Our Master Suite (Finally)

Has it really been a year since my last blog post? Whoops!! It's been a busy year, with lots of local hiking, some trips to visit friends, and of course, house projects. I guess now that summer has come and gone (and Ron and Mom have done their annual week of work), I should update everyone on what's happening here in Ithaca.

Good food and relaxing on the deck are key to CrossFit recovery.

Now our rainfall showerhead is on the list, too!

Our bedroom has actually been finished for quite a while, I've just clearly been a slacker by not posting anything to the blog (SORRY!). Going back through our original pictures of the house is pretty crazy.

Our bedroom before...

Is that really the same room we have now?

I forgot how green it used to be!

We still have to update the inside of the closet to maximize the space, but our priority this spring was to have a fully functioning master bathroom. Technically we did a half-DIY for the bathroom, we left the plumbing, electrical, drywall, and tiling to the experts. Amit did install the shower doors, toilet, and vanity. Then we decided we needed to customize floating shelves. Now that everything is finished (aside from the backsplash), it looks fantastic!

It really helped that this room was a blank slate!

It was so nice to come home to progress every day, without actually doing the work!

Amit's hard work

We have doors!

Poor Emma!

Are you ready for the reveal??

And the other side...

I absolutely love how it turned out! 

It's even better than what I had pictured when we started.

The plus side to an empty bathroom?

It was so easy for them to give us two showerheads!

So there is my much overdue house update! Let's hope I can be better about updating this blog when the school year starts... 

The Living Room Makeover

One of the things that we liked about this house was the way the living room and dining room were open, and we knew that eventually we could knock the wall out of the kitchen and have a great space for entertaining. Since we spend most of our time in the living room, we decided that making it look presentable was a priority. Thanks to Pinterest and Houzz, I had a vision for the whole house, but I'll let you decide whether or not it turned out...

I know it's been more than a month since we bought the house, but I'll fill everyone in on a few more details. After closing on the house on Thursday, we had to go back to Rochester for Amit's last day of residency (Friday). We left Rochester early Saturday morning with car loads of supplies and then we hit the ground running as soon as we made it to Ithaca. I tried to run around the house to take all of the before pictures before Amit brought all of our necessities in, but I know I missed some shots.

"Before"

Dining Room on left, Living Room on right

Another view of the living room

Like I said in this post, we did a ton of work with Ron and Mom. As soon as they got to town, we got right to work. Amit had torn up the carpets before they got here, so we pretty much just got to priming and painting right away. Except for those darned carpet staples. There were so many staples to pull up! Let's just say we're putting plenty of sweat equity into this house. 

Here are some "In Progress" shots.

After priming the walls.

We tinted the primer to a beige, but it totally dried purple-ish.

Emma ended up spending her time at the top of the stairs,

since we were working throughout the rest of the house.

It's starting to look a little different...

After painting the walls - 

While I love wood,

I love white trim more.

Now my look was really starting to come together!

Once we had painted the living area, it was time to lay the flooring. Ron and Amit did an awesome job installing the laminate. I love my dark floors! (Next dog will need to have darker hair, though.)

Hooray for no more plywood floors!

Clearly Emma is happy about that.

Now that our furniture is in, it's really starting to look like a home. We've hung our curtains, hung a new dining room chandelier, and replaced the front door. Let's just say, it feels very good to have this room done!

Now it feels like ours!

(I apologize for the dark photos... It's been humid and rainy here the past few days.)

I'll leave you with our entire living room renovation - from beginning to end!

Updating Our Guest Rooms

Since our house has three bedrooms, and we currently only use one (unless Amit starts causing trouble), we have two extra rooms to fill! They both will function as guest rooms, but they also serve other roles - our office, my craft room, my yoga room, and a place for Emma to hang out. (Basically we're sending the one male in the house downstairs, unless he decides to take up crafting or yoga.)

Aside from the living room, let's just say the colors in this house were bright. While I love color, they were way too loud for us and my calm, peaceful color scheme for the house.

The main guestroom is the larger of the two extra rooms and while it was my favorite color, it clearly needed to be painted. Pink walls and blue carpet just isn't my style, though I guess the blue carpet could be reminiscent of the ocean...

Bedroom 1 - Before!

Now it functions as our guest room/office/craft room.
I have to say, the tables Amit built me look absolutely perfect in there! 

While we don't really have a lot of furniture to put in this room, it will comfortably fit the Aerobed when we have lots of guests. We did the same updates to this room (paint and carpet), even though I somehow picked a very similar wall color. We need to trim out the closets, doors, and install the baseboard trim in here, but we're making progress. We've turned it into a very serene yoga/workout room!

Bedroom 2 - Before!

I love how the blue looks with the white ceilings and new carpet!
Emma loves to come in here to tan and lay on my yoga mat.

Now that the bedrooms are nearly finished, the house is really starting to come together! We still need to finish the trim in all of the rooms, replace the current doors with some new six panel ones, and choose closet doors in the two guest rooms. Hopefully we'll have these two rooms fully finished within the next couple months!  

Our First House

It's been almost a month since we closed on our first house! Yes, I know that this post is a little behind schedule, but let's just say we've had a lot of projects going on here in Ithaca. After working with Ron and Mom on painting, flooring, and some updating, we finally moved all of our "stuff" here two weeks ago. And as I write this, we're getting the carpet installed in the bedrooms. Slowly but surely, the house is starting to look more and more like our home. And I love it! Ever since we started the house search, we knew we wanted something that we could work on, improve, and make our own. Well... we got one! It's been a LOT of work, but it's totally been worth it.

Since the house started as a "Straight out of the 70's fixer-upper," I'll be doing more detailed room-by-room posts. There are some serious before and after shots here! Until I get to each and every room (the living room will be my first post - it's nearly there!), I'll hold all of you over with some quick pictures from our first few weeks of home ownership.

We love our huge backyard!

In the first 10 days of having the house, and with Ron and Mom's help, we managed to:
- Tear up the old carpet (which was in nearly every room)
- Washed the walls and ceilings to prep for the painting
- Prime and paint all the rooms (Turns out, I'm quite the painter!)
- Paint all the ceilings - Thank you, Ron!
- Install an automatic garage door opener
- Replace two outside doors
- Replace the toilet
- Replace the faucet in the kitchen
- Lay laminate flooring in the living room/dining room/kitchen
- Replaced the light fixtures in the bedrooms, living room, bathroom
- And finally, started to paint the trim (which we are still working on... There's so much trim!)

Emma didn't like the fact we were working 24/7.

This window in the living room overlooks the driveway.

Can you see Amit?

This is how you know Emma saw him...

It's one of her favorite places,

at least when someone is outside.

It's pretty cute to see her looking out the window.

Breakfast break!
Emma loves when Pappy eats... and shares his food. 

Emma's other favorite place has been by the front door,

where she watches her new friend, Mr. Chipmunk as he hangs out on our front steps.

She literally watches him (and waits for him) for hours.
Although, he hasn't been around as much since he ate all the birdseed.

Dinner break at Ithaca Beer,

such a great view!

And this is how we all felt after Ron and Mom left.

 Now that the carpet is being installed, we'll finally be getting the bedrooms unpacked and put together! It's going to be so nice to have the main floor of the house nearly finished. We definitely could not have made this much progress without Ron and Mom's help! Next up, our finished living room!