No one wants to peel wallpaper...no one.

We've been fortunate to be blessed with family and friends that want to come lend a hand with the yard, home improvement projects, and decorating.  However, when it came to the hallway, there was no help because no one wants to peel wallpaper.  I did not like the shiny paint that was used in the hallway. It simply showed each and every imperfection.  Clearly, you could see that wallpaper was under the paint.

This is the best 'before' picture I could find of the hallway. (Sorry for the photobomb from our dog, Lucy!)  

So, let's get to the story of the hallway.  It was a freezing, cold Sunday, as we had become accustom to this winter, and I started 'piddling' around the house.  (According to my husband, Stephen, that's what happens when I sit too long around here.)  At any rate, I decided to peel the wallpaper and get the hallway transformation in motion. I knew I wasn't going to get it all done in one day, but I knew that starting was the hardest part. As I started my peeling, I was also thinking to myself This will be a nice little Sunday project. WRONG!  The first layer came off easily.  The second layer - not so much.  This was only the surface! Turns out, as I kept peeling, we had four - count it - FOUR, layers of wallpaper under that shiny paint.  No wonder no one tried this before.  Had I known this during the construction I would have had our contractor take down the drywall and rehang it in the hallway.  That would have been much easier than the can of worms I opened up.  

Stephen jumped in to help when he realized I had bit off more than I could chew.  We spent the rest of the day working our fingers to the bones as we tried to get all four layers off the wall.  Below are the different decades we 'peeled through'. 

The black wavy lines are from the 70's. Then we have the textured paper of the 80's.

Then we have the mauve color of the 90's. Then paint on top of it all.

After about a week of peeling paper for a few hours here and there, we decided to just take the top two layers off the wall.  We were tearing up the sheetrock trying to get the bottom two layers off.  After much trial, we found that warm to hot water and vinegar was the best mixture for removing the paper that we needed.  

We peeled only to top of the hallway above the chair rail for obvious reasons.  We left the hallway looking completely disheveled for about a month. (Don't judge me.) We affectionately referred to it as our 'Silent Hill Hallway' because it looked like something straight out of a horror movie. 

I did have a painter come to give me a quote to do the hallway for us.  He never called back. I figured the job was way over his head so, hey, I could do it!  After some research online I had a plan. Now it was time to try it out!  Stephen had plans to leave town the weekend I decided I could take the hallway no more, so I called in my reinforcements, my brother, AJ.  

Our game plan was to mud the rough spots on the wall, sand, prime it, mud the rough spots, sand, prime it again.  We did this over and over until we thought the walls were smooth enough to take flat paint.  I started the process on Friday night and AJ showed up on Saturday morning. We sanded the first coat before heading to Home Depot to get the necessary supplies for the job.  

Chair rail removed. Walls sanded. 

At Home Depot we purchased: 

Wainscoting, liquid nails, finishing nails (for the nail gun - best tool ever!), caulk, and new chair rail.  

Since we were trying to finish this in one weekend we decided to get a little help from the guys at Home Depot.  We knew the height of the wainscoting before we left.  After picking out the boards, we took them to the handy-dandy cutting machine in the store.  Best move of the weekend! 

After sanding and priming and mudding a few more times, we were ready to hang the wainscoting.  I can truly say this was the easiest part of the whole project.  Easy to cut and easy to hang.  Luckily, we didn't have any plugs on the bottom of the walls to cut around.  

Our directions for hanging wainscoting:  Put liquid nails on the back of the board and some on the wall.  Press to the wall and use a nail gun with finishing nails to attach.  Be sure to leave about an eighth of an inch or so for the boards to expand during warmer weather.  This will keep the boards from buckling. 

Wainscoting - hung and unpainted.

Next came the chair rail.  I opted for the new plain rectangular trim.  This would give me the more updated finished look I was going for.  Again, hanging this was easy.  This is the same process as the wainscoting without the liquid nails. 

Chair rail hung.  Everything primed.  White on white on white! 

After caulking all the seams and trim, we had to paint.  I used the same color, Sherwin Williams - pediment, as the rest of our house.   While there are still some textured places from the wallpaper and a few imperfections, our hallway is miles better than when we started.  I actually don't have to apologize to people as they walk through it. :)   It's the small victories.  

