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Powder Room Reveal & Addition Update

5 Jun

Finishing off the four rooms of our new addition has been slowly coming along, and I can finally call the powder room part of it complete!

The last time I showed you the powder room it was in the early stages looking like this:

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And here it is now:

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Starting at the bottom, we used a ceramic tile from Lowes called Leonia Silver. It was very reasonable at $2.50/square foot.

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We had a hard time finding a vanity since the room is so narrow at only four feet wide. We found a small black one at Menards that I gave a makeover with new knobs and a coat of Benjamin Moore Fieldstone paint. The candle, hand towel and mercury glass soap dispenser are all from Target.

New Zealand 1031On the walls, you can see we did white beadboard on the bottom and the top half is Arctic Shadows by Benjamin Moore.

In such a small space, I didn’t have to much decorating to do, but I placed a large glass vase that we already had from Home Goods in the corner and purchased some tall, faux flowers from Pottery Barn.

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On the wall opposite the vanity I added some art from Garden Ridge that used to live in the bathroom at our old house.

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Moving next door to the new laundry room, last time it looked like this:

IMG_4193It is far from complete, but now it looks like this:

New Zealand 1032We used the same flooring as the power room in here (but ran it the opposite direction) and painted the walls Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams. The washer and dryer are new to us that we actually got used for $100/pair! This is the first time we’ve had front loaders and so far, so good.

We hung a cabinet over the washer/dryer that Ben had left over from one of his jobsites. I will probably end up painting it. Inside the cabinet Ben built a laundry chute that starts up in our future master bedroom closet.

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You can hardly see it in the photo but we made the front of the chute out of clear plexiglass so you can see what’s in there.

We plan to add a countertop (maybe butcher block?) and some shelving in here.

There has been much less progress on the addition rooms upstairs, but that isn’t a huge priority for us right now. Our main focus while the weather is nice is outside.

So here is the future master bathroom right now, which has drywall, framing, plumbing and electrical.

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And next to that is the master closet which is painted and carpeted.

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They aren’t finished yet but we hung french doors to these two rooms which we plan to frost.

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We plan to focus on these rooms after the summer and then move into our new master by the end of the year.

Next up on the blog… chickens! Yep, we had our chickens arrive in the mail yesterday and we built a beautiful coop for them to live in.

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Home Goals: How We Did & 2014 Goals

8 Jan

2013 was a year of pretty big changes at 12 Oaks. I posted our goals for the year here and I’m happy to report we got most of what we set out to do done! Here’s the checklist on how much we accomplished.

1) Put in Upstairs Hall Bathroom. Check! We completely gutted and re-did the bathroom. It is one of my favorite spaces in the house and has turned out to be quite the Pinterest sensation, lol. Full tour here.

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2) Re-locate laundry and renovate first floor powder room. Check! Sort of. What was once the laundry and powder room is now our pantry and part of our kitchen. The new first floor powder room isn’t done, but it is functional (sink and toilet working), and we have a new laundry room.

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3) Take down a wall to create open floor plan. Oh yeah! It feels like a whole new house since we did this.

Here was the before:

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And here is a similar view now.

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4) Renovating the kitchen. Check! Just a few minor tweaks left, but this was the biggest transformation yet.

Before:

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And now:

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5) New windows. We’re on a roll, another check.

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6) Renovate Master Bathroom. Ok, this didn’t happen. BUT, our master is now moving and the addition is built so a new master bathroom is started.

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7)  Get the pool up and running. It took until the end of summer but we got another check!

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8) Build a deck and/or patio around pool along with landscaping around it and the rest of the property. No check. We designed the deck, poured the footings and bought the materials but it got too cold to build. We did landscape the front of the house though.

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9) Add french doors off of the dining room. Check! Love these.

Before:

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After:

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10) Paint the house and install new front door. No paint, but we did get a new front door.

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11) Update fireplace in the den. No progress. This is going on the list for 2014.

12) Add shadowbox molding in dining room and stairs. Not yet. Though our stairs did get a nice makeover.

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13) Put in can lights in living room. Check! We put in dimmable can lights in the barn wood beams we installed.

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14) Add hardwood floors in the entry way. Check! Our floors are all one material and color- love them so much.

Before:

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After:

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Phew! We were busy. It was a lot of work, but the house totally feels like ours now. I doubt we can keep up this pace in 2014, especially with our little one arriving in a few weeks, but there is still lots to accomplish.

