redo stuff, of course I did but damnit, not like this.  Not EVERYTHING all at one, it was supposed to be 1 project a year...but le sigh, I can't do anything about it...whats done is done, you know.

 Here is the water line - Red wall is the living room.  Beige wall - Kitchen.  Green wall (sniff!) - bathroom - Plus side is now I can really get rid of those presswood cabinets.

 So yea, this is my bedroom - the fucking ceiling COLLAPSED because the roof came off in that one section (because the roofers just nailed the shingles in and didn't remove the back for the back adhesive)

 How nice, right??  Guess who's getting a new bed now....

 

 The beginning of the trash pile...and speaking of trash pile - I hate touching that shit, god it's nasty!.

And here comes the DEMO!! (pay no attention to the underage workers, btw lol)  We had to go 4 feet high with EVERY wall.

 

The freaking tile was coming up like butta...my hubs and dad killed that shit in like 20 minutes.

 AND whoever created or layed vinyl tile in my house - I hope you DIE.  God that shit was horrible to take off and my shoulders are still killing me.

 And little blue flooded out and Geico came and towed her away...

But for now, we are living upstairs (thank goodness we have a 2 story) and everyday when we get home from work, we do a new project.  I want this shit done...and done quickly.

-Em

My loving Husband

My dear loving husband sent me this IM that said "Omg...they made a graphjam that's all about you!" and at this point I'm like whaaaa? what are you talking about, who would make a graphjam of me, I'm like no one in this big ol' blog-a-sphere....

Well....would you like to see what my dear, loving husband sent me?

graphjam

 

Touché..........."Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!"

Cabinets Transformation!! (totally sounds like a magic trick, right?)

Hello!  I know that I promised this post yesterday but you wouldn't BELIEVE the day I had at work.  It was crazy and I was swamped with work.  Who knew they actually expected you to work :p

Anyways! On to the cabinets.  After seeing the Rust-oleum  cabinet transformations all over the interwebs, I had to do it myself.  So this is the cabinet when I 1st started.

 

This is the lovely kit and believe me when I say the large kit can really do your whole kitchen, I have so much left.

Step one, clean the cabinets.  This stuff worked great and didn't smell that bad.

 Look at the cabinets, it's just a plain white press-board laminate cabinet.  Nothing fancy about, no wood grain...nothing...just white.

 

 I tried to do an action shot...lol, not much action to cleaning.

So after I cleaned it, I was on to step 2, painting.  Here is a picture of the 1st coat.  btdubs, this paint is THIN.  Like it was dripping everywhere.  I stirred the crap out of it and shook the can but still thin.  It got everywhere on me lol.

It's a bit streaky but it's on there.  At 1st I didn't like the color and thought to myself, well at least it's just paint...but I did a second coat.

And I like it sooo much better.  And now on to step 3 the glaze!!

Now, you'd be crazy to tell me you just don't looove this....ready??

Squee!!!! Lookie!! It actually looks like wood!!!  I love it soooooooooo much!!!  I can't wait to do the rest of my cabinets!!!

Here's a close up of the glaze...

How could you not love that!!!

A little bit of the paint came off when I was wiping the glaze off, meh I kind of like it like that, gives it a unique look and yes that is code for eff it, I'm not repainting this bitch again.

And eventually I'll paint the bathroom walls...what...don't like the sponge blue?  Meh, neither do I but I'm not rushing it.  This is the upstairs bathroom, no one every uses it except us.

 I added some brown to my Sister's paint shirt lol

I told you, the paint got everywhere on me.  BTDubs, look how pretty my garden is, love it.

 Little man decided he had to clean my feet lol.

My review on Rust-oleum Cabinet Transformations is a A+, no sanding..why yes, yes please :)

Linking to Thrifty Decor Chick for her Before and After Party!!