We completely finished our project at 8:00 pm on Sunday night.  It truly was a weekend effort.  A big thanks goes out to my brother for always wanting to lend a helping hand! 

Finished Hallway.  Now to paint to hallway doors. :) 

Thank you for reading and keeping up with our home projects.  It's really starting to feel like home.

Before and After

It's all completely done! The following pictures are for the entry, kitchen, and the master bathroom.  I will post the living room later.

From the front door looking at the coat closet. (Before)

Front door looking in. (After)

Please excuse the decor. I'm still working on styling the front entrance.  My point of this before and after set is to show that we took the space in the coat closet and walled it off as well as extended the wall to the left in order to create our larger master bathroom on the other side.  When you remodel a home it's all about give and take.  Sometimes if you take a bit of space from one room it can still add value to your home by giving space to a room that needs it more.  For us, that was a master bathroom! 

The next several pictures show the master bathroom changes.  

 This is the old master bathroom + powder room.  There were two doors leading into the master bathroom.  One entrance was from the master bedroom and the other was from the den off the kitchen.  This bathroom originally served as the powder room for guests and the master bathroom.  We weren't too fond of having our guests use our bathroom AND guests being able to look straight into our master bedroom when visiting. Sometimes you only get the clean the main spaces of the house when you have people over - don't judge! I'm sure you know how it is!
  When we extended the wall (on the right hand side of the sink) we enclosed the bathroom so that it was no longer accessible from the kitchen area.  Our visitors now use the second bathroom at the end of the hall.  Please forgive us for making you walk ten more steps to use the restroom when you are visiting! :)  The counter height in the old master also hit Stephen around the mid-thigh area...it was way to short for him! Out it came! Here are a few more pictures of the bathroom before.

With help from our contractor we decided to switch the location of the shower and the toilet.  When we extended the wall it gave us more room to work with as well.  We have a separate room for the toilet and the shower now has the window in it to give us natural light.  

Here are the after pictures. :) Bright, white, and nice! 

We have a recessed fan/light combo above the shower. 

I chose classic tile combinations. 

Our sinks are rectangular to give a bit of a modern feel. 

Double vanity - Oh how I've longed for these! 

12 x 24 Tile (Wall color: Pediment by Sherwin Williams)

New layout of toilet and shower. 

Now for the final reveal of the kitchen.  My favorite room in the house! 

View from the front door. Old Kitchen. (Don't you love the brick planter box?!?)

New view from the front door!

Here are more before and afters of the kitchen.

Closer view before.  The brick wall was removed.

The brick wall spanned from about the hood to the right side of the refrigerator.

Our floor to ceiling pantry is where the white shelves were originally. 

Old kitchen window view.

New kitchen window view.

Pendant lights 

 Hope you enjoyed the 'big reveal'!

I'm currently working on updating our hallway.  You'll never guess how many layers of wallpaper we are peeling!

Let's Talk Cabinetry, Shall we?

True to form it's been months since my last post.  In my defense we have been moving, unpacking, and 'setting up shop' in the new home.  It's been interesting living in the house during the final phases of the remodel.  I've never dusted so many times in one week! But I digress...

The reason for this post is the talk about our kitchen cabinetry - get excited! With Ryan's help, we decided to use a company in Atlanta for our cabinets.  (Things can be a little tricky when you are working with suppliers from out of town. Just a word to the wise.)  The most difficult part about designing a kitchen is thinking about where you would store pots and pans, everyday plates, silverware, platters, etc.  It's almost impossible to know where you want to put everything when you are designing the kitchen.  I wish I could have lived in the space before to know what I needed.  Luckily, Ryan sat down with me and he had great insight about what I would probably want and what I could leave out.  Now that we have been in our house and using the kitchen fully, there are just a few things I would change.

I will repost a few 'before' pictures from the old kitchen below.

If you'll remember with me, we took out the full brick wall with the oven, indoor grill, and fireplace.  This is a design moment that my mom will NEVER let me live down.  She is the reason the wall finally came out.  BOY what a different it made!! With the bricks out, we doubled the size of our kitchen. It really gave it the 'wow' factor. 

