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A Year (Or Two) In Review - Part 2
Well, our house renovations are virtually complete! Sure there are a few odds and ends leftover, but the house is by and large renovated. With this post, the ...
A Year (Or Two) In Review - Part 1
So, it's been a while. Almost (but not quite!) two years since our last post here. I could give a bunch of excuses about traveling and holidays and this websi...
Kitchen Part 5: Finishing Touches
We had some down time before the countertop installers came to do their thing, but after they installed the countertops, we were back to work.The first thing to...
Kitchen Part 4: Venting
It was time to install our pretty new island-mount vent hood over the stove, and to cover up the ceiling exhaust fan too.The vent hood mounts on a bracket that ...
Kitchen Part 3: Cabinet Installation
We have so many fun pictures of building and installing the kitchen cabinets that it was hard to decide which to include in this post! Assembling and installing...
Kitchen Part 2: Cabinet Planning
We decided to get our new kitchen cabinets from Ikea. We heard good things about Ikea's kitchens -- modular, inexpensive, and good hardware -- and liked that we...
Kitchen Part 1
The kitchen! Once thought to be the room we would first remodel, it turned out to be the last. Katie and I browsed Pinterest for endless hours trying to figur...
Brass Light Fixtures
When he took down the ceiling drywall in the kitchen, Trevor had to take down the chandelier over the table. This cast a shadow on the rest of the house, or at ...
Dining Area
As usual, this post is coming quite some time after I did the actual work, although this surely sets some kind of record. Way back in January, Katie was out of...
Shelving Cats
Ever since we got cats I've been planning to buy or make cat shelves to give them exciting vertical spaces to explore. I've pinned tons of images, made grand pl...
Living Room, Refreshed
Ok, so once again this post is coming many weeks after the project was actually done, but who's counting?Our living room wasn't in terrible condition, but it ha...
Opening New Doors
We bought new interior doors six months ago and finally installed them! The doors have been going in one at a time for the past few months as we finished off v...
The gas, alas!
We had some work done on the house that required the gas to be shut off by our utility company. When they came to turn it on again, they discovered that there w...
Hallway Beautification
I've been a bit behind on these posts, so this one is actually from early September, but really, who's counting? With the bathroom and all three bedrooms done ...
A Window Where There Was No Window Before
We were hoping to have a new window in the bedroom a few weeks ago, but the window delivery was delayed. No worries! We planned on something like that happeni...
Screen door
After we brought our trash to the dump (see previous post), we used the pick-up truck to go to a big box store and buy ourselves a brand new screen door! Our cr...
Down In The Dump
We had a bunch of old drywall and other construction debris from the bedroom remodel, so Katie and I borrowed a pickup to haul it to the local dump. We'd never...
Wrapping Up The Bedroom
After our Fourth of July renovation sprint, the pace slowed a bit as we finished up the remaining tasks in the bedroom. Our goal is to move back in to that roo...
Bedroom ceiling
For the long weekend, Trevor and I decided to try to get a whole lot of the bedroom work finished. Today we moved the stuff out of the bedroom and removed all t...
Redwood Bench
I finished up the front yard bench project this weekend. Katie and I (and the neighbors) love the way it looks!Before making the actual bench, I covered up all...
Fortifications
This project actually started way back in January, but has been running in stealth mode, off-the-record since then. No, not really—I just kept forgetting...
Wall-mounted shelves
We got a bunch of beautiful shelf sets from my co-worker who no longer needed them. The shelves are designed by ISS Shelving, and have a cool industrial modern ...
The Grass Is Always Greener
Or the walls, at least. Making good progress towards another room being "done!" We actually painted this room a few weeks ago, but are a bit behind on the ol'...
All the plants
We've finally finished planting our low-water landscape! The local garden store got our final plants in stock, so we were able to pick them up and plant them, c...
Defenestration and Priming
As Trevor was patching up the drywall in the room with the sliding door, we took a step back and thought about whether we wanted to keep the window in that room...
Front Walkway
In the past week, I've lifted one and a half tons of concrete. Twice. Not just for the fun of it of course, but in order to turn our mud pit of a front walkwa...
Drywall Progress
I am slowly but surely finishing up the drywall taping job I started a few weeks back. I've also been working on the front yard between coats of drywall joint ...
Closet Improvements
Katie and I had big plans for the two closets that separate our bedroom from the neighboring bedroom (the one we installed a patio door in). The idea was to re...
Fruitful Tree Planting
We had a beautiful fruitless Swan Hill olive tree planted in our front yard, the centerpiece of our new landscaping design.Back in December, we went to our loca...
Dirt and Plants
As soon as we had the concrete up in the front yard, we had twelve cubic yards of "planting mix" delivered to the house in a giant truck. They dumped it in a pi...
