MINI REMODELING PROJECT

We just completed a mini remodeling project in our dining room.   A while back, I inherited a wall unit from my parents' house.  (both my parents are gone now, and we were cleaning the house and dividing up the furniture, etc in preparation to sell the house)  My Dad built the wall unit years ago. It's beautiful--he was a genius when it came to building things with wood.  He built most of the furniture we had in our house--tables, chairs, desks, beds, china cabinets and hutches.  Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be able to take the wall unit.  

Bob refinished it, keeping the original pulls and stuff, after cleaning them and giving them a fresh coat of paint.  He used a stain very close to the original color my Dad used and when it was done, it was beautiful. 

We recently moved the unit to the dining room, but when we did, we had to move some of the other furniture around.   We moved the china cabinet to the wall with the window and had to take a couple of pictures down off the wall.  We put the unit in the room, alongside the hutch my Dad built for us years ago.  Together, they look beautiful.

The only thing was that when we moved the unit in, we had to take several things off the walls and didn't have a wall left to hang them back up.  In addition to that, we have a little granddaughter now, Norah, who was born in April.  We need to get a child's gate for the stairs, but we also had to do something about the wobbly railing near the stairs. 

Bob decided to take the railing out and put up a wall. It would solve both problems.  It would eliminate the danger near the stairs for Norah and it would give us a place to hang our now homeless paintings, teacup collection and spoon collection. 

He didn't use drywall, just put up a plywood wall.  It went up in a day.   He primed it then painted it.  Now, we need to finish painting the rest of the dining room.  Once it's done, the room will look fantastic.  We took the tired old curtains down and our new paint color will go well with the new overall color scheme in the house----browns, beiges and some blues. The wall is very narrow--no wider than the railing, so we didn't lose any space.   It took away some openess, but it works to serve our purposes.  Now we can hang up our stuff in the dining room and we have wall space on the other side for pictures of our little granddaughter!!

So, without further delay, here are some pictures of this project.  I've included a picture of the newly refinished wall unit and then a series of pictures of the railing being taken out and the new wall going up. 






The refinished wall unit, side by side with the hutch my Dad built for us years ago.  Dad built this wall unit and Bob refinished it after we brought it down from the house in Michigan. 







Bob puts up the new wall in the dining room:

     The "before" shot - what the room looked like before the wall went up.

 

Bob removing the railing

 

 there goes the railing

the wall starts going in

this side is a little tricky

the wall is up

primed and then painted - the rest of the room will be painted this color --as well as down the hall, the kitchen and down the stairs

What the heck?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11443252@N07/sets/72157624524787026/

This is the link to all the photos of the sink that fell off the wall. Was the weirdest thing--I went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed--I sort of leaned on the sink--just your average sink leaning procedure--and the whole thing fell right off the wall and into my arms.

Weird, weird, weird.

A NEW DOOR IN OUR BEDROOM

Over Labor Day weekend, Bob knocked a hole in the wall in our room--on purpose. He did it to create a door from our room into the bathroom. It is just one thing on our long list of home improvement and remodeling.

He moved the laundry room to the utility room with the intention of creating a large master bath by combining the old laundry room and the current bathroom.

So, here are a few pictures for you. One is of him finding the stud. Then a gradual change from hole in the wall to actual door. Now, all he has to do is finish the bathroom!

Accent wall

Bob painted the fireplace wall in our room and created an accent wall. Here is a before and after look at it. Before, the whole room was painted in an off-white. It looked nice, but Sarah suggested making the fireplace wall an accent wall and suggested we paint it brown. I love it. Our next step will be to paint the rest of the room a slightly darker color than what it is now. This room used to be a family room and we are slowly turning it into a nice master suite.

Right now, Bob is putting a door from our room into our bathroom. As I said, this room was originally designed to be a family/living room and to get to the bathroom, you had to go out into the hall. Well, since we are making this a master suite, we would like to be able to go straight from the bedroom into the bathroom. So, Bob is putting the door in. Once that is done, he can remove the door in the hall and put up dry wall.

His next step will to work on the plumbing and put in a new sink and then slowly do all the rest of it.

ONE MORE TOUCH ADDED TO SHAWN'S ROOM

Bob finished the dresser he was working on for Shawn's room. This is the dresser we bought at the flea market for $20. Bob sanded it down to get the scratches out then painted it. His room is looking good!

As you can see, I added a side view. The photos in the background are photos I took with the exception of the sunrise photo on the left. That one was taken by Doug when he was visiting Russ and Mei-Fen. He toook it from the kayak. It's of Russ's sailboat.

We put my old Toshiba computer in the room for Shawn's use.

SHAWN'S ROOM DESCRIBED

As you can see, we went with a very pleasant, light blue for the ceiling. The walls are a nice brownish-gray, a light to medium shade. The window shades and curtains are brown and the comforter has a mix of browns and blue. The trunks on either side of the bed are being used for storage as well as end tables and the rugs blend in niceley. Since these photos have been taken, I have added a couple of other touches--bongo drums, a candle and a vase with bamboo poles.

We have one water photo hung and framed. Eventually, we plan to frame and hang some of our other water photos. All the frames will be black and when it's done, I think it will have a very nice look to it. I intend to have Bob hang Shawn's guitar on the wall and I plan to get a keyboard and piano bench in there. We already have a dresser that Bob needs to refinish and put in there. Eventually, I plan to add a small TV/DVD player.

I'm so glad Shawn likes all the little touches we've made to his room.

I think I have been successful in my goal of creating a nice, comfortable space for Shawn to use on weekends and it will be a nice plac for company, too.

PHOTOS OF SHAWN'S ROOM

Here are some photos of the new look in Shawn's room.