Chapter 1: Kitchen Renovation

"My vision." By uttering these two simple words from my lips and I have the ability to give my sweet hubby an instant stress headache. Unfortunately for him, I tend to talk a lot about my vision since we’ve moved into our home. Hey – my dad warned him before he married me so he knew what he was getting himself into.


For me, one the many great appeals to buying this house was the kitchen and the fact that Keith agreed the 1960s appliances and cabinets were in desperate need of a brand spankin’ new makeover! (see House History post for proof!) Even when we were living in our temporary condo before the official move-in date, my vision of a new kitchen was starting to take shape. The first order of business was buying every kitchen magazine I could get my hands on for a little extra inspiration!


Since my plan was to go with a light and refreshing feeling throughout the whole house, I instantly had my heart set on white cabinets. And believe me, you can find plenty of inspiration for white cabinets – it seems like every editorial feature in all the magazines focus on a white kitchen.

Photo from Southern Living magazine

While some people shudder at the thought of white cabinets, I think it’s a classic look. And white cabinets would give me the ability to decorate the room with colorful art and accessories.

Photo from Sunset magazine

Another part of my vision was having a few glass cabinets to display my Crate and Barrel white dishes and glasses. I really like how glass cabinets just add another element of visual interest to the kitchen.

Photo from Coastal Living magazine

Did I mention our kitchen is pretty big? The dimensions measure X by X. It’s a great space that definitely is calling for a fabulous island. I love pedestal legs and I definitely want bar stools for cute, casual dinners with the hubby and nugget.

Photo from Southern Living magazine

Another idea I had was to brighten up the kitchen with open shelving. I like the idea of having just one area with an open shelf – so we can use (and see) what we love everyday! I think it would be a perfect spot for my favorite cookbooks.

Photo from Sunset magazine

And for some reason, I have a strong desire for a farm sink. I guess I just like the appeal of adding a bit of the period-style design into the room.

Photo from Southern Accents magazine

Now some people might decide to go with a really dark countertop when selecting white kitchen cabinets. But for some reason this just doesn’t seem to really gel with my vision of a light and refreshing space. So I’m dreaming of a light granite counters. I’m a snob because I hate the thought of not getting granite countertops.

Photo from Southern Living magazine

I also love the idea of a hardwood floor in a kitchen. I think it makes the room more cozy – and I can’t stand how quickly tile grout becomes dirty in this high traffic area. Since the rest of our home is entirely hardwood, I think it only makes sense to complete this theme in our new kitchen.


So my vision is creating a pretty big wish list. But I think it’s important to know what you want before planning. So just to review my wish list:

• White cabinets
• A few glass cabinets
• A big island
• Pedestal legs for the island
• Enough room for bar stools around the island
• Open shelf
• Farmer sink
• Light granite counters
• Hardwood floors
• Stainless steel appliances – isn’t that a given?
  

Now the real challenge will be finding out if this vision fits in our budget. I realize that sacrifices will have to be made…sadly, Keith and I aren’t made of money. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can put a checkmark on many of these items. Stay tuned!

Chapter 2: 1/2 Bathroom Renovation

My vision for the 1/2 bathroom is light and refreshing - basically, the theme for the entire house. But we didn't want to spend too many bucks in this room and I thought if we saved the vanity and marble countertop then we'd be in good shape. Little did I know that obstacles we would encounter in this very small room...more on that later.


Here are some ideas that are rolling around in my head:

Photo from Restoration Hardware

I thought our vanity just need a nice coating of Glidden’s semi-gloss Dove White to brighten it up so it could look similar to this vanity from Restoration Hardware.

Photo from Coastal Living magazine

And since the vanity is so long, I wanted a big, dark mirror above the sink. But instead of the silver faucet finish in this example, I would use an oil-rubbed bronze faucet and lighting to pick-up the dark mirror and colors of the marble.

