Ok, two weeks.

Ok, so maybe we are a few weeks farther into the project than two, but I can assure you that progress has been made on our home.

Last month we were cruising through kitchen rennovations. At the end of the two weeks, Bryan's brother left town for new adventures. Bryan and I were left to finish the project on our own.

So, of course - I had to complicate the situation. After progress had been made in the kitchen we knew we could step it up a notch. We made the decision to texture the walls in the breakfast nook. (The previous texture looked like an unfortunate accident). We had observed Bryan's brother shoot texture on the walls in the other rooms in the house with a hopper - how hard could it be?

And clearly, if we were going to make the mess to texture the walls in the breakfast nook, it would make the most sense if we also textured the walls in the utility hallway and the half bathroom.

Before progress could be made in this scenario there was more demolition in our future.

I was tasked with tearing apart the half bath and Bryan worked on the utility hallway.

Underneath the first layer of painted over wallpaper in the bathroom I discovered this cheery second layer of wallpaper. The paper is so cheery it even has it's own bluebird.


And with the bluebirds are acorns, and oak leaves on a pink background, what was someone thinking?

Did you know that our bathroom used to have a window to a hallway? Why? Even more amusing is that the hallway originally connected to the garage and even more interesting is that the bathroom used to be a closet - so, why was a window needed? We were not sure either. No worries, Bryan fixed it!

Once the wallpaper was removed and the walls were prepared for texture, I set to work removing the linoleum tiles. A heat gun makes quick work of that project.

Today our tile man came to work on the bathroom floor. We have a new ceramic tile floor in the bathroom. He will come back tomorrow to finish the grout work.


The kitchen has seen progress since the last round of photos. The cabinets have been caulked and readied for a coat of laquer primer.


During the February kitchen push we decided to use beadboard instead of tile for the backsplash. This decision created a lot of extra work for our carpenter and expanded the scope of the project. Beadboard was added to several walls and in the breakfast nook to a chair rail level. We also used the old picture rail from the living room to create a chair rail.



Our carpenter left a few projects for Bryan. Bryan has honed his carpentry skills and was able to install this beadboard and crown molding. I think it looks pretty good, don't you?

Maybe in two weeks we will have a finished kitchen.

Two weeks!