I'm a slacker (and some house updates)

most of my blogging these days is about the baby, so it's all over on my other blog (Our Greatest Project) but I do have a couple of house updates!

By the end of this month, this room should look put together finally and will actually have a purpose!  (This is a listing photo, so not our furniture).  For the 3+ years that we have lived in our house, the room (which connects our garage to the rest of the house and also has the door that goes to the backyard) has served has a walk-through and storage room. 

When we began renovating our kitchen, this room was tackled along with it since they share a wall and we were opening up the doorway between the two.  We took down all the paneling and added recessed lights in the ceiling and built a closet toward the front.  The whole room got new sheet rock/plaster and paint.  The front is tiled (it will serve as our mud room area) and the carpet was installed this morning in the rest of the room (it took us a LONG time to pick out carpet - we needed something capable of withstanding very high traffic and kid-friendly since it will be a playroom).

couch will go in this corner

We love how it turned out.  The couch is being delivered at the end of the month and MrT is currently shopping for a TV - soon we'll be able to actually use this room!

first house project of 2011

After almost 3 years in our house, we are finally nearing the end of our major renovation projects.  All we have left is the kitchen and the room next to it (we call it the breezeway) that will end up being a den/playroom area with a small mud "room" area as well.

The first step to this project was replacing the door from the garage.  When we had our home inspection, one of the major things found was that the (former) door was not fire-rated (it was wood - so more like fire-inviting) and it also opened the wrong way (opened into the garage instead of into the house.  this wasn't a concern of the inspector, just a pain to us).

MrT installed the new door yesterday and also rearranged/added some electrical work.  There's now a new recessed light inside the door and the light switches have been moved to the other side of the door.

old door:

you can see the (black) light switches on the left of the door

also notice the cardboard in the bottom left pane - the glass fell out quite a while ago and we've had cardboard there ever since - not really insulating or secure!

 

new door:

it now opens INTO the house and no more cardboard window panes.  

here you can see the new light in the ceiling - there's a second one just out of sight by the windows - it's so bright there now!

Next up is knocking down the mini-closet (seen to the left of the door) and building a new closet.  Not sure when MrT plans on doing that, but hopefully soon!

new patio door

We don't have a patio (yet), but a few weeks ago, Tim and his dad installed our new French patio door! I thought I posted about it - but apparently not.

Here's what the back of the breezeway looked like before:

Here's the hole they had to build - they essentially took out the entire back wall and re-studded it:

And here's our door! The drywall still needs to be hung and the door needs to be painted, but we love it!