Now it was time to fill the space...

I wanted a simple cabinet that would be timeless.  We chose a dark colored wood, but that didn't bother me because I planned to paint them.  I know what you are thinking...Why buy them dark if you are painting them? It would still come out cheaper to order them from this company and then have them painted rather than have them made in the color I wanted.   

Plain and simple.

I don't want to do a full reveal of the kitchen cabinets all installed yet...you'll just have to wait.

I will say, the most difficult part of designing the kitchen was choosing the cabinet pulls and knobs.  There are so many to choose from out there and at a variety of prices I might add.  I once picked a set out that were $30 per drawer knob...per knob, people! That's just not doable at this point in my life. As my search continued, I finally found myself at Target, of all places, wandering over to check out their selection. There they were.  I purchased all that Woodruff Road had in-stock and then asked my in-laws purchase all that Wade Hampton had in-stock.  We have quite a few cabinets for these to adorn. I will say the pulls are a little deeper than I thought, but they are working out just fine! 

We used the same style cabinetry in our remodeled master bathroom.  When I find something I like, I go with it! That's probably why I have four of the same shirt in different colors in my closet. I get that from my mother, too.

I'll also include the picture of our granite.  Wow, was that a fiasco.  Granite is one of those things that I get nervous to pick out because it's not easily changed.  Paint - easily changed. Knobs and pulls - easily changed. Granite - not so much. I think before it was all said and done, we chose three different slabs before finally deciding on this one.  I sent Ryan to check it out in person and approve it before we had it installed. The slab has more of a cream tone with accents of black and burgundy.  Almost like splashes of red wine throughout.  It's hard to get an exact picture, so this was the best I could do.

I love it more that I thought I would.

Did I mention we had an island put in? Well, we did. I've always wanted a huge island where everyone could eat, drink, and laugh for hours.  We chose to put a butcher block top on the island to make it more of an accent to the kitchen.  Ryan ordered two slabs of butcher block to get the correct width and length for our island.  

This will serve as my teaser photo for the island. 

**Leave comments about what you would like to see posted next. Maybe that will help me cut down on time in between posts!**

The walls are up and we're in the home stretch!

Alright, alright, I know it's been way to long.  I've heard it from many of you, but honest to goodness I had a computer issue that wasn't allowing me to attach pictures.  And, let's be honest - that's what you're here for!

As work continues on the main areas of the house, we have started to get our hands dirty as well.  First on the list was ridding the yard of overgrown 'weed trees'.  I call them weed trees for obvious reasons - the weeds had grown so big that to an untrained eye - it might seem as if it was planted in our yard.  When we were done at the end of the day, the pile of weeds was as tall as me! (I'm no shorty!) Luckily for us, Greenville County comes around with equipment to pick up all grass and landscape trimmings. I will LOVE having that service.

Now for more construction and house updates:
As I said, we have painted a couple rooms and finally found our paint color for the entire house.  The first room I painted was the bigger spare bedroom. Let me tell you...it was a PAIN. There is a narrow hall type entrance to the room, plus a closet door, plus a window, PLUS a bank of windows! It took most of the day simply trimming in the room before rolling the walls.  The yellow pictures are the original color from when we purchased the house.

Excuse our belongings, but you see all the windows! Great light....not fun to paint. 

Entrance to the spare bedroom

The color I picked from Sherwin Williams was too light so I took a sample color I had and mixed it with the gallon until I had darkened it a tad. Therefore, don't ask the color - it's custom. :)  I wanted to go light in color and neutral because we have dark wood furniture for this room. This is where we will be 'setting up camp' until our master floors and bathroom are finished.

Let me just take a moment to say this picture looks like I painted the ceiling, but it's just the darkness of night combined with my flash.  I told you it took me ALL DAY! :)


I'm also fully convinced that there are at least 40 nail holes...on each wall... in each room.  Covering and sanding these before painting is a prep job for the night before. Otherwise, the painting won't get finished in a day! See evidence below...

