Payton's Room

Poor Payton has been spending the last 3 months in this hideous orange room in the basement.

Unfortunately it also turned into a storage room so we both were excited to get her into her own space personalized just for her.  

We spent a lot of time creating her very first nursery back in our townhouse and we wanted her new room to be just as good.

This is the space we had to work with in our new house before all the work was done...

...and here it is after

So we did a lot of painting and got new carpet installed.  I love the way her room turned out.

Here is a before and after shot of the other side of the room.

Here are some close ups of the details I love.

Payton has grown up so fast.  She is so much fun lately.  Here are a few cute pictures of her.

Tile Be Gone

I mentioned before that we LOVE the potential of our master bedroom.  However there is a lot of work to do on it.  If you recall this is what it looked like before we moved in.

Looking in from the bedroom door

Looking from the french doors 

Things we LOVE:

1- the fact that we have deck access from our room (with an awesome view)

2- we have a fireplace that you can enjoy from the bedroom and bathroom

3- cathedral ceilings (you can't see from these pictures)

Things we want to CHANGE:

1- tile to carpet (we want a cosy room with carpet, nothing is worse then waking up in the winter and having to touch cold tile to get out of bed)

2- the paint color OBVIOUSLY

3- a door separating the bedroom and bathroom

4- totally redo the master bathroom (but that is way down the line)

So we actually didn't sleep in our master bedroom until 3 months of living in the house (last weekend) because there was so much to do with it.  Now that our room and Payton's room are done we are so excited to be out of the basement.  More on Payton's room transformation later.

So the first step was to get rid of the tile.  Tyler got some of his friends over and they had the tile gone within 1 hour.  Easy peasy.

Here are the only tools he used.  He actually ended up not using the two items on the left.  Just pound with the hammer and pry the tile off with the crow bar.  

 Payton wanted to get her hands dirty.  Yes I know she looks like a boy.  I thought it was fitting.

I also thought it was fitting that she had a hard hat.

Here are some pictures of Ty hard at work.

So here is what the room looked like before Ty got his hammer out...

...and here is after

Unfortunately we discovered some rotted wood over by the french door, which probably relates directly to the old deck falling away from the house.  

Monti was a little worried...

Fortunately it was a pretty easy fix.  It just took us a while to do it.  It wasn't until the carpet installer called and said he had an opening to come early and we jumped on it.  So even though I haven't posted about the paint job on this room, I will add it in really quickly now.  We decided to roll this room and it was SOOO much easier.  I bought one of those edger rollers to do all the trim like this and I LOVED it.  One tip though (use a paint brush to apply the paint to the foam pad).   I did all of the trim and Tyler came in with the roller. 

Before and after pics for dramatic effect...

So now back to the rotting plywood.  We had to buy some plywood and 2x4's and liquid nails.  Tyler's dad was up to help us with this project while his crew was outside working on our yard.  

Step 1:  Remove the rotted wood with a circular wood saw

Step 2: Reinforce the edges of the hole with 2x4's (they just nailed them into the base already there)

Step 3:  Cut the plywood to the EXACT dimensions of the old rotted plywood.  The hardest part was cutting the rectangle for the HVAC vent.

Step 4: Glue the plywood down with liquid nails and reinforce with nails to the 2x4's.

Tyler's dad was amazing that weekend.  He helped us get so much down on our house not to mention our yard makeover.  Thanks GARY we love you!

I have to throw in a picture of my favorite part of this room... THE VIEW

Sneak peek of Payton's room...

....more on that later

Yard Progress

I have avoided posting any other pictures of our yard besides the one of the front of our house because I was embarrassed.  As you can see our front yard is like a jungle.  Unfortunately our backyard is worse.  

Tyler's dad owns a landscaping business and he was so nice to send them up to our house to give our yard a start to a makeover.  We basically took everything out except for a few things (grape vines and an apple tree).  We plan to plant some bushes and flowers and even veggies in the spring, but for now we are just glad that we don't live in a jungle anymore.  

BEFORE

 AFTER

You can't tell very well from this picture but we leveled out the front lawn and had a retaining wall built on the right side.

Here is a closer look of all the weeds that we got rid of.

BEFORE

 AFTER

We plan on putting some pavers down on the right under the kitchen window in the spring to make a little front patio.

To the left of our deck we have this awesome grape vine intertwined with a nasty tree and a bunch of weeds.  This area needed a ton of clean up.

                                     BEFORE                                      AFTER

                      

In the back the previous owner built these awesome stone planting boxes that are perfect for a garden.  Now that it is all cleaned out except for the apple tree, it is ready for some delicious veggies.

BEFORE

 AFTER

My favorite thing about the yard cleanup is taking out this nasty tree.  Not only was it ugly and unkempt but it blocked our awesome view.

BEFORE

AFTER

After installing the new deck we knew we wanted to put something underneath so that it wasn't just mud that we would constantly have to weed.  After looking at pinterest for ideas we decided to go a cheaper route (plain grey pavers) since it was underneath the deck anyway.  

BEFORE

 AFTER

While cleaning the backyard we found this disturbing item...

We still have loads of work to make this backyard into what we want, but it is definitely progress.  In the spring we plan on getting new sod in the back, getting rid of the old school swing set, planting a garden, putting in a front patio and landscaping the front yard.