the garage door

Let's talk about the exterior. Our fence is complete (I'll have to share the bamboo and planter later). And now we've quickly moved onto something HUGE. Let me start by saying in our neighborhood, probably about 99% of the houses have a driveway as the front yard. Which means the garage is kinda important to convey what your style is. We've dreamed about putting in a modern glass garage door since the day we signed the mortgage and it will finally happen in 3 - 4 weeks! So I did a little rendering of what the new garage door will look like. And up next for the exterior: the roof, tiling the back patio, installing a canopy of big string lights over the patio, painting the exterior a shade of grey, redoing pavers and rocks in the driveway and walkway.

the way she was

new lighting, fence, window and house numbers

simulated garage door (the framing will be more silver)

the fence: almost complete

The fence is up and stained, the vine is gone, and the base is poured for our planter. The planter is going up in the next few days and the gates need to be hung. This massive project is almost complete!

choosing stain

the cedar boards in place (before cutting off the dog ears and staining)

stained // no dogears

BEFORE

but the hummingbirds live there or The Fence: day 2

Well, after two months, C finally convince our unresponsive neighbor to take out her side of the fence. I still don't think she's sold on it. But the vine on OUR property was actually supporting her dilapidated, termite infested thing. So that was a problem. She is really attached to the atrociously crazy and unruly vine. She likes the hummingbirds. She thinks they live there. But I promise no nests were harmed in the building of the fence on carver. A failed attempt at trying to convince C that we should buy her a birdfeeder and call it a day resulted in a few branches left for her. So, um, she gets to the couple of pieces that were on HER property. I better never see that vine again once our bamboo grows in. Or else.

one side

a big mess

our yard into our back neighbor's yard and what remains of that massive vine

other side of the house

santa's bringing us a new fence

Our old fence was termite infested, falling over and just plain ugly. Work finally started on it today and we are super duper excited for a new fence, gates and a bamboo planter. Now that we've finished the interior, the exterior can commence! Exterior will include: new fence, faux grass, new driveway/walkway, new paint, new roof and a new garage door. This phase is going to be more slow going than the interior, but it will all get done in time.

very old fence

neighbor's yard

the crazy vine living between two fences

not your grandma's wallpaper

Wallpaper is back in a major way and I've been loving the look for a while now. We decided to wallpaper one of the bedroom walls for a pretty pop of hotel luxury. I've always wanted a bedroom that felt like one of our fave boutique hotels (Thompson LES, Viceroy Palm Springs, Portrait Suites in Rome to name a few) and I think this gives the room that extra pop I was looking for. The process took a while to get the hang of, was definitely time consuming and left me wishing at certain points that we just paid the dude I found online $180 to do it. But it was all worth it in the end.

the bedroom + other finishing touches

We're full speed ahead trying to complete the big pieces of the bedroom before Friday when our new bed will be delivered. Last week we gut the room and C skim coated all the walls and ceiling to give the plaster a nice smooth finish. This weekend we accomplished a giant checklist: painted, laid the floors, installed an elfa closet system, hung the last 2 doors, and installed baseboard and trim around the doors and finished up the hallway and stair landing.

In the next few days we will paint all the molding and wallpaper one of the bedroom walls. While we won't be completely complete (will we ever?) we will have accomplished the major interior renovations on Carver! Just in time to make pizzelle's and trim our fake white christmas tree. Since this time last year we were crammed into the one bedroom we just finished, we have a lot to celebrate in gratitude.

bedroom before

a door on the bathroom

laying floors

finished (dirty) floors

closets before

closets after

an industrial towel rack

We were in really bad need of a towel rack for our half bathroom. But wanted something unique and different. Galvanized pipes saved the day! Now if only we could find a mirror...

upstairs in progress

We spent last weekend painting and laying floors. Next up is hanging new doors and putting up the molding in the office, guest bedroom and hall. Then we'll move onto our bedroom. The last room with carpet and beige paint!

new lighting from west elm

wood throughout the hall

i spy the last bit of carpet and vertical blinds

upstairs renovations

After having a nice summer doing summery things like taking weekend road trips and riding our bikes to the beach, we're back at carving up Carver. We just celebrated one year since the keys to Carver were handed off to us and have been reeling over everything we've accomplished instead of thinking of everything we had left to do. Now we're onto the upstairs, getting all the doors replaced (including closets), pulling up the carpet and replacing it with hardwood floors, painting everything white and replacing windows.

Some before/during pics from last weekend:

sheetrock in closet that was broken into to access the plumbing

guest bedroom

hall

C's drywall work in the closet! Perhaps he has a future in drywall afterall?

hall torn apart

single light in hall

addition of light over stairs

C in attic. Guess he really wanted a light over the stairs.

replacing the front room window

the bathroom: before and afters

We are completely in love with our bathroom since it made the transformation from faux marble funkiness to modern hotel bliss. I'll let the photos do the talking.

BEFORE

AFTER

bathroom crashers

This weekend, our life has felt like an episode of bathroom crashers. But that's okay, because we were able to get a ton of bathroom goodness finished (electrical, radiant installation, the tiling and the painting). Tomorrow, we'll install our vanity, sink top, toilet and finish up the electrical installation. Then we'll just need to get the rest of the trimmings in order. Oh, and a door. Kinda a big one. But I'm too excited about all that basalt tile and the museum white walls to care.

the radiant heating

We're just plugging away at putting the bathroom back together. The sheetrock was completed this morning. So we layed the radiant system, covered it in thinset and will start to tile once that's dry.

the fixings

I've definitely discovered what I like to do when it comes to home renovations, and what I'm not so keen on. I love demoing things. I guess that means I'm the girl that likes to break stuff. But beyond that, I'm also the girl that loves a clean blank slate (which is why I've gone from really not liking Mondays to really loving them over the past few months). I'm not so keen on painting molding and really mundane projects like chipping away paint and sanding. But the end result ties everything together in such a way that maybe I will learn to love those tedious little projects. A few weeks ago we had a marathon day of painting the molding on the first floor and we even hung doors that we sanded down, repainted and freshened up with some new hardware.

door to garage. Remember the 20 sad cream coats of paint this one had before (on the right):