Yesterday started another exciting chapter: gutting the basement. We may be sad to leave our 90’s shag carpeting and carpeted bar behind, but it’ll be well worth it in the long run.
Author Archives: Chris Stergalas
Second Floor Windows Going In
Winter is coming and our house is getting ready. After tearing out the walls in the rear and seeing no insulation, we brought it lots to make the house more efficient and warmer in winter.
Second Floor Renovations Day 1
Day 1 ended with the beginning of a period of mess.
First up on the big renovation agenda is to replace windows and reinsulate our two guest bedrooms. It’s been interesting to live in a house with no rear insulation over the last 3 years (sorry about that, house guests).
Once demolition continues, we’ll have new, energy-efficient windows as well as properly insulated walls.
The night before demolition:
Office
Coming Soon: new kitchen
It’s been a while since we’ve posted, or frankly renovated, but that’s in the process of changing… now.
We’re working with some great contractors to help us finally do some of the big renovations we’ve been waiting on since we moved in 3 years ago including a full expansion and renovation of the kitchen and main floor, adding a half bath, refinishing the basement and a bunch of other projects along the way.
As demolition kicks off and lots of the unsexy parts of the project begin, let’s just take a moment and look at the kitchen design layout and imagine how great it’s going to be.
Look out for lots more to come soon!
Welcome to the Library. (Ikea-hacked built-in bookshelves!)
After months of slowly progressing, we have a library that’s basically finished!
Continue reading
Door Number 3!
A front door is one of the first things you notice walking up to a house. And the door that’s been on the house since we moved in just wasn’t cutting it… Especially in winter.
So we embarked on the process of getting a new one. Something we put some money aside for, hoping it’d be relatively cheap and easy. We weren’t exactly right. But three contractor quotes later, it’s now in the past.
The old door. Note: old security door, insufficient sealing and casing.
Continue reading
Why? Inspired Art.
When we started this blog, I remember saying that I refused to let it fall into the black hole that is blogs with good intentions. And just like that, I haven’t posted a darn thing in months.
I’m not going to do my usual of promising to do better, but let’s just hope for the best but also prepare for the worst.
That being said, we’ve had some exciting things go down recently. A few weeks back, a good friend came by to do an art piece for us. Scott, does amazing work which we’d seen before, but had no idea how wonderful it’d turn out.
To start we took a look at the big, empty blue wall (and a mess of dog toys.) Continue reading
Wait, you need a bathroom in a house?
Ok, we fell into the blog trap. That is, the thing where you have a blog but neglect it and don’t update for a super long time. Well I’m back… at least for now.
Remember at the beginning of the year when we started renovating our bathroom? Then when we did a little bit more work on the bathroom?
Well we’re FINALLY nearing the finish line.
One big concession we had to make was that we can’t do it all. With work schedules coupled with laziness, we knew if it were just up to us, it’d be a bit more time until our upstairs bathroom was done. So we bit the bullet and hired a drywaller to help us get the bathroom going and to do a few more project – stay tuned for those!
No More Weeds!
So I said yesterday, we went a bit crazy in yard work this past weekend.
A little color never hurt anybody, after all. (Actually, I take that back… did you see the carpet when we moved in?)
Building a Raised Vegetable Bed
If our lack of posts here haven’t been an indication, we’ve been getting a bit, er, stir crazy working in the house.
So of course, when we had an amazing weekend, we couldn’t wait to get outside and do some work in a less confined space.
Our yard needed some help. It was a blan yard mixed of various patches of grass, but mostly just weeds. Lots and lots of weeds.
Being all domestic and such, we were really stoked about being able to grow lots and lots of vegetables this year. So first on the list of yard transformations: a raised vegetable garden!
Here’s what we were starting with. Continue reading