New Glass ~ A Good Thing

The photo above is of our living room wall. We had the glass etched by a wonderful company, Largo Glass, for the transom between the master bath and the living room. It was "mostly" installed on Friday. Still needs a bit of work, but it is nearly done and you get the idea from the picture. At the end of the day, because that wall faces west, as the sun is setting through the bathroom windows it casts the most wonderful shadows on the ceiling of banana palms and palm fronds. I am very pleased with this.

The photo above shows the newly installed shower walls and door. I love my new shower. They have had to order us a new door, however, because this one was supposed to have a towel rack on it and since it is tempered glass they couldn't drill the holes to install it. No charge to us - this is one mistake that wasn't our fault! Whew........

Here is the living room in use. This is makes all the dust, grime, blisters and headaches worth it!

Time for a Walk Through

John does a video tour for Joseph on Sunday.

The Bathroom Begins to Take Shape

The master shower - don't pay any attention to the receptacle in the wall. That won't be there for long. Just one of those ideas that seemed good at the time...

The photos don't show the great color of the tile and the glass trim. A wonderful mix of grayish blue, green and white. The walls are the most pale of blues. Oh, and how about that Restoration Hardware vanity? The counter top is being cut hopefully as I type this.

The tiniest of glimpses (on the right) of the new front loader washer and dryer. Pure joy. Notice the slope of the wall that the shower head is on? John had the carpenters cut that down to match the slope of the ceiling. The master closet is behind that wall and will have a pocket door in it.

New Floors

Here is Jeremy putting down the new ceramic tile in the kitchen. Nope, that wasn't in the original plan, but after the new wood was up against the original 1926 (slightly damaged) wood on the kitchen floor, well, one thing just lead to another....
The living room without the wood down. Notice that the wall has been removed between the kitchen and the living room.

Didn't take Jeremy long to get this floor done. I love it and it is perfect!

Interesting Elements

John came up with this great sky light - it looks great, especially in the 13 foot ceilings. Instead of being like a straight column, he made it faceted.

Then we were faced with a master bath with no windows and John came up with an idea to solve that problem. He had the carpenters put in an entire row of windows, placing them between each stud. They don't open and are like transom windows. They look fabulous and really let in some good light.

Here was my contribution to the renovations. A spigot on the porch. Isn't it brilliant? Then I don't have to drag a hose from the front of the house to water my plants on the porch, or to hose off tiny feet after a day at the beach. I am thinking of submitting the plan to Architectural Digest. I bet I would win an award for sure. Pure brilliance.

As soon as the clumsy carpenters are gone I will get a nice big, heavy, ceramic pot to place the coiled hose in when not in use. For now it will just have to be in the $4.00 Home Depot special.

Some of the Finer Points

The sky light in the living room. Isn't she lovely?
I love the wide porch stairs - doing them like this was Alan's idea. He rocks.

She really is shaping up.

Must Go Up

Mikey, our guy in the sky...
It's starting to look like something

Hey, I can sit on that porch now. A good thing.

What Comes Down....

Dumpster number one. Oh, and there is Jeremy to the right of the dumpster. We owe a great deal of thanks to Jeremy for this project. He was here for phase one and came right back for phase two. Loyalty - a very good thing.
And there is Mikey (Freebery) and Alan our most wonderful of carpenters.

More tear down. It took two dumpsters.

The Journey

As we started to demo the kitchen.

The garage area that was knocked down and rebuilt on a new foundation to become our living room and master bathroom.

The Kitchen Before

First off, Brenda and Karen, do you recognize that sink on the wall? Yeppers, it is exactly the sink that Grandma Lopp had in her kitchen. I saved it and it is going to be mounted (hung) in an area of the back yard, hooked up to water, and used for my gardening area. Cool, eh?
That is the "food prep" area. Suffice it to say I found it to be unacceptable. Those upper cabinets weren't even deep enough for a dinner plate. Swear!

Quite the stove. Obviously, that went quickly.

Yes, we've come a long way. I can't wait to post the next photos.

Abode Pre-Renovation

Here she is - our little piece of the American Dream... I believe this was the day we closed on her.

I was immediately dreaming of a new coat of paint. This was just a bit too dark for my liking.

The back. Isn't she lovely?

And the landscaping. Marvelous!