Front room (soon to be man room/office)

This room is really versatile. It could serve as a formal dining room, formal living room, playroom, or office/tv room.  We'll be using it for the later of the options.  Partly because we don't have furniture to set up the other options!! This room was a mustard yellowish something or other. Nothing to really catch your eye.  Now lets look at the after color and the difference in the room.  I chose Pediment by Sherwin Williams. Light and airy for the house.

We also used the same color in our bedroom...

This is a sneak peak into our new master bathroom.  (I know you can't see much of anything.  That big reveal will be later. )

Outside big things are happening as well.  I have some GREAT in-laws that aren't afraid to work either.  Mr. and Mrs. Mathis set to work on pressure washing the deck.  As you can see on the bottom of the 'white' rails - it needed it! I'm pretty sure this deck had never been washed and it housed a dog - daily.  There were marks from his body rubbing against the white siding as well as the rails.

Before pressure washing

After!

Clean and ready for a party! 

We will be moving in Sunday.  Thank you for all the support. We hope the next time you see this deck, you'll be standing on it and enjoying a cold beverage of your choice!  The construction is still in progress so we will be using just 3 rooms in our new home.  (And maybe trying to crash at YOUR house.)

I promise my next post will be sooner rather than later.  Spare bathroom updates are next!

Teasers

As the progress continues on the home front, we are required to make several design decisions.  This stage makes me nervous because it's not as easy as picking a paint color that can be changed within a day if we don't care for it. No, these are major decisions that we will probably never go back and change. We are choosing tile, cabinets, kitchen layout, and placement of fixtures.  Don't get me wrong! This part of the process is just as exciting as it is nerve wracking.

In order to ensure that I make the 'correct decision', I keep in mind the classic and timeless design look of homes.  Classic homes will never be trendy or look out of date.  We aren't going for funky, people! Even with white and black subway tile in my current condo - the bathroom looks like it could have been designed last week. (When in reality, it's been decades!) I'll start by saying that white subway tile will, again, make an appearance in our new home.  The pictures below are a zoomed in version of other accent, floor, and wall tiles we will be using in the master bathroom.

Spare bathroom...there are SEVERAL issues in here. However, we aren't having this bathroom professionally remodeled. It's a DIY project that will take about a weekend - hopefully. Yesterday I took to painting the linen closet located inside the bathroom.  I'm weird about closets.  When I move, I want them painted so that I can place my things in fresh shelves.  Like I said, I'm weird!

The closet was a silver-blueish color. Blah!

Crisp Clean White!

I've also started my search for the perfect wall color for the majority of the home. I have searched the internet and design blogs in my hunt for the color that will morph in each room and compliment the various styles and colors of furniture. Apparently it makes your house look larger if you stick to different hues of the same color or just use the same color. I used to be one of those people that painted every room a different bright color (and there is nothing wrong with that!), but in my 'older age' I prefer neutrals with colored accents.  This may or may not have been an influence of the various decorator blogs I have read. :)

All the rooms were different colors when we purchased the house.  I'm wondering if it is worth my time and energy to prime each and every room so that I start with a clean slate. OR do I just want to paint over the existing colors and see what variations of the color may pop out and slightly change in each room?  I enjoy painting, but I honestly DO NOT want to spend weeks of my life painting and repainting rooms. Trim work is a whole other ballgame.  That will need to be painted throughout the house as well.  Luckily, in the remodeled portions of the house, there will be a professional to tackle the painting. (Happy dance!) Below is a picture of my current color choice on a yellow wall in one of the spare bedrooms. I'll have to do two coats, but not that I look at the picture, I think I need to go even lighter in color.

Revere Pewter

Not only are we working on the inside, but having a beautiful corner lot in a neighborhood of wonderful landscapers puts the pressure on us.  My mother has promised to help.  A self-proclaimed gardener of the south, she can grow absolutely ANYTHING! Stephen's parents are not to be overshadowed either.  They have one of the most beautiful lawns and flower beds in their neighborhood as well.  I am confident with their three powers combined (say it like Captain Planet and it makes it more fun) - our yard will soon be the proud recipient of the "Yard of the Month" award.  That's my goal! You can see the current landscape below.  Most of the bushes and plants in the yard are placed too close to the fence and house to really grow. We plan to dig most of these up and either reuse them in other areas or just put them on the curb for pick-up.