The Allison's First Home: 2015

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Sprucing Up the Backyard

We regularly hang out and have parites in our backyard so making it better back there has always been on our minds. When we first moved in, it was a wreck and we removed a lot of hideous plants. Neither of us are very good at landscaping or choosing plants so this has been something we have put off for awhile.

I did always love the idea of having some king palms in our yard. I finally put some effort into the idea and found a nursery with them at a great price. Mimosa Nursery had the 15 gallon trees for only $55 each. For comparison, Home Depot has smaller ones for $70 each.

Our gardener picked them up and planted them for a great price. He also removed this goofy "balls tree" we had. It was cute enough to me, but it dropped lots of leaves into the pool and for some reason flies LOVED living in it. There were also lots of spiders so I was happy to get rid of it.

We are very excited with the planted trees. The smaller palms I had previously planted myself were moved to different locations.

Tonight Brian and I are going to pick up some wood to make some nice fences to hide the pool equipment and the carport.

Hopefully soon we will build a patio cover, but for now the fences are a good warm up. This fence is the inspiration.

Swapping Dean's Room and the Office

For awhile now, the office has slowly become the dumping ground for toys and items Dean is now too big for. He basically has outgrown his bedroom too so we decided to move him into the office and move the office to his baby room.

Before any new furniture made its way into the house, everthing was cleared out of the old office and I painted the room. This was the third time I've painted this room so I decided to go with plain ol' white. I really like it and I knew I wouldn't have to change it again as our son's tastes grow.

I had intended to paint the new office all white as well, but after all the work in the bedroom I got over that idea. Navy/white combo it is! No more painting required.

I really dislike my desk chair. I need to look around for maybe a gray tufted chair or something like that.

Dean had already upgraded into a twin bed several months back, but with the room swap I really wanted him to have a loft bed. I had one as a kid and remember LOVING playing underneith it like a club house all the time. Plus it allows for even more storage and play space. So the twin bed he was previously using got to stay in the office. Now we again have somewhere for a guest or two to sleep.

In Dean's new room I also purchased one more storage piece. I really prefer the Target cubes with boxes but the Ikea storage system allowed for a few huge containers for those awkwardly large toys.

Dean loves his new room and shows it off to everyone that comes over.

I love having a neat office again.

Lastly, while at Ikea I picked up this really cute shoe cabinet and mirror. Our entryway was never very cute so I was happy to make it a lot more presentable and a nice vibe when you walk in the front door.

Washer Dryer Ikea Kitchen Cabinet Hack

Surprisingly this project was super fast to complete. We expected it to be a huge headache so Brian kept putting it off. Once he started it he finished in less than 45 minutes! We were shocked it worked so smoothly.

Basically, we wanted a panel on the side that would be removable to easily access the water valves behind the washer and dryer if needed.

Brian routered out three pockets and added these metal cleats. Genius!

If you have any questions, let us know.

Finished All the Windows

What a difference windows make! About a year ago we had just the front windows of our house replaced. We chose to do just a few at a time so we could pay in cash for each batch. Now we were ready to complete the job. What a change!

We chose the Del Mar Anlin windows from American Vision. They installed them all in one day after waiting a few weeks for them to be custom made. The install job looks fabulous. I knew that new windows would really help with the temperature control in our home and the sound. We have been super pleased.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

We've Really Slowed Down... But Still Finishing Up That Kitchen

So since the kitchen is totally functional and pretty amazing, we have totally slowed down. We are close to done, but just a little left to do.

On the to do list is just:

attach cabinet toe kicks
add door trim and baseboards
install crown above cabinets
finish installing the under cabinet LED lighting strips
finish installing power outlet on island
choose and install a back splash of some sort
and soooome day we will open up the wall between the living room and kitchen to make a bar top, but no rush on that.

We finally put all the pulls on (except one, can you find it?). The under cabinet trim pieces were put on as well.

The drawer for recycling in the island is up and running. What a convenience! This originally was designed to house our trash, but we like our old trash can that we operate with our foot and it has a nice location too. This was a welcome change of plan.

Every upper cabinet has these awesome power strips under them instead of a socket in the back splash. We bought different lengths depending on the cabinet it went under. We did a little outlet overkill, but that's ok. It's better to have too many than not enough where you need it. Plus they are hidden, so why not?

Also the dishwasher is so cool with the built-in door panel attached. So fancy. ;)

I love having my little breakfast bar area for cooking bagels and making my daily iced caramel macchiatto! These two items used to take up the entire counter in the last kitchen. So, it's nice having their own area off to the side.

Thanks for following up!

Monday, February 23, 2015

The Fully Functional Kitchen Has Arrived!

So all the cabinets are in! The sink, the faucet, the oven, the DISHWASHER. Wow, what a magical machine...

The day the counter tops went in felt better than Christmas. We love them.

It has been about a week now and I've never been so excited to wash a dish in my life. Once Brian got the faucet and dishwasher functional I went on a cleaning and washing SPREE. I was so excited to put everything away in the cabinets I couldn't be stopped for even a "we're almost done" blog post.

There still is plenty of work to do, but at least we finally can slow the pace down and relax and enjoy our practically done, new kitchen, a little.

Things left to do are:

attach drawer/cabinet knobs and pulls (coming this week in the mail)
install crown molding on cabinets
install kick boards
choose and install a back splash
install under cabinet and island electrical plugs
install under cabinet lighting

and eventually:

open the wall between the living room and kitchen to create a breakfast bar

A few friends have been over this week to check out the kitchen and they all have said it feels like a completely different house now because of the remodel.

I still can't believe it is ours and we did it all ourselves (except the floor tile and countertop).

We have a contract to have our windows redone... in due time. The missing cabinet in the island is out just while Brian finishes up the electrical plug install.