September 2008 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Anyone doing home renovations?
I know Jules is doing a bathroom remodel...anyone else have house proejcts going on? Let's hear about them and pictures would be awesome too! 
Re: Anyone doing home renovations?
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It isn't technically a renovation since the basement was never finished to begin with, but we are finishing our basement into a large family room. It will have a sectional and wall-mounted TV with suround sound on one side and a fireplace with built-in bookcases on either side on the other end of the room. It will be about a 14'x20' room.
We had to have a new window put into the front of the house because we didn't have enough ventilation to the outdoors (since it isn't a walk-out). But the double window in the front lets in a lot of natural light and helps it feel like less of a basement (which is half above ground).
Before:
After (January 10th):
After all the snow (February 2nd)
Anyway, I digress. So most of the framing is done (half walls and ceiling). There are pictures on the camera but I forgot to upload them last night. I got sucked into the Bachelor. But I will post them tonight.
We were going to put in the fireplace this week but DH found out at 11am yesterday that he had to fly to FL last night for work. And he'll be down there anywhere from a few days to 2 weeks depending on how long it takes them to figure out the fix the problem. So we have to wait on that until he gets home. Then we'll have the plumber come in to hook up the gas line for the fireplace and the electrician to do all the electrical work.
Holly -- I love that you guys are putting in a fireplace. That'll make it seem so cozy. And that's a LOT of snow!!!
No. We want to redo our kitchen this year, though. New floor and counter tops, install a tile back splash, and possibly new cabinets. We don't need new appliances and wouldn't change the layout. If and when we do it depends on if I get a substantial raise or a new job with a substantial raise once I graduate in May.
We plan on buying a shed for the backyard this summer and I want to do some more/better landscaping also. Eventually I would like to change out the baseboards and interior doors throughout the house, too. But, that isn't a priority.
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Not at the moment...When we get our tax money we are going to bank most of it but we will be putting some into paint (the only rooms we painted when we moved in were the kitchen and the nursery) and laminate hardwood for the living room/hallway this year and the kitchen next year...
We also have the idea that we want to tile our bathroom floor but that will be either next year or the year after...
We are replacing 1 appliance at a time and I think the next one will be my oven...it doesn't cook evenly and it drives me BONKERS!!!
I want to finally paint the kitchen and install the backsplash this spring break. I have the tile and the fabric for new curtains, just have to get the paint.
I am seriously considering painting Patrick's room. We left the paint as is when he was on the way because the previous owners did a fantastic job in the nursery, but he's still in our room at night and we're thinking of just converting him to a twin bed sooner rather than later. I'm thinking of building his bed from scratch. We'll probably just keep him in his current space, since if the next one is anything like him we'll have him/her in our room for a long time so we'll abandon the "nursery" idea, and if the next one is a boy, they may share P's room eventually anyway.
If I get a job, we will consider other larger projects, like a deck or a patio, and a bathroom in the basement (we only have one full bath upstairs). Once I clean out the basement, we may consider finishing part of it for a sewing studio/playroom. That project would be a few years off, though and will depend on if we decide to stay in the house.
2012 Reading Challenge
have you ever looked into this? Our current house has an extra toilet next to the furnace, and sometimes I wish it was a normal bath (at least half, if not a full second). Its something I think about a lot when I look at houses, but not much in our price range has more than one bath. I'm just curious what the ballpark figures are to totally pipe a new bath.
We are planning a small one now. We are going to finish the wall that our flat panel (that we're FINALLY buying thanks to Uncle Sam) is going on in our Family Room. We'll be buying the paint probably this weekend (a chocolate brown) and Alexi and his brother, Israel, have been talking about making a FP mantle surround. We found a picture of one that we really like that incorporates the media boxes into it and they may try to make one as we can't find anywhere to buy it. It's cool because the boxes are hidden in the mantle itself, but when you are watching TV a little door opens up so you can turn the boxes on and change channels, etc.
If we can't incorporate the media boxes in the mantle itself (because it'll come out to far from the wall), then we'll buy a surround and two cabinets to go on either side of the surround. All will be in white. No pics yet, but the paint is going to be the Behr Premium Ultra with primer in it.
No and I am sooooo mad about it. Our bathroom needs to be done so so badly I can't even explain it. I think you all know our house is from the 1870s and we obviously did a ton of work on it right after the wedding for 6 months straight. Well we never did the bathroom because we couldn't do it in the middle of winter and then Jeff got hurt and everytime we were about to start one thing after another came up. So our (most recent) plan was to do it this spring and hire his cousin to do it while we were on vacation (the plumbing part anyway).
Now that J is no longer with AT&T and is taking a pretty big paycut we will not be able to afford the bathroom or the vacation for a while. He is getting a pretty good severance package but we need to hold onto it to make sure we can live on the new amount of money he will be making.
And seriously since I'm venting about the bathroom let me just tell you that it was a 3rd addition to the house and they did a crap job with it. I guarantee there is mold behind the tub surround and there are holes under the cabinet which leads to mice getting in the bathroom. I F'N HATE MY STUPID HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I want a new one so bad it makes me cry sometimes. But I can't tell J because there is nothing we can do about it right now and it will just upset him more since he hates it too.
Our next door neighbors have a house with an identical layout (except the side door is on the other side) and they put a full bath in a couple of years ago. She had someone come in and do the plumbing and then did the tiling, etc herself. She said it only cost a few thousand dollars total. I think it would be worth it for us since there is only one full bath so only one toilet in the whole house. There is nowhere to fit a powder room in on the first floor unless we add on. I'm trying to convince B to let me put a spa tub down there (sewing room plus a spa tub? I'd never have to leave!) but we're going back and forth on just a room with a toilet and a full bath. I'm kidding about the spa tub. Sort of.
2012 Reading Challenge
Paige, that stinks
Becky, that's actually not too bad. I always figured if we ever did it we would have the piping roughed in and do everything else ourselves.
Haha, yes we are!
We have two HOBO's somewhat near us and that store has inspired and furnished many of our renovations. When we were there looking at tile for our back splash, we were scoping out new vanities for the bathroom. We only have one bathroom and it currently has a pedestal sink. I love it, but it's not functional for only having 1 bathroom.
So, thinking that I would be without a car all weekend, we went to Home Depot to get paint for me to paint the bathroom.
On our way to check out, they had a display of vanities for a REALLY good price. There were 3 that we really liked and we picked one out. Medium wood with a white marble top. It's a good mix between classic and modern. Somewhat of an impulse buy, but we couldn't pass it up. It turned out to be even better when we checked out and it was almost half of what we thought it was!
So this weekend I primed, painted the ceiling, painted the trim, painted the walls, and painted the cabinet. We went with 2 shades of green because the medallions in the floor are a dark green (the room was dark brown to begin with).
I will update with before and afters when we are all done otherwise here are some crappy progress pictures:
(The greens are much brighter than this picture makes them appear to be)
Last night I hung a new towel bar up and picked out this shower curtain to order:
I will install the vanity this coming weekend and then we would like to put a fiberglass surround (walls) in the tub area - the tile that's currently in there is really crappy.
I don't know what I am going to do with myself when we are done! We don't have any more projects inside after the bathroom (well, once we have kids, turning our extra bedroom into a nursery).
We do plan on extending our garden this year and re-doing our patio. After that maybe it will be putting up a fence or putting new windows in???