Furlough Days 1 and 2

So as I'm a federal employee who has not officially been working since noon on Tuesday (October 1st) I took it upon myself to get cracking on some DIY projects that needed some finishing. Cory and Chris (Cory's brother) made a linen closet several months ago when Chris was visiting by adding doors to a bookshelf and they also added some legs to make it stand out a little more. We eventually are going to put this in the bathroom.

Here is what it looked like with the doors attached. We found these doors at a resale hardware store, for $15 dollars. Cory bought the hinges and the little feet, so in total using the paint we already had the project was around $20 dollars.

I made some chalkboard paint by adding 1 tablespoon of grout (that we happened to have around) to 1 cup of latex paint. I had some extra so I made this sign for the bathroom.

 Here is the finished product

Sanding Floors= Bed

We've had a standing rule that we are not going to bring furniture up to the farmhouse until the floors are done. We are at just under 6 months of ownership, and that means six months of sleeping on air mattress... so this weekend we got to busy on the floors. Sanding floors is not an easy task. We purchased two belt sanders so that we can eventually do this together (with a munchkin it means that one of us has to be with her). On Saturday morning I made it around the edges of the room to remove the random old stain and paint.

Here is what the room looked like before...

 Sanding round 1 completed. Now we have to go over it with a finer grade of paper and do the entire middle...

We also pulled down the drop ceilings in the bathroom. This is what it looked like before...

 Pulling out the ceilings...

 I even helped pull out some of these...

 We also did some touch up work on the vanity...

 Drop ceilings are gone!

Now I'm on a rid the house of drop ceilings kick. Here's to hoping that the rest of the ceilings will be in this good of shape when we take down the crazy drop ceilings. In the bathroom alone this gave us an additional 3-6 inches (depending on the side of the room)

We've got power!

Our major news on the farmhouse front is that we now have upgraded electrical. What this means (drum roll)  we have lights in each bedroom, hall lights, upgraded panels and wiring. How this translates to me directly is that with this upgrade we now have consistent hot water and wait for it.. a fridge! The electrical was done just time before we hosted our first annual Camp Carlyle. We had 21 friends over the course of the weekend come and stay. Most pitched tents and we enjoyed showing the house to our friends and enjoying the last of Summer on the river! In addition to the largest party on the river we also managed to get a few projects done before folks joined us.

We painted L's chair to match the other chairs for the dining room.

 We also painted the vanity in the bathroom! Such an improvement from the nasty brown.

Here is a picture of the nasty brown before we painted it...

Flea Market Flip-Chairs

My Dad has been asking me to watch the show "Flea Market Flip". I've seen an episode and so on Saturday we ventured to our first flea market. We've been on the hunt for some cheap chairs that we can use for the dining room. We found these for a steal of a deal of $5 dollars each!

 We decided to go bold and paint them orange. We had some left over material from the stool that we made last month and used that to reupholster the seat cushions.

We have 4 chairs in total! I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out and can't wait to see how they look with the new table!

Signature Pieces

We started our original design concept for our home with one piece. We both fell in love with it right after we were married and built a room/home around it. We've continued with this trend and found two pieces that fit our style and ideal for the farmhouse. This first was a piece we just happened upon on our night away a few weekends ago. We just went into this thrift store and it called to us. Here it is set up in what will be our dining room!

The second piece was more of a visionary piece. Some friends were giving this secretary away and I had to have it. I've never done any real wood working before, so when my folks were here they offered to take a stab at it. We cannot express how much we love it! It is just beautiful and after almost a week of work we can't wait to put it out in the farmhouse.

Here is what it looked like before my folks started on it...

The finished product....

Thanks Mom and Dad. This is something that we will cherish for the years to come and always think of you when we use it!

Farmhouse Family Upgrade

My folks were able to stay with us at the farmhouse for 3 nights. They were such a huge help to us out there, considering the heat, lack of AC and well a comfortable bed. After taking a red eye they were still keen on working and helping and over the long weekend we got tons accomplished.

Laurelea got a new tire swing for the front yard! She loves it!

Cory and my Dad built a new dining room table. They used an existing old door and wood they found in the basement. After a full day of work we now have an 8 person table that just needs a fresh coat of paint for just the cost of the screws!!!

Mom and I decided to clean the tub and the wall paper started calling to  us.. so we spent the next few hours pealing off the last layers of wall paper in the bathroom..

 Dad checking in to make certain he didn't want any part of this fun...

 Mom and I also finished one room (we still have the floors to do) but otherwise after 5 months we can say that we have 1 bedroom completed. We painted the ceiling, baseboards and doors.

 They had to build the table in the dining room... so here is where it will stay! I'm so happy with how it turned out!

L is too!

 Cory and my Dad also redid the plumbing in the tub. We now have a working shower..this is progress.

Thanks again Mom and Dad for all your help!

Demo Guys Weekend

Two weekends ago some friends from the hood joined Cory at the farmhouse to demo the bathroom. They did a lot of work, drank some and of course built a huge fire. Here are some pictures of our progress...

This was the bathroom before

closet no more

opened up the wall so plumbing could be fixed

beautiful isn't it?