Photo from The Tile Shop

Then I’ve toyed with the idea of repeating the slate tile in our foyer for the bathroom floor. I didn’t want the same type of slate, but something darker to give the room a natural and peaceful look.

So that’s my small vision in a nutshell. All of our bathrooms need renovated and the ½ bathroom was actually the least of our concerns. However, we decided to start here because we figure if we messed-up, it would be less expense to have hire someone to come in and fix a ½ bathroom as opposed to a full bathroom. Fixing the wall where we removed the tile will be the next challenge. Stay tuned!

Picking Paint Colors

Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but one of my favorite areas of any home improvement store is the paint section. I love looking at all the paint swatches – it really can be mesmerizing! In our first house back in Columbus, Ohio, I really picked paint colors at random. It just depended on what mood or what color I needed/wanted for that particular room. There was no flow and consistency throughout the whole house.

This was a mistake I was determined not to make again. I wanted the whole house to feel light and refreshing. This would require picking a color palette and sticking to it throughout all the rooms. I decided to pick one neutral color and go from there.

The base color I started with was Glidden’s Water Chestnut. I heard this was the ultimate in light beige so I took a chance. I definitely planned to use this color in the family room, living room and guest room. According to various designers, repeating colors throughout the house is actually a good thing.

Next I needed a shade lighter from Water Chestnut for the hallways so I picked Glidden’s Antique Beige. And I had my heart set on a soft gray color for the dining room and it seemed like Glidden’s Smooth Stone would work. Then I started searching for a color in our master bedroom. Our comforter is a light green and beige strip from Crate & Barrel and I had a feeling Glidden’s Barely Jade would be a nice compliment. Plus, it was a great addition to the color palette I was building.

Finally, I knew all the doors and trim needed a strong white to make everything pop so I picked Glidden’s Dove White.

I officially have five colors picked out for the house. A pretty good starting point! I plan to add more colors to the mix later, but first I wanted to see how all of these would turn out. Stay tuned!

Removing Wallpaper

I realize wallpaper was extremely popular and fashionable in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Who am I to knock a fashion trend? So it was only inevitable that we’d encounter having to remove this stuff in our 1965 home. But 12 out of 15 rooms is a bit ridiculous. Yes, you heard me right. Out of the 15, there were only 3 rooms not wallpapered when we moved in – the living room, sunroom and one of the bedrooms. Needless to say we have become experts at removing wallpaper…a skill I’d rather not possess.

We really couldn’t renovate and make this house our happy home without a clean slate. So the wallpaper had to go. But 12 rooms is A LOT!!! And we definitely encountered a few ups, a few downs and one nightmare. Here’s the breakdown…

The upside included our master bathroom, guest room 1, guest bathroom, family room, dining room and kitchen. No tools were needed when we were removing the wallpaper in these rooms. We simply grabbed a loose corner and did a gentle tug. The wallpaper magically peeled off in nice sheets. I realize that this doesn’t happen very often so I truly have a special love and appreciation in my heart for these particular rooms.

The downside included our master bedroom, upstairs and downstairs hallway. No easy pull and peel solution here. For the master bedroom we found that a wallpaper steamer and scraper worked wonders. Unfortunately both hallways proved to be a little harder and we had to use our friend WP Chomp, a scraper and a lot of muscle.

The nightmare became our guest room 2, nicknamed ‘The Smoke Room.’ This room quickly became the bane of our existence…along with my dad, Keith’s dad, grandpa and brother. The Smoke Room is just that – a bedroom that the previous homeowner would always smoke in. This was probably one of the least appealing aspects to buying the house because we both think smoking is a nasty and dirty habit. The good news is that the smoke smell really did just stay within the walls of the bedroom.

Now, we are not sure if the smoke had anything to do with the fact that the wallpaper in this room would not come off, but I think it probably didn’t help the matter. The wallpaper literally was like white on rice. It just WOULD NOT come off. Numerous attempts with a steamer, scrapper, WP Chomp, hot water, fabric softener and vinegar could not help the situation.