Our 2014 home goals are to:

1) Build deck out back

2) Install retaining wall and landscape back yard

3) Replace rotten trim and paint the house

4) Finish addition upstairs (master bathroom and closet)

5) Finish addition downstairs (powder room and laundry room)

6) Makeover the office/playroom, including a fireplace re-do

7) Blacktop driveway

8) Relocate master bedroom

9) Update living room built-ins

10) Build a dining room table from native New Zealand wood

11) Build out basement storage

All with an infant. Think it can be done?

Flip: SOLD!

21 Sep

Back in June, I showed you through the “flip” we purchased. We successfully fixed it up from top to bottom over the summer and yesterday we closed it- woo-hoo! It actually pre-sold during demo which meant we didn’t even have to put it up for sale. Our agent took some interested buyers through it during construction explaining what it would look like once it was done, and they agreed to buy it.

It was a great arrangement, though they did request to change a few things to their preference. Though we still picked out all the colors and finishes.

So on with the finished tour!

Here was the front exterior before.

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And after new soffits, gutters, landscaping, window and door paint, and a new front path, here is the after.IMG_3439The grass seed hadn’t grown through the straw matting we laid on the side of the path and house just yet, but it’s quite an improvement.

Here was the garage before.

IMG_1525And after a new door, light, soffits, gutters, and a re-surfaced retaining wall, here it is now.

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Moving inside to the living room. Here is the before:

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And after some paint, trim, lights and new floors:

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The kitchen before (it was already demo’d in this photo):

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And after:IMG_3418The buyers wanted the wall between the kitchen and living room removed. And didn’t want a dishwasher for a reason I will never understand.

Before view from living room to kitchen:

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Outside the back door, Ben built a beautiful new deck.

IMG_3434Here was the view of the back before:

IMG_1454And after:

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Back inside, here is the upstairs bathroom before:

IMG_1512And after a new toilet, vanity, tub, sink, floor tile and fixtures:

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The three upstairs bedrooms just got new paint and trim.

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IMG_3422Hallway before:

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Here were the scary stairs down to the basement before:

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And now:

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And the biggest transformation of all is the basement. What looked like this before:

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Is now this:

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We also added 2 all new bedrooms, a bathroom and a laundry room.

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That concludes the tour.

Now, we can focus our time, attention, and a little bit of profit into getting our own place ready for the baby! Kitchen reno is starting in the next week or two, so stay tuned.

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Adventures in House Flipping

6 Jun

You might notice a slight slow down in progress around 12 Oaks as we have a new project underway– a flip! Ben has actually done a dozen of these over the last 4 years, but over the last year or so it has been hard to find them. Foreclosures were getting bought up by big hedgefunds who would come in way above asking just to make big quotas. So we were happy to finally get another one for the right price.

We closed on it Memorial Day weekend, and so far have pretty much gutted it inside and cleared the property of dead and overgrown trees outside. We plan to have it 100% complete by mid-July. So a quick timeline to get a lot done as you will see.

Here is the front of the house. We will be landscaping and replacing the gutters, soffits and facia.

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We will be adding a new garage door, re-surfacting the retaining wall (seen on the left), and adding a new light.

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Here’s the back of the house. We are building a deck back here and have already cleared out the dead and too-close-to-the-house trees.

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It has a nice little private backyard.

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Here is the living room off the front of the house. We will be adding can lights in the ceiling, new paint and carpet.IMG_1518

Another view of the living room looking toward the kitchen.IMG_1519

The kitchen was a complete gut and we didn’t get a chance to take a picture of it before. But just imagine some nasty old cabinets, vinyl flooring and no appliances.IMG_1515

The kitchen will get new cabinets, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and floating laminate flooring that looks like wood.

Right now this is the only bathroom in the house. It will get a new vanity, lights, tile flooring, tub surround and toilet. Can you believe the toilet is almost rotted right through the floor? Gross!

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This is the hallway with the 3 bedrooms off of it. Paint, trim, new doors and new lights in here. We plan to keep the floors in here and the 3 bedrooms.IMG_1510

Here is one of the bedrooms, and they all look pretty similar. They will each get new lights, trim, doors and paint.IMG_1508

Off the kitchen are stairs down to the basement.IMG_1517

We are going to completely finish the basement, adding 2 bedrooms, a living room and laundry room. Pretty much a blank slate down here now.

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And here is the inside of the garage which will get insulated, drywalled and painted.

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Who wants to move in? No one? Hopefully this place is unrecognizable in another 6 weeks. We will share some after pics when it’s all done!

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