A Built-In Shelf
Way back when, Katie had a really good idea to put a built-in shelf in our bathroom. We framed it out about a year ago, and so it's about time that we got arou...
How the water gets in and out
When we moved in, we had a plumbing inspection to ensure that our pipes, embedded in the foundation of the house, were still in good shape. While all the in-hou...
A New Front Yard
New, yes. Done? Not quite. When we first visited our house before buying it, we were greeted with an expansive field of concrete in place of our front yard. ...
Downspouts
After the roof was done but before the rainy season was set to begin, we installed new downspouts. The roofers had put holes through the roof for drainage, but ...
Paint and Mirrors
Today's project is all about (what else?) the bathroom. I finished up all the wall-smoothing and drywall mudding so that I could paint the walls a beautiful un...
Painting the Bathroom Ceiling
We are in the home stretch for our bathroom renovation! I made it one step closer to "done" by cleaning up the bathroom ceiling and giving it a new coat of pai...
Improved Exterior Lighting
Just a small project this time. I replaced our front door light and added two more on either side of the garage. Katie and I took forever to pick the lights w...
Bathroom Medicine Cabinet
We're slowly wrapping up the bathroom after...uh, lots of months of working on it. A new medicine cabinet brings us one step closer! We've got a super thick w...
A (New) Roof Over Our Heads
From day one, we knew our house's roof needed replacing. At the time, we knew this because the roof was over 20 years old. As time went on, the house really m...
Little Free Library
While biking around town, I've occasionally seen these artsy, hand-crafted little lending libraries outside of people's homes. Now that we've got a home of our ...
Finished Bathroom Floor
I finally got around to grouting the bathroom floor! We also got a new toilet that has less of a Roman column theme and fits better with our new bathroom fixtu...
Bathroom Vanity Cabinet
We bought a sink basin ages ago from Ikea, but I only recently got around to building a cabinet for it. After some research and browsing lots of images on Pint...
Summer Greens
It's the height of summer, and many things are green -- the backyard and its new low-water landscaping, the planter boxes and potted plants in the front, the pe...
Warm Floors
We're slowly working through all the projects to finally finish the bathroom. The latest project was tiling the floor. Katie and I picked out our tiles months...
Sink Disposal
This project technically started a long time ago. The drainpipe leaving the under-the-sink cabinet was not positioned low enough to accommodate a sink disposal...
Tiling the Shower
After many weeks showering at work (even on the weekends...) we finally have a working shower again! Katie and I finished the shower tile a few days ago, and i...
Our Biggest Fan
Our biggest fan is our bathroom ceiling fan, which unfortunately had gotten pretty old and wasn't running well. You'd turn it on and it would make some sad sque...
You've Got Mailslot
Katie and I found a nice brushed metal mail slot to replace the outdated and rusty mailbox, so my dad and I spent the day installing that. It was a bit of a cu...
Things that Grow
Trevor's parents were in town last weekend, and, as usual, we got a whole lot of stuff done while they were here, including lots of gardening! Lorraine is great...
In case of earthquake...
Our house is built on a slab foundation. That means that instead of a crawlspace or basement, we only have cement below our floor. All of our pipes are embedded...
Shower Tile Prep
The electrical work is finally out of the way (and signed off by the inspector!), so we can start to put our bathroom back together again. The first course of ...
Wall Patching
After the extensive electrical work, Katie and I were left with a ton of holes in our walls. You could see between rooms and the bathroom was no longer entirel...
Wired.
Upon moving in, our house was equipped with a grand total of three circuits. I'd turn on power tools in the garage and our hallway light would dim. There was ...
Small Outdoor Improvements
Katie and I have been wanting to replace our house numbers for a while, so we got some numbers online and installed them this weekend. The installation was pre...
Shower Plumbing
Katie already posted about the bathtub installation, but before we actually got the tub in place, we did a lot of plumbing work. We had to replace the shower r...
More Landscaping
Trevor's mom and sister came out for a weekend, and after some relaxing vacationing we spent an entire day working on the landscaping. Both Lorraine and Alissa...
Tub Installation
We have taken a lot of stuff out of the house (granite, ceiling drywall, granite, stucco & studs from the back door, granite) but put very little back in. The t...
Kitchen Plumbing
We knew the kitchen plumbing needed to be redone when we moved into the house. The inspections showed the sink drain assembly was installed incorrectly: the "dr...
The Bathroom Demolition Continues
Originally, I was planning to have rewired the house by now. However, Katie helpfully pointed out that many of the new circuits will be running in the wall beh...
Bye Bye Bathroom Granite
Our bathroom has, no had, granite halfway up the bathroom walls and almost all the way up the shower walls. Katie and I have a lot of plans for our bathroom, b...
