Living Room part two

When we bought our home, we knew that we wanted to make some sort of a built in in our living room. We bought a place we knew was a little tide for two adults, three children and a dog. But we also wanted to buy within our budget and in a safe neighborhood (in california, where everything is expensive), so we felt right about buying a home that's just 1028 sqft.

We have three bedrooms: one for us, one for the boys to share, and one for gwen.
We have ONE bathroom. I know, right? Kind of unheard of around here, but you know what, it totally works.

Here is what the built in needed to be:
-storage
-office (since i edit pictures very often and we did not have an office anymore and our bedroom is too small to have both, a bedroom and an office in one.
-storage for my photography equipment
-pretty
-we wanted it floating (not touching the ground)
-i "needed" the tv haning up on the wall, cables hidden behind the wall (just looks soo much nicer that way)
-white. yes, i LOVE white furniture. i know i'm strange. but i love it. did i mention, that i LOVE white furniture. maybe not yet? ;)

I think we made it work, thanks to my super-duper-handy-husband.

We opted in making the built in from scratch, but since we are too busy right now, this would not have happened for a year or so, and i'm not patient. We ended up buying the cabinets from Ikea (the besta series)

The "desk" one we had to make custom, both in length and in hight. But for my husband, no problem. (Sorry I'm being such a show off, but he really outdid himself once again and I'm just so greatful for how much work he puts into projects. This is not intended in making others feel less, but he's done so much, I felt that he deserves another official praise! ;)

Anyway, here the pics of our project.

In order to make it float and be stable, we attached a two by two wood strip to rest the cabinets on. 

Markus screwed on some wood to attach the cabinet to the studs.

Oh, and yes, this is our new dog, Krissy. We rescued her from a shelter. She's a miniture pintcher and still needs some training, but all in all, she is very nice and learns well. And she's soo cute, right?

Slightly scared still, this was the first or second day we've had her, so she was still a bit sceptical ;)

That's the "office" part, that we had to shorten to fit... 

Now I have enough space for my photography equipment and all the office stuff that goes with it.

it's floating above the ground, i think about 6 inches or so.

Aaaahhh, finally a haning TV and no cables exposed on the wall. still a little mess inside the cabinet, but not much of it is visable ;)

I'm so happy we did it. Happy most of our stuff now fits in our home. Happy it looks nice. Happy it's white and light. The only thing we might still change is the artwork. but for now we just hang up whatever we already had. ;)

living room - half way done

so, our living / dining room is almost done. the one important thing missing is a modern biult in that we will add to the grey wall and some more art work.

as for the floors:
we ripped out all the carpet and the laminate that was underneath the carpet and refinished the original hard wood floors. no easy job, let me tell you. very time consuming and physically exhausting work. thanks goodness we had the help of family and friends, we could not have done this by ourselves.
if you want more info on how exactly this is done, i'll write it up for you, but it would not be a two-sentense-kind-of-post.
we not only refinished the wood floors in the living/dining room but also all three bedrooms and the hallway...

This picture here happened the day we got the keys. Laura, our real estate agent even stayed and helped us rip out some stuff, she was so excited for us to find the wood floors underneath...

this is what we found. wood floors. worn, old, but wood floors. off to work i say ;)

because the house was built in 1951, there where two holes for the floor heater that markus had to fix. that was one of the most time consuming projects... but it was worth it. he even had to to underneath the house to fix some i don't know whats. i think he had to add some structure, so the floor there would not sink. ask him when you see him, i don't know half the things he did ;)

here the before and after of the holes. he pried out all the boards and mixed the new ones and the old ones to make sure it will look natural. and it does now! by the way, it was a heck of a job just to find this wood floor to buy... it seems the two inch boards are not that popular anymore. and very expensive ;)

here a ghetto picture of me with the heavy sanding machine. i expected it to be dustier than it actually was. that's why i decided to wear the nose/mouth protection thing as a hat. charming, i know ;)

my hot husband, working hard as always! 

James, helping us out putting on a coat of finish. 

before and after living room

aaand another one. if you wonder why all the afters are taken at night - it's when the kids are in bed and i actually have time aaand all their toys are put away. hahaha. 

and one from the dining area view. 

if you wonder how many people helped us here, let me start (and hope i wont forget)

mother in law monika who watched the kids, then physical laborors where father in law ed, brother in law andi, other brother in law mat, friend james, friend hayden, markus and me and who am i forgetting? i'm sure someone else helped. we worked for 3 days pretty much non stop. thanks goodness it's done. but also thanks goodness we did it. it looks lovely!

Our Home - Kitchen

We are finally moved in and slowly but surely make progress with the to do list we made.

To begin with, let me explain something about this home:
I shall call the previous owners JnK.
JnK bought this house a few years ago from some people who flipped it (which i shall just call "flippers" from now on). You can tell that JnK took good care of the house (there where a few dog pee stains on the carpet that we ripped out, but that's about all that was damaged, if you wanna call it so).
So really, this is NOT a fixer-upper as we first wanted to buy. This is a well working, upgrated home!
HOWEVER, JnK where just a young couple with two little dogs and no kids... we are FIVE people with a dog (and possibly a cat now too).
Our list mostly has projects that will create more storage. (And if you know me, you know that I've got this love for funky colors ;), so paint was on top of the list.)

So, for the first project to post: the Kitchen.
The flippers really made thier job easy here. They bought IKEA cabinets (beleive me, if there is anything to know about IKEA, i WILL know ;)
I love the IKEA cabinets, but the flippers where lazy and did not customize one bit. Which makes for some awkward gaps, an empty whole corner next to the stove (wich was just baricated in with another cabinet), and beleive it or not, cabinets that where not built to the ground, as they should have. And the most abvious, there where no cabinets next to the fridge one one side, because the window came down lower then the premade cabinets, so they figured, let's just leave it empty instead of putting in extra work and cut the boxes to size. It really took away lots of storage and made the kitchen look small and unfinished.

So, of course IKEA since discontinued the cabinet fronts for our kitchen. That's where we had to get a little creative:
We took the doors from the pantry that did not reach the ground, Markus shortened them (sounds easier than it is) and then put them to the newly added, shortened boxes below the window. The boxes we got from IKEA, but of course Markus had to cut them to size too.

Now we where left with a pantry without doors and doors that could not match since the kitchen was discontinued - but you know what, i knew even before we moved here that I wanted those doors to be full lenght and painted with black chalkboard paint. I love chalkboards ;)

We got matching grantite counters for the added cabinets... which including taxes cost us $250. (We installed it ourselves and man, i almost broke my back, granite is "freakin" heavy!!)
The whole project cost us just over $450 - well worth the investment for more storage!

 

Markus made a box and the doors out of high quality boards bought from home depot. Imagine, one large shelf moore - that's soo needed in my little home!!

The boys love the chalkboard cabinet... they color on it all the time ;)

See what we added? All the cabinets on the right side of the fridge where non-existing... who would do that? freaking flippers ;)

And here for more storage.. a few shelves and as always I love to hang my cooking utensiles. Also, we got that butcher block storagte unit for behind the door also from IKEA - of course. hahaha. (another area that was not thought through by the flippers)

;)

We are so happy our kitchen finally works and holds all my stuff and our food. Keep tuned for more projects...