Our House-Before and After The 4 Day Storm

When I say "storm", for those who might be confused, I'm not referring to Kentucky's normal weather patterns. We have been here for several weeks now and the tornado watches are as common as "cloudy today" forecasts in Washington State. It keeps life interesting! I haven't been good about updating all my "non-facebooker" friends with house re-modeling photos and life in the new place, so I'm going to make this all about "Kentucky house project"-just a warning to those who get sleepy hearing about wallpaper removal and plumbing reworking! 
We closed on our lovely little place on October 4th, a Monday. We had planned on leaving from unloading the moving truck to head to Lou's parents for a 10 day vacation, but found out that Lou's paperwork had been changed so we were unable to head out until Friday afternoon. That gave us Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday, and Thursday to begin tearing out lots of dated house paraphernalia! Monday was full......Lou and I unloaded 8,000 lbs from the moving truck in a little over 2 hours. Then, I climbed into bed for 3 days to recover.....well, not really, but it was exhausting, albeit exhilarating! 
Tuesday involved working on the laundry room-which housed the previous owner's dog for time-outs, it seems. Enough dog hair to stuff a pillow with adorned the baseboards and nooks! We cleaned and painted the closet white, the room itself a yellow "Butter", one of my favorite foods!

Large linen/storage closet in laundry room

My faithful slave-husband painting the ceiling bright white

The newly painted closet and creamy yellow laundry walls

We were even able to have a large pantry space!

We tackled the hallway and master bedroom next. The hallway was covered in dark red paint bordered by patriotic wallpaper from the mid-90s. A lot of water and peeling went into its demise...

Very patriotic in its day, but not what we wanted

Our house-after the bomb detonated-take special note of the washer in the middle of the kitchen!

Post wallpaper removal

Newly painted! I really love this blue in the house.

We decided on a blue/beige combination for the kitchen/dining/hallway as they are all connected. As we continued our project I fell in love with both colors and we eventually painted the living room the same coffee beige as the kitchen. Its such a warm comforting color.
The diningroom and livingroom were all "patriotic primitive" so we had a lot of priming to take care of the blood red and dark blues. I pulled off yards of wallpaper border from around the ceiling and chair rail height as well. It was a good feeling. I don't think I'll ever put up wallpaper border again....and definitely won't use Elmers' on those stubborn pieces that don't stick. 

This photo makes me feel a bit claustrophobic-the blue doesn't show as dark as it actually was

Border removed-tripping over curtain rods, packing boxes and our own feet.

I love the view from my window-down to the robins in the birdbath and stray cat who comes for food.

Newly painted kitchen-updated cabinet hardware and appliances at some point!

Diningroom-new lights coming later!

Looking from the diningroom into the livingroom-you can't tell from here but ceiling fan is "seashell" theme!

From there we started on the master bedroom. It was a simple renter's white with stained trim and wood flooring. We gave it a grey green finish.

It looks a lot cleaner in photos than in real life!

Newly painted and rug in place

One of the two closet doors-its a full length closet with a husband/wife separate sides.

 

 And with that accomplished, we decided to take a break and head up to New Jersey for a little time with Lou's family. We had a wonderfully relaxing break, we got to spend some time in the beautiful outdoors kayaking on East Creek and Pickle Pond. We went to East Point Lighthouse after church and it was open to visitors-which only happens once or twice a year! Of course we had to take a tour and it was my first time in a lighthouse! Pretty amazing. The cousins and some friends came over a day and we decided to kayak from East Creek to the Delaware Bay. It took us 2 1/2 hours and we were "plum' tuckered out" by the end, or at least I was! Mom and Dad Crist were working on Corrie's new bedroom so we all got to pitch in and do some drywalling/flooring work. Corrie is so excited about her new place-I'm sure it will be decorated ala girl to the hilt in no time! 
We came home to a lovely 1st floor (minus the wretched ducky bathroom in bright banana yellow) and a 2nd floor that needed lots of TLC. So, my next post will highlight all our 2nd floor re-vamping! Coming soon.......