Patio Door - Installation
With the patio door opening framed, it was time to cut a giant hole in the side of our house! Katie was a bit nervous about this part, but I had everything lin...
Patio Door - Framing
Originally, our house had no doors (or windows) in the back wall. We couldn't see our backyard, much less get to our backyard from inside the house. This is t...
Concrete Smashing
I recently had no plans for the weekend and a desire to do some physical labor. So, for lack of anything better to do, I swung a sledgehammer at our patio a lo...
House Warming
We needed to replace our old gas heater, a 15-20 year old junker with a pilot light that needed to be lit by hand, blew out easily, a cover which almost fell of...
Warm kittens, cool house.
Our house changes temperature by almost ten degrees Fahrenheit every day, so we decided to investigate where the heat was going. Trevor borrowed a Flir thermal ...
New Electricity
Ok, so I guess the electricity itself is not new. But access to it is! I added three new outlets throughout the house. Two in the living room where we were a...
Ceiling Light
The final step for the yellow room was to install an overhead light fixture. Katie and I decided on a modern globe light because it matched the decor and was e...
New Window Trim
Another post about the yellow room! This time it's all about the room's window. The window used to have a granite window stool and rounded corners all around....
A Little Electrical Work
There was a ceiling fan (with lights) in the yellow room before we made it yellow. Unfortunately, the wire for that fan was run directly along the main ceiling...
The Yellow Room
The room wasn't always yellow. It started out a boring tan with textured walls, bullnose corners, and drywall on the ceiling. But it's fixed now!After removin...
Yard Improvements
After Trevor and Jack finished their beautiful redwood gate to the back yard we started working on taking down the white plastic fence in the front yard. The f...
Building a Redwood Gate
We wanted to remove the white plastic (yea, plastic) fence in our front yard. However, since we already removed the side shed we'd have no backyard privacy. S...
The Beginnings of a Workshop
One of the many reasons we bought a house was to get space for a workshop. I love building stuff, and a garage is the perfect place for such things. I decided ...
More Ceiling Caulking
Not much action for the last two weeks, but I got back in the swing of things by caulking the gaps in our newly-exposed tongue and groove ceiling. The caulk li...
The Ceiling Rains Down
For lack of anything better to work on this weekend, I tackled the ceiling in our third bedroom. It's the smallest of the rooms, and since I got lots of practi...
Upcycled Hummingbird Feeder
I've seen quite a few hummingbirds around our neighborhood, and think they would come to our house too if we had something to offer them. In college I made a f...
Needs More Jiggawatts
Our house came with a teensy electrical panel that probably suited the house quite well when it was built in the 1950's. However, modern times demand more powe...
Side Shed Demolition
We removed the side shed yesterday. This carpeted side shed was the only part of the property where the inspectors found termites. It was old, dirty, and redund...
Fixing Little Things
When we moved in, we were so excited to have a house with a washer and dryer in the garage, no coins needed. But after running my first load I wasn't sure we h...
Goodbye Granite Garage
The garage floor was covered with granite tiles. They were mis-matched and appeared to be leftovers from the other granite installations throughout the house. ...
A Home for the Worms
We made a wooden bin for worm composting: turning our leftovers into perfect soil for our future garden. The bin was designed by Trevor, using only solid wood (...
Bicycle Storage
We ride our bikes everywhere so we needed them to be easily accessible, but in the one-car garage, with lots of things still unpacked, there wasn'nt enough spac...
The Sewing Room Ceiling
The ceiling in our house is covered with drywall, with curved corners and textured paint. But we know, from looking at photos of our neighbors's identical house...
Smooth Walls
It was important for us to find out early on if we would be able to smooth the textured walls, or if we would have to either remove the drywall or put quarter-i...
The Sewing Room Floor
The cheap laminate floor in the first bedroom had water damage, and was noticeably coming up when we toured the house. We saw that underneath the laminate and p...
Miles of Wires
The house came with a ton of extra cables and wires stapled to the stucco and the eaves. Many of the cables were left over from old satellite TV dishes, phone ...
Calking the Shower
The (granite) shower had grout, but no calk. In some places the grout was cracking or even missing, and some little shower-flies had moved into the gaps. Conce...
Deep Cleaning
Before putting anything away in the new house, I wanted to makes sure we carefully and thoroughly cleaned the area where it would go. The folks who lived in th...
Moving Day
We bought a house.It's crazy -- we bought a house. But we wanted to be able to work on projects, to have a back yard, to have pets, and to put holes in the wa...
A House
Trevor and I found a house of mis-matched granite and textured paint, cheap paneled doors and drywalled ceilings, which no one else seemed to want.The house is ...