California Dreamin'

Look what was installed this weekend...

This house is finally starting to look like a home!

While I was in California for bridesmaid duty, Vinni was hard at work installing the kitchen cabinets and painting the trim around the doors.  I felt a little guilty being in San Diego, wine tasting and enjoying the beach, but I knew that he had things under control :)  

The kitchen was delivered the day before I left, so I was able to go see the cabinets before they were installed.  I begged Vinni to open one of the boxes just to take a lil' peek ( I couldn't resist, it was like Christmas morning!).

Peeking wasn't enough...I had to see the whole thing...

  & Ta-da! We have a cabinet!

Vinni ordered the cabinets from Lowes.  The cabinet finish is called Java.

We were so excited that we decided to bring it into the house in order to grasp an idea of what the whole kitchen would look like.

                                 
We ended up moving this cabinet around the entire kitchen "just to see what it would look like."  We spent an hour or so, admiring its full beauty (yes, we are dorks).  Mind you, we haven't had a kitchen cabinet in this house since the week Vinni closed.  We were excited, to say the least.

So what do ya think?  Not bad, eh?  

Eventually, I'll scan all of the original plans that Lowe's drew up on the computer so that you all have a better idea of what it will look like with the appliances and countertops.  It's getting there...slowly but surely!

There's an App for That??

Yes, it's true, I've joined the 21st century and finally upgraded my phone for an iphone 4s.  I've only had it for about week and truthfully I have no idea what I was doing with a Blackberry for so long.  Sadly, my Blackberry was on it's last legs and definitely lacking in the software department.  Even Vinni had a cooler phone than me...imagine that!  Anyway, I've been downloading some pretty neat applications and recently I came across one called Pic Stitch....

It allows you to create diptych style images from your photo albums, which is great for before-and-after shots.  

Here's a few I created to share with all of you...

Oh yeah, and if you haven't noticed, the hardwood floor is in and they are completely finished installing. The next steps are:

• Door installation and painting each of them white
• Trim and casing
• Kitchen install (will be delivered April 12-15ish)
• Wall paint touch ups
• Finishing the electrical work (pendant lights in the kitchen, bathroom light fixtures, and a few other things)
• Remove carpet on stairs to basement
• Finish demo on basement rooms and paint the bathroom
• Refinish and stain hardwood floors so hopefully they end up looking something like this:

Image from Google

Let There Be Light

The lighting in the house is almost finished and we couldn't be more excited.  It's amazing what a little extra lighting can do to a space.  Here's a list of the changes or upgrades made so far:

• Family Room:  6 Recessed Can Lights (2 have dimmers and are adjustable for focussed lighting over the fireplace)
• Kitchen: 6 Recessed Can Lights (4 surrounding the area, 1 over the sink, 1 over the island)   *Eventually there will be 2 pendant lights hanging over the peninsula but we have yet to find ones that we like.
• Living Room: 4 Recessed Can Lights
• Dining: New Fixture from Lite Source (if you're looking for new lighting in your house, they are a great resource and affordable!)
• Hallways: We had the electrician put 1 new fixture in the entry hallway so that we had more light. In the hallways we used ceiling drum shades that we found at Ikea.  They were the only ones that I could find that were affordable and still looked somewhat decent.  We payed $29.99 for each, compared to $215.00
• Master:  Vinni's Mom has a fixture that she wasn't able to use in her house so we said we would gladly use it in ours.
• Office and Guest:  Vinni found basic ceiling lights from home depot for these rooms.

Pictures I have so far (Vinni has most of them on his phone, so I will post once I get them from him):

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

The title pretty much sums up this next post...yes, there was a little of all 3.  But, before I begin to explain the title, take a look at the freshly painted walls.  If I do say so myself, I think they look pretty amazing!

MS Bedford Gray in the living room, dining room, and kitchen:

Behr's Creek Bend in the family room and master bedroom:

MS Bedford Gray continues in the entry and hallways:

MS Sharkey Gray in the guest room and office:

Behr's Creek Bend in the master bedroom:

What do you think?  I couldn't be happier with how the paint colors turned out, and I'm pretty sure Vinni is in love with all of them (even though his frustration level was at an all time high during the process of deciding what colors to use).

Since the walls were all painted, the last steps were to paint the fireplace, heating vents, and window sills.

And so the painting began...

Vinni started on the window sills while I began tackling the brick fireplace.

Here he is annoyed that I'm always taking pictures and that there's never any of me in action.

Therefore, he captured my camera and proceeded to take pictures of me painting...

 The finished product

Now for the explanation of the blood, sweat and tears...

My mom has an interior design company and has been buying and storing a bunch of furniture for Vinni and I, which is awesome!  Over the last few months the amount of furniture has been building up and she's been running out of room to store it.  So we decided to bring a few things over to the house to store in the basement and garage.  She loaded her industrial cargo van full of tables, desks, art, etc.  While we were unpacking the last few items, I went to grab a piece of art that was bungee corded to prevent falling over and apparently I didn't grab the cord firm enough, that it came loose and smacked me right in the face(!)...It hit me so hard that it split open my lip and I literally thought that my teeth had been knocked out of my head...thankfully they were still intact!  Well, long story short, I was out of commission for the rest of the day and for a couple of days after my lip was so swollen that I looked like a "Who" person from Dr. Suess. 

My alter ego from Horton Hears a Who:

All kidding aside, it was one of the most painful things I've experienced.  Vinni attempted to take a picture of me right after it happened and obviously I wasn't too happy about that.

Here's a side view of what I looked like the rest of the day.  I kept the ice on that baby for the next few hours in hopes that the swelling would go down, not knowing that the next day my lip would be even bigger!

Oh and here's one of our other helpers (Nick Pickens) sanding down a table that we're going paint white and put in the office.

While I was moping around the house with my traumatic injury, Vinni was taking action shots of our parents slaving away.

My parents helped put the finishing coats of paint on the heating vents.

Steve helped Vinni paint the window sills and put the finishing touches on the fireplace hearth so that we could paint it.

Here's Tina touching up the window sills and wall paint.

I am still amazed at how great the fireplace turned out!  It doesn't even look like the same house.

  We decided to paint the surface of the hearth the same color as the wall because (1) we had left over wall paint and (2) we knew that if we painted it white, it would show all of the soot and dirt from the fireplace.

Can you believe it used to look like this?

 It's coming along...