Renovation: Mud Room Part 3 (Framing)

The next step in the renovation process was framing in the new walls for the bathroom, framing in where the south window was taken out and sister-ing in some studs next to rotten studs. It's much safer this way so we don't actually have to take any studs out. And all of our original studs are actual 2" x 4". 2 x 4 studs today are actually 1 1/2" x 3 1/2". So over the next couple of days, framing got done, a new window got put in (yay!) and the cement backer board for the tile prep.

New Window! Southeast corner with that beautiful tall cabinet and the corner of the half bathroom!

The bathroom framing.

Southeast corner again.

Through the bathroom towards the east window facing the backyard.

Tobias inside the bathroom. He kept calling it his little house :-)

Tile board now in place. Kids decided to make a game of going in and out of the bathroom between the studs. Surprisingly (and thankfully) no one got hurt. 

Here you can better see the framing for the old window.

His "rawr!" face.

"Ready...Set..."

"GO!!!"

Hope everyone is having a great summer!
Kristin

Renovation: Mud Room Part 2 (Demo Day)

Demo Day!!! As Chip Gaines loves to say. This is always one of my favorite parts too. It's exciting to tear down the old and be able to see the potential for the new. And man did this space need some potential. Here are pictures after Demo Day:

The southeast corner of the room. The left window looks out into the back yard. The right window (which will get demo'd) looks out into the driveway.

This is the east wall looking out into the back yard.

This is water damage from before we moved into the house. We replaced the roof on this section of the house, which is only one-story, so all of this wood is completely dry with zero mold. But it does look pretty nasty no matter what. Thankfully there's about 3 layers of siding on this wall so it's still pretty sturdy. I guess the last couple of owners kept adding things right on top of the other. Not how I would have done it, but in this situation it has helped us to save some money by not having to completely rebuild this wall.

South wall looking towards the driveway. The washer and dryer are covered by the cloth on the right of the picture.

Southeast corner, No water damage over here. Yay!

The north side of the room didn't get demo'd because it had already gotten updated to the drywall part of things when we renovated our kitchen. So nothing exciting going on over there...yet. Coming up next, studs!!! As in the 2x4 kind, not the stud muffin kind ;-)

Renovation: Mud Room Part 1 (Before)

I have been waiting to start this project for about 7 years now. And the construction process is finally finished!!! I seriously cannot believe it! I am s l o w l y going to reveal it to you. Slowly because I still need to "accessorize" the space and finish up some odds and ends stuff before I give to final REVEAL! So, full disclosure, I'm buying myself some time. I know how I want everything to finally look just not exactly sure how to get there :-) 

So, without further ado, here are some before photos! Hold the cringes please:

This door leads to the dining room. And the window on the left looks out into the driveway.

The window to the right is the driveway window. And the window to the left looks out onto the back yard.

This is the opposite side of the room. The door to the right leads to the back yard. And the door to the left goes into the kitchen.

If you look closely on the floor you can see blue tape lines. That is the future bathroom :-)

So, here we go! So excited to share more pictures, updates and everything! 

Kristin

I'm Baaaaaaack!

Well, after the longest break ever...I've finally started thinking about the blog again. I really, very desperately need to get pictures of Emy up on the blog! My last post is from right before she was born! So crazy. And now she's 17 months old. And Tobias is 3 and a half. For shame. On me. Well here's a couple of pictures to tide you over. 

I'm hopefully going to be updating the other pages as well as posting a little bit more frequently. We'll see what the posts will be about though :-)

Going to the Apple Orchard

We live close to one of the coolest apple orchards ever. I absolutely love it. We have been twice this year, although I wish we could have gone more! The orchard is called Center Grove Orchard (if you are from around central Iowa, you definitely need to go!). They have an awesome store, fun animals to see, a huge corn pool for the kiddos and adults to play in and lots and lots of other activities. Seriously, even as an adult with no kids you could not get bored. So this post is going to be mainly pictures. And lots of them. Please excuse the random difference in picture quality...I'm pulling from three different cameras.

Our first visit included my parents, Trey's parents, Tobias, Trey and me. Can you tell he's spoiled by having all 4 of his grandparents living so close? Plus our parents have a blast together, which is such a huge blessing.

Can you tell this was Trey's favorite part?!? Oh, just wait...

The second time we went, my sister came, my parents, Trey's mom, and then Tobias and I.

He had a blast being silly with his Aunt Ashley :-)

The grandmas! Aren't they adorable?!?

We always have to do a picture like this. It's a tradition.

It was such a blast, Tobias did not want to leave! And of course neither did the adults. Did anyone else go to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch this year? Where did you go? What was your favorite part?

Happy Halloween!
Kristin