ok, lots of pics and projects

So, we have been very very busy...and we have pretty much finished 2 more rooms or bathrooms. Lots of things have happened since our last post. We have finished some projects, started new ones, changed our minds on some and dealt with a natural disaster! In my last post I promised pics of the closets...those are at the bottom. First, lets talk about the foyer.

FOYER - Plan was to rip down wallpaper, do a decorative mud treatment to walls, paint/glaze and paint ceiling, then paint closet doors. Our goal is to have the main floor and downstairs fairly done and looking good before our big game watching party coming up in October so we started on the foyer this past weekend. The foyer was not a huge project as it is a small room, almost no furniture and really didn't have much to do to it. I ripped the wallpaper down weeks ago and my dad started scraping the popcorn from the ceiling. The ceiling looks so much better and much higher without that nasty popcorn. Then the plan was to mud the walls. We wanted a decorative mud so Bryan bought the necessary supplies and we go to work. We knew what we wanted and read about how to do it, went to the professionals for tips of the trade and started to DIY! Well, this was not as easy as it looked and the tips wern't helpful. :) We finally managed to figure out how to do it on our own and make it look good, but it is a lot more work than what we orignially thought. Plus, you can't do to walls next to each other...you have to let one dry before you start working right next to it. Bryan and my dad got 2 of the 5 walls done with the mudding and it is beautiful. It looks soooo good and will look even better when we get to paint it. Our goal is to finish the other walls this week and start painting soon. They are doing a great job though.

Scraped Ceiling - still needs to be painted.

Prepping the walls for mudding.

Cleaning up so the mud will stick.

Mudding the first wall!

The Downstairs "Longhorn" Bathroom! Well we posted a while back that this bathroom was almost done...then we changed our minds and put in a new sink and changed the paint, decor and painted the wood panneling below. This bathroom is now done except for decor and we are going to do a custom tile backsplash around the sink. We are working on getting the backsplash so that project is still to come. The bathroom looks great though. It is all finished and I will post those pictures soon, but you can really see the difference below. We painted the walls and finished texturing them and the ceiling, repainted the mirror to a true burnt orange color, then mom and I painted the wood paneling, the cabinets and the door black! I know, I never thought I would paint a bathroom or any room for that matter black, but it looks sooooo good. It really contrasts with the white walls and brings out the Orange, White and Black decor that goes in the bathroom.


This is all the orignial paneling and the yucky brown color it was.




Painting the black! You can really see the contrast from the bottom of the wall to the top. Finished pictures on the next post...promise!

Now...I mentioned changing our minds. We started a new project recently. We always wanted to rip down the wood paneling in the living room, but it was not a priority. We thought we would originally paint it and then someday get back to it and rip it down. Well...things change. We were graciously given a projector screen from my dad's business and figured out how to set it up in our living room and enjoy a 100 inch tv screen, which sounds big, but with the length of our living room 100 inch looks perfect. So the screen didn't look great with the paneling and lines so we ripped it down. Now that sounds like no big deal and ripping it down wasn't too bad, but with the age of the house we were a little concerned about what was behind the paneling. Some of the old houses were built with no drywall behind paneling at all so we were concerned about what we would find, plus with the age, who knows how good of shape the drywall would be in, if there was ever damage, etc. etc. etc. Well they ripped it down and it was in pretty good shape. Bryan fixed the minor dimples/lines and then mom kilzed the whole wall with a white kilz. Then the projector screen went up and was mounted to the ceiling just in time for the first UT football game! It was awesome!

Ripping the paneling down and sending it to the dump!


Cleaning up and mudding the areas of repair before kilzing and painting.

Painting the wall a bright white, which actually looks great for the projection screen.

And finally setting up the projector.

Are you ready to come visit and watch some football? :)

The closets...before and after. So the closets weren't too bad, but they were built many years ago and weren't remodeled to today's organizational closets. They each had one row of hanging area (long) and then a built in for shoes/shirts and some storage above the hanging area, but the sides were all wasted space. The guys ripped everything out and made the closet hanging area a "U" shape using each wall of the walk in and then left the built ins for shoes. There is now storage above all sides of the "U" for boxes, or whatever and once Bryan and I can move out of the guest closets and into our own these closets will be great for storage. We have not started rennovating our bathroom and closet area so all of our stuff is still in the guest bedrooms.






Our finished closets!