Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Almost there

There are a lot of surprises when you get to work on an 80 year old house. If you watched the video on Chad's blog before and after the foundation repair, you may have noticed this.....


Turns out, that is not an easy fix when it comes to 80 year old brick and mortar. Chad knew that the brick crews he had used before wouldn't be up for the job. The work with new construction. He called companies all over DFW before he found someone that specializes in brick repair and was up to the task. He had 4 companies who say they do repair come look at it and refuse to mess with it.


Thanks to Joe, the bricker (Mason). Here is the brand new arch. He and his crew also cleaned the brick all over the house and it looks brand new.




Apologies again for the poor picture quality. My camera is packed, so iPhone pics are what you get. These were taken before the light fixtures went it, which would have helped a little too.

Paint....I mentioned before how much I stress over paint. You would think that after picking paint for 5 of our personal houses and countless spec houses that Chad built, I would be confident about it. It is seriously one of the hardest things about house planning to me. So many times the color on the wall turns out so much different than you think it will from the sample/colorwheel.
I am completely happy with the master color! I picked a Martha Stewart color called Rainwater and my painters mixed their own Kwall paint to match it. That always makes me nervous, but it turned out great. It is a really nice blue that has a hint of grey/green.








I was wanting to go pretty white with the main color for the house. Funny because I used to have to battle Chad to do a lot of color in our houses. This time, I was saying white and he was saying, "are you sure?". I didn't want it stark white. I am just getting tired of cream/beige. We have used a lot of those tones before because we have done more traditional, old world kind of looks. I wanted a little more classic feel to this. All that to say, I gave in to Chad's concerns and it turned out a little darker then I had originally planned, but I think it will be great once everything is moved in and there is stuff on the walls.


I love how the new desk area (old butler's pantry area) is turning out. Chad took out the drawers in the middle to make leg room. We had outlets added to the bottom cabinets for computer/printer etc. I am either going to paper or paint the inside of the upper cabinets and I bought some really cute vintage hardware to replace what is there.


Below are the kitchen cabinets after they were painted. Since this picture was taken, the black granite was installed....and the subway tile backsplash is currently in progress.
The window frame had to come out to make the cabinets fit, so that is now on the to do list.

Below is a sneak peak of the refinished hardwood floors. The look beautiful.



So....tile guys are there today. Plumbers today and tomorrow and we are planning to move in Friday, ready or not. We are ready...the house might not be.


The next pictures you see will probably be the finished product. There is still A LOT to be accomplished before and after move in.



Unfortunately for us (fortunately for them) our painters got really busy and can't come back to paint the exterior for a few weeks. That wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't painted samples on the front windows of the house! Now, it looks a little silly and won't be fixed for a while.
Oh Well!


Can't wait to share the in depth before and afters with you! The interior decor is the fun stuff.

4 comments:

The Gradke Family said...

Hope moving in was fun. Can't wait to see how you decorate the new place.

kristen said...

that house is gorgeous guys!! it looks so beautiful!!! cant wait to see it when yall are done!

Unknown said...

Last month, I received a call from my dad. He wanted me to move in with him. He said that he is not getting any younger and he wanted to spent more time with me. I cannot resist my old man. I accepted the invitation, so, here I am, with my dad helping him run his farm.

During my first few days in the house, I noticed that my old room already has wall cracks. I thought I'll just have to repaint it to cover it up. Last week, when I decided to buy paint, I bumped into my old friend. We talked and I told him about the cracks. He advised me to have the house inspected first with an expert since our house's infrastructure is quite old. I asked my dad and he proudly told me that our house is already 65 years old. The inspector came and told me that the foundation is already weak and it needs to be repaired. He gave me a reasonable foundation repair cost. The advanced foundation repair is completely hassle-free. I am so impressed with his work. He also repaired my problem with the sticking doors. By the way, I think that your home is awesome! the repair on the brick is flawless! Kudos!

Unknown said...

Hi Macy! I'm glad that the bricks were fixed. The repair was remarkable. My wife and I are planning to sell our old house in Twin cities. Home inspection services there are amazing! The housing experts inspected every house details from the siding to windows, foundation, lot grade, fences, retaining wall, sidewalks and even driveways. I'm just glad that we had those inspections. St Paul, MN have many interested buyers and luckily we are able to increase the house value. Hopefully, if the renovation for the new house will run smoothly, we will be able to move in by the end of the year. Thank you so much Macy for sharing this post. Are you guys done with your renovation? Well, good luck to us. Hope that our renovations will work to our advantage. By the way, nice wall paint.