2nd house Updates! Basement & outdoor projects

Basement, turned from gross to not so bad at all.

As fun as it sounds to berm soil up against the house, it really helped to keep some cracks from furthering in our basement.  This picture was taken just after we moved in last July:

The cracking on the left wall can be somewhat seen from this distance

Then Gabe power washed the walls:

He then removed the shelves that must have been there for decades...Although they are nice to have, we really need to treat the wall behind them to make sure we get rid of any mold.  We plan to put back up some configuration of the shelves again, but that is another project for another time.

Gabe worked to fill the cracks in with grout before we could paint with the sealer.

Here is the wall painted with Drylock, a paint that seals the wall from water seepage:

Looks worlds better!!!

before paint

after paint

We bought the house with this old wood stove downstairs in the basement too, but don't envision us taking the time to restore it with tlc at this point, so Gabe listed it on craigslist and we got $120 for it.

Bye bye stove!

I am glad to have the space freed up for our future plans to add living space down there!

You can see that I was in the process of painting the basement door at the time as well:

Ok, so here is the before:

And now the after:

It's a dark pewter green/gray color and probably too green/not enough gray for what I was looking for, but I'm not changing it now!  Gabe was happy--it's nearly his MSU green color (by accident on my part!) :D

In the same way that the doors were that maroon color, so were the shutters.  I didn't like how the color went with the brick, so I decided black was a better choice.  Here are a few shots of the difference:

you can barely see the maroon

better detail shot, with Gabe patching the roofing around the vent piping

New black shutters:

detail shot

Gabe found a basketball hoop on craigslist for $140 and installed it before wintertime.  Still has yet to use it!  Here's hoping for a chance to in the spring :)

Another small project Gabe undertook recently when his folks were in town: to remove the already falling over tree before everything greens up and it gets harder because of the undergrowth.  The ground was frozen so tire tracks didn't affect the yard too much but didn't hinder the ease of removal (the roots were mostly exposed anyways!):

I think Gabe liked this project :D

Yesterday, Gabe finished his pallet shelves project.  I'm pretty proud of this one!  He got some pallets from a local hardware store (free) and went to town fabricating them.  He cut them down to size, using our large gray bins as the template for height.  He used the main supports for the slats to make the legs for the shelves.  We will be able to store 18 large bins with this arrangement!  Go Gabe and your amazing skill!

Presenting:

Now, here is a glimpse of our next "big" project in the basement, here is how the stairs are currently oriented coming down into the space:

Well, we plan on putting a landing three treads up and making a 90 degree angle towards the door to create something of a vestibule.  As you can see the pole is rather close to the stairs headed towards the door, so having the stairs facing the entry would be more ideal.  This way, we can wall off a space lining up with the HVAC duct pictured and have more space doing so.  Here's our latest idea of the space plan:

2nd house Updates! Dining room project

Moving on to the dining room space!

Check out the upstairs floor plan from the last blog on the house here to find your way around.

Last I wrote, we hadn't even started on the chair rail for the space (which by the way was originally a small bedroom, right next to the kitchen!).

First step was to address the intersection of the three doors at the top of the basement stairs.  Of course we left the exterior back door in tact, but the basement door and the door leading into the bedroom converted to dining room had to be taken down.  As you can see they just cause too much confusion/congestion to that space:

Then, I painted the lower portion of the wall which will be under the chair rail.  Here is the paint color I chose:

Yes, I love teal!!  When else am I going to get a chance to use this color???!??  :-D

Here you can see the effect of removing the doors as well:

I stopped the paint at 32" inches up thinking this would be a good height considering the "Golden Mean", a mathematical study of proportion found in nature, considering the height of the ceilings, window placement, etc.

Next, we installed the light fixture from Lowes shown here, inspired by my dear friend Andrea :)  I liked how the teal color on the wall is picked up in the light fixture.

Lit up:

Not lit up:

Still need to patch and repaint the area around the top of the light where it connects to the ceiling.

This is how the room stayed for a few months before we got around to actually buying, painting and installing the chair rail...

And then I finally took the time to stage it up a little bit to show how the chair rail looks in this small space!!