We were starting to worry that we’d have to knock down all the walls and put up new drywall. Fortunately we found a solution! Simply stick my dad in the room for 2 days straight, 8 hours each day with a sander and VOILA! What a great dad – right? The man definitely earned his wings in heaven for doing that for us! (thank you, thank you, thank you!)

Only one room remains with wallpaper now and that is our basement. We plan to refinish the basement at some point, but for now it’s just going to be left with shag carpet and wallpaper. Groovy baby!

I realize wallpaper is slowly making a fashion comeback…just not in this happy house! If I didn’t have to rip off so much of the darn stuff from the previous owners, I might have actually considered wallpapering one of the rooms because there are some very fashionable papers that I admire, like from Walnut Wallpaper. But I'll just have to save that for another time and another place.

Stay tuned to find out about our painting plan and other BIG projects!

Removing Carpet

As we mentioned in House History – our second post on this blog – underneath all the carpet in our home was untouched hardwood floors. I literally felt like we hit the jackpot when we found this out. I mean, seriously, no one builds homes like this anymore. I’ll never forget my anticipation when Keith peeled back a corner of our master bedroom carpet our first night in our new home. Anticipation quickly turned to utter joy and excitement when we discovered the floors were in amazing condition after 44 years!

And those feelings never got old as we slowly removed almost all the carpet from the house except for the hallway and basement, which would have to remain in place for the time being (but we’ll get to it at some point).

However, our excitement would eventually change to disgust when we realized how gross it is to remove really old, thick carpet. Yuck! I get the willies just thinking about the feeling of the moist texture of the padding underneath the carpet. Having to cut and roll all of it up into 4 foot bundles for the trash is not fun – nor is having to remove all the staples from the floor along with the wood strips. What a pain! My job was to remove the staples while Keith tackled the wood strips.

All the hard work was worth it in the end though. I have beautiful hardwood floors throughout the whole house. Now I just dream about all the area rugs that I need! I’ll have more on that eventually. Stay tuned!

Team Pink

Keith and I were so excited to learn today that we’re expecting a little girl this December 20! The Meckstroth household will finally be even – two boys (Keith and Walter) and two girls (me and nugget)!

When I saw my doctor last week he told me that I could schedule my ultrasound for sometime the following week. Needless to say, I scheduled our appointment for 7:30 a.m. Monday morning. Lol Keith didn’t want me to get my hopes up because he figured we’d totally be the couple that wouldn’t be able to find out during the ultrasound…and he was almost right.

When we first got started, the tech was looking at the heartbeat and snapping images for the doctor. She actually struggled with that part a bit because our little nugget was wiggling around like a little worm. Then we checked out the head and a little arm and hand were resting nearby. Too cute! The kidneys, bladder, legs, arms, nose and ears were all there too. If felt so wonderful to have this visual confirmation that our nugget was healthy and kickin’ – literally!

But the big moment I had been waiting for quickly passed with frustration. The flippin’ cord was in the way! Are you kidding me?!?! The tech had to stop twice and take a break to see if the nugget’s cord had moved from between the legs. No such luck. I almost started to cry. Fortunately, three times is a charm and a simple trip to the bathroom was the magic trick!

Keith has thought all along that our nugget was going to be girl because all of his high school friends had baby girls and practically all of my high school friends have girls. He thinks it must be something in the water. Ha ha! I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but then I had a dream last night of being in the ultrasound room and the tech telling me I was having a girl. Isn’t that crazy?

We both couldn’t be happier! Nursery ideas, shopping trips, cupcake baking session, etc. are all thoughts that are racing through my head right now. And my sweet hubby is thinking about how much longer he’ll have to extend his retirement plans. Lol But I know that our little girl will have him wrapped around her little finger in an instant.

This happy house feels truly blessed right now…and especially happy!