We're finally painting!

Such a good little helper...

We had a paint party this weekend (does it sound more fun to call it a party?), and got all the walls painted. It is starting to come together! Thank you Amy, Jed and Aaron for all the help!

Next up, our flat coffered ceilings...

Pantry Progress

All framed in and ready to go! We are loving the new changes.

It opened up the entryway just as much as we were hoping. Originally, we were going to keep the coat closet, but as we were knocking all the walls down, we decided the coat closet needed to go. It added about 3 feet to the entry, which makes a HUGE difference.

I lied

We'd better get this renovation wrapped up soon because we keep having new ideas. This time I'm placing partial blame on my brother. We were visiting my parents this past weekend and a few of us were discussing some possibilities for a kitchen renovation that my parents have been saying they might do for the last 5 years...My brother threw out the possibility of expanding the kitchen by taking out an adjacent half bathroom... and I had a light-bulb moment.

We have a pretty small half bathroom right as we walk in from the garage that isn't necessarily needed. We have a full bathroom just down the hall from the living areas that would be just as convenient for us to use. My original idea was to demo the whole thing completely and install floor-to-ceiling cabinets for "mudroom storage" -- you know, all the coats, hats, shoes, etc. I was a little hesitant to mention the idea to Luke because I knew he is getting a little reno-weary and he's looking forward to getting the house put back together -- but, I decided to run it by him and was surprised that he was more enthusiastic about it than I anticipated. He even improved upon my idea -- he suggested we turn the area into a pantry instead. In our current kitchen layout we have a tall cabinet with pullouts that we use as our pantry, but it is small and it sure would be nice to have some more space for food, small appliances, paper goods, etc.  We have had a few discussions about how we could add more pantry space, but really couldn't figure out how to accomplish it in the space we had. So, after Luke's suggestion I was even more excited about the idea. Also a huge bonus is the wall won't have to be as deep, so it will open up the entryway a bit. Right now it feels just a little bit tight, so win-win.

Straight ahead is the entrance from the garage. The room to the right is the half-bath we've opted to demolish:

This is the view from the entryway. We'll keep the coat closet you can see in the photo below, but at the edge of the closet is where the wall will end all the way across. The current wall extends about 6 feet into the room, but our pantry only needs to be about 3 feet deep, so we'll gain a whole 3 feet of space in front of the pantry and open up the sight-lines from the front door to the family room.



This is my inspiration photo for the pantry:

source

I love the doors, bracketed shelves and I love the size. Big enough to hold a lot, but not so deep that things get lost. My organizing style is to spread everything out so I can see everything at once. Hopefully we can pull it off!

One more wall

After seeing the transformation happening with other parts of the house when we removed walls, I came up with an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. We're not terribly formal people, so I have no use for a formal dining room. I think we used our formal dining room in our last house about 8 or so times in the two years we lived there. So I proposed taking down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. I loved the idea of having the kitchen completely open to the dining space and the living room. This proposed change also impacted the new floors we are putting in -- so that was my argument that got Luke on-board to expand the scope of our project. 

This is the kitchen before: 

After taking down the upper cabinets:



View from the dining room:

Let's do this!

So much more open!

 

View from the dining room:

The electrical has since been re-routed and the drywall on the ceiling patched -- yay for no more raining insulation -- and it is starting to come together. Next up is to build the cabinets on the backside of the new peninsula and install the hood that will go above the range. Obviously we have to do a different range. After doing weeks of research on different slide-in ranges -- I tell you what, researching appliances is a terrible experience. It seems like there is no middle ground. Either people love the one they have, or they've had nothing but problems. This is really across the board --- are there no reliable brands?? We finally chose one and unfortunately it is back-ordered. They are hoping to receive it in the next two weeks -- but I'm not holding my breath. Good thing we've got weeks of work ahead before we really need it.

New staircase

My sister and brother-in-law were awesome to come down and help us with the next part. It was a big job -- we totally owe them!

There were a few problems with our previous staircase: 1) It was narrow 2) It was extremely creaky 3) We didn't like the turn at the top from the hallway 4) The incline was a little steeper than we'd like

We debated about just reinforcing it and rebuilding the top couple of steps to take the staircase straight up, but this only solved problems # 2 and 3. So, when Brett said rebuilding wouldn't be too much hassle we decided it was worth it to start from scratch. We are so happy we did!

We also opened up the side of the staircase and the two doorways at the bottom.

Stairs before:

After we opened up the side:

Already better!

Next we opened the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

Before:

After the wall was opened up and the stairs removed:

New stairs!

View from the top of the stairs:

Remember what it looked like before?

I love the new staircase. We made the slope a little gentler, the treads wider and deeper and it doesn't creak!

I'll end this with a cute video of Seth helping with the demo. The drywall was hanging by a thread and we had Seth come over and finish the final knock-down. He was SO proud of himself. I wish I would have left the camera running longer because his reaction after was priceless. He puffed up his chest and he was thinking he was pretty macho. So hilarious.

And if you think we are done knocking down walls, you are sorely mistaken, my friends. One more to go!

Demo Begins...

Luke keeps blaming me for wanting to tear out all the walls, but I keep reminding him that he actually suggested tearing down the wall surrounding the staircase. I give him full credit though -- best idea ever. It makes SUCH a difference in the feel of the main level. We get all the light flowing through from those large windows in the living and dining rooms. Before it was pretty dark and narrow-feeling.

Before:

After the wall came down: (yes, this is from the same point of view)

Middle-construction photos are never great, but it really gives us a feel for what the end result will be. This was really a game changer though. We were thrilled at how much it improved the light and flow of the whole main floor.

Before:

After (with a very similar point of view):

Huge difference!

Next up -- opening up the doorways downstairs and rebuilding the staircase.