Same angle as above:

It really is a small space--probably too small for the table we have, but I figure it can sit against the wall most of the time--we were able to fit 6 around it for a meal with my family around Christmas-time! (which I was surprised about, but we angled it and made it work!)

The space has a dual function for us--the bedroom closet space fits our office desk perfectly.  So, I fashioned a curtain to cover the messy space for most of the time, pictured here:

view from the kitchen space

view from in front of the doorway to the hall

view toward kitchen space (can see back door in background)

view toward hallway

Couple detail shots of the table spread:

candlelight would be romantic in the evening :)

2nd house Updates! Living room

I'll start with the room that had the least amount of work done to it.  I'll just share a couple of pics that I took in between picking up my sons toys up off the ground :D

Check out the upstairs floor plan from the last blog on the house here to find your way around.

First, a leeeetle trip down memory lane.

Right after we bought the place:

floors before:

floors after:

Our little 7 month old at the time:

And this is how we live right now, making the best of all our conglomerated college furniture, keeping in mind the growing needs of our little one:

Our little 15 month old enjoying his blocks in the space:

Condensation on our single pane windows...man am I excited for spring!!!

A few words on creating a picture composition:

1. There needs to be a focal point.
The pic in the middle is a focal point because it is the largest, has a frame and wide matte board, and sticks out farther from the wall than the others.  Symbolically for us, it represents where our family sprang from--this was an engagement photo of Gabe's and mine.  I have a secondary focal point on the left, and it works because it is larger, is spaced out from the main focal point and has similar elements to all the rest except having a matte board incorporated.

2. Find a common thread to bind the rest of the pics together.
I chose a frame-less glass application to allow the pictures to be close together, getting more pictures closer together.

3. Be picky about the spacing.
I chose two different spacings-a 3/4" and an 1 1/4".  The larger spacing accommodates the larger size frame, usually 8 X 10.  They are spaced out in the larger composition as well, not always right next to each other, but scattered.  Make sure before you place the picture, you have someone hold it up to see if it works for you from farther away.

4.  Be able to build on it.
I want to be able to add pictures as my son grows, so placing pictures sometimes lined up will allow larger ones to be built up close.

5. Negative space is as important as positive space.
Positive space is what is created by the images themselves.  Negative space is the shape of the space around the images.  Take a second look at the wall and this time notice the white space around the pictures and the shapes that are created.


Here is another photo after I added a few more pics.  Notice the shapes, and the positive & negative space created.

It's always building and growing, just like our family!  :)


Well, that's all for now!!!

Updates! a big picture glance at our current house project

Hey folks!

We are still beside ourselves with just how well our first flip went.  We are hoping the second turns out just as well!!  While the first one took about 2 1/2 years to complete, we envision the next one taking even longer.  We have a little boy now and progress is slow.

It has been a while since I last wrote!  A lot has happened in the meantime.  The current house to flip is where we are residing, so projects/updates are fewer and farther between.

You can review the last post about our current house here.

I would like to give an overview of where we are headed with this one.  Since I last wrote, we had big plans to renovate this house eventually--tripling the square footage of the home.  This plan has been put on hold since there has been some community developments come up that we weren't aware of when we initially made the investment in the property.  There are two water towers that have been approved for a nearby conscientious development with million dollar homes next door.  The towers will be a stones-throw from our property (visible from our land).  We have heard rumblings from developers (my dad is doing some architectural work about 5 miles down the road) nearby that say there is the possibility of re-zoning which would potentially enable us to sell our property without doing any major renovations at all.  We are planning on sticking around through the coming community development changes (hopefully it won't take too long for things to pan out!!) to realize this potential doubling of our initial investments.  This is not something we knew going into it, so here's hoping we are playing it smart!!

In the meanwhile, we are making "small", more cosmetic changes to the property that will improve our own quality of life living there.  Generally speaking, we would like to finish most of the 1000 sf unfinished basement.  Specifically, this includes an alteration of the basement stairs to make way for a bedroom and bathroom addition in the basement that makes sense.  A rec room/livable space is in the works as well as sectioning out a good chunk of space for storage, tools and the like.  These endeavors will permit us to live more comfortably in our 1000 sf home, with the thought that we would like to expand our family someday.

House project details to follow soon!