Tag: remodel

A Find for our new Bedroom

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I think it has been a long time since I wrote anything about our house. That is because, thankfully, most of the work that needed to be done has been done. However, we had one room- the one belonging to El Momma and the Mister, that desperately needed an overhaul. So, 4th baby, and remodel here we come!

Really there is not a lot to do, especially compared to the projects we’ve been through before. I will take pics of the room and post those so you can see what it looks like. But, basically it is just a nice size master bedroom with no sheet rock on the walls (mostly shiplap.) We’ve come up with a simple and beautiful theme and we are moving forward.

First, we moved out of the room and cleared out my closet. It is the first project of the room. Moustapha is sheetrocking the walls in the closet, putting up new shelves and tearing out some areas that separated the closet before. Once that is finished, I can move all of my clothes and things into my new closet. Then, he will work on the room. It needs sheetrock, taping and floating (have to hire someone for this,) updated electrical work- remove the fan and replace with a chandelier a friend of ours gave us when they were redoing their house (hiring an electrician for this,) painting the walls and windows, removal of all of the carpet to expose the wood floors, buying a simple rug for under the bed (but not in the walkway that everyone uses to get to our bathroom,) hanging of new drapes (best price we found was online at bed bath and beyond), recovering the baby rocker and ottoman (thank you, Grandmother and Grandfather) and placing the new slipcovered rocker in the window, and 2 brand new mirrored dressers as bedside tables. We wanted to use dressers as bedside tables so we actually add to our storage space. Our house was built in the 20s, when storage was obviously not a high priority for home builders and/or buyers.

Now for the fun part of today- we got the mirrored dressers and we found them at TUESDAY MORNING for a fraction of the price we’ve seen everywhere else. Below are two pictures of some that we liked and the last one is of one of the ones we got today. They retail for approximately $1000- $1200 for either of the two below plus the enormous shipping costs. That’s $2000-$2400 plus shipping for 2 dressers. We got the 2 Tuesday Morning dressers for a total of $500. Isn’t that amazing??? And, they are beautiful. Mirrored dressers were on my “wish list” for my new room and I saw them in the Tuesday Morning ad last week. They began selling them this morning at 10am. They only had 2 per store. They sold out in minutes. I was first in line (I was determined) with Trinity and Maddux, but was told I could only get 1 – a one per customer policy. I guess Maddux and Trinity didn’t count as customers. I even had the lady behind me offer to buy the other one for me. But, the woman who got the other dresser seemed a little on edge and I really didn’t want to get into it with anyone. So, I purchased the one and left and began calling every store in town. They were all sold out until I found a store in Humble- 40+ miles away. The lady there was so nice. She said she would hold it for me if I was coming then. It took me an hour to get there, but I made it and it was worth it.

Here is the one by Hooker that retails for $1200
This is the Horchow version for $999

And, here is ours! Complete with a very happy little girl! We haven’t put the handles on yet, but you can still see what it looks like.

Updated Pictures of Our Kitchen Remodel

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As most of you know, our home was built in 1928. And when we bought it, it pretty much had the original kitchen (or at least a kitchen that had not been updated in a really long time.) In early 2008 we encountered a leak which flooded the kitchen and forced us to make a decision- either patch up the problem with the old galvanized steel plumbing or fix the problem long term. We opted for new copper plumbing and a brand new kitchen.

In the 60s the previous owners (who raised their large family in this house and lived here for 50 years) added on to the home. They added a den and an upstairs bedroom and a second stairwell. It is really a great addition to the home. However, they added directly on to the back of the house, without ever removing the back wall including the brick. The pictures below show what the kitchen looked like before. It had the original kitchen window which looked into our den. Check it out! Our remodel is nearly complete- only a few minor touches remain.

The picture below is of the before kitchen looking into the den. You can see the fan in the window and the back windows in the den if you look carefully. We removed this wall.
The picture below is the same view of our kitchen now. We removed the wall and added support columns. Moustapha and I designed this kitchen ourselves. We love it!
This was the back corner of our kitchen before. It had a hot water heater in the corner of the kitchen. It was awful. There was absolutely no storage space in the before kitchen.

And now….this is the same corner! We have storage above the refrigerator. And, a pantry on the right side.


Here is another view looking into the den. The original house had a telephone cubby built in as you went up the stairs. We left that and opened it to the kitchen. You can see it on the right of the picture.

Here’s a view of the kitchen from the den. Two things that need to be finished in the picture are the rangehood- it is going to be wrapped in stainless steel. And there is currently a microwave on the left counter. That microwave fits in the cabinet below. We are just waiting on a piece from the stainless steel fabricator, so we can move the microwave off the countertop.


This last picture shows another view of the kitchen. In the before kitchen, we had a bathroom where this window is. We were able to relocate the bathroom under the second stairwell. And we put in a beautiful new window. Our O’Keefe and Merritt stove still works wonderfully and Moustapha is nearly finished restoring it. I’ll post more pictures when the kitchen is complete. Thanks for checking it out!

My first "official" blog

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Well, I guess it is about time I get caught up with the rest of the world and start blogging.
Things have been so crazy here lately. Our kitchen was flooded by a leaky old galvanized steel pipe back in January and we have been without a kitchen or running water downstairs ever since. We ended up tearing out our old kitchen and replacing all of the pipes in our house with copper plumbing.
We hired a contractor who has been M.I.A. for the last 2 1/2 months.

These are some “before” pictures of the kitchen.

Here are some “in the middle of remodel” pictures of our kitchen. It is coming together. We actually had people show up to work today- a miracle in itself! If someone would just show up everyday, we could be done with everything in a week and a half.

And to top it all off, we are expecting our 3rd baby very soon. I am 8 months pregnant with a baby girl and not very happy about living in a house without a kitchen. But, I have confidence that everything will be finished before the baby comes!….pray that is so!