This next project was the biggest one, both in terms of time/effort and in its effect. We took up the carpet in our family room area and laid hard wood floors. We intend to lay the same hardwood floor in the front dining and living rooms as well.... but that's someday in the future. (To me that means 6 months from now. To Luke that means in like 2 weeks. He's definitely more motivated than I am when it comes to all these projects. I am burned out, but my man is like the Energizer bunny and wants to work,work, work. I complain about it now, but I am grateful for his ambition and drive to keep us motivated and making our house a home.)

Luke's dad was once again a huge help in this project. He helped us tear up the carpet and begin laying some of the floor.

We got into a pretty good rhythm where I would decide which boards I wanted placed where, get them all laid out for Luke who would then spread the glue and lay the boards. Then while he was placing the boards I would prepare the next row. We got the routine down rather quickly. All in all, the floor-laying process really wasn't as intimidating as it sounds. The hardest part was cutting around the round part of our stair case. Laying the floor took about 1 1/2 days total.

 

 Didn't it turn out so pretty?

Another difficult part was making sure all traces of glue got wiped up. Between laying and preparing and gluing and cutting, it was easy to get gluey fingerprints on the boards. It was important to wipe up any trace of glue otherwise we were left with this foggy appearance. Luckily we were able to get rid of the smears by using Mineral Spirits and just through foot traffic.

This really wasn't as bad/hard as I thought it was going to be and it was fun to discover another project that we were capable of doing ourselves!

Next came the crown molding. This was tough to get the hang of, but Luke being the genius engineer that he is, picked it up pretty quickly and after learning what angle the cuts should be at we were able to get it done pretty fast. It's incredible the effect it has on the rooms we've completed so far.

Moving the Wall

Next we had to tackle a wall. Yep... we have a half wall dividing the kitchen from the eating area, and we didn't like its placement. It was too far into the eating area, leaving room for only a small table and like 2 chairs. It was a big project because it included moving electrical wires and pipes, removing the countertops, and a lot of demo-ing and muscles. 

Obviously this was a man's job, so luckily Luke's dad was willing to help! He and Luke put their muscles to work and chiseled away at the white tile countertop, removed the cabinets, and somehow moved the wall and the plumbing. They're awesome. It was kind of like magic to me. I was upstairs painting my life away while the boys were doing their thing, and would come down periodically to check up on their status and to snap a few pics.

Here's the kitchen before the remodel. This peninsula with the sink is what got moved. We moved it 18 inches further into the kitchen. Because it has a 6 inch overhang on the back side, after we moved the wall and got a new counter top we gained about 2 feet to the eating area. We were worried that moving this wall would make the kitchen really small, but actually I think it's now a perfect size and that the size of it before would actually have been a little too big.

Here's the men chiseling away at the counter top.

 Cabinets got removed. 

We had to turn the water and electricity off so they could move all the wires. They were up in the dark working away. I think they were working on this til 2am. 

This is the new placement of the wall, and you can see how much room we gained from moving it. 

So we only have a little baby table right now, but eventually we can fit a bigger table in there some day!

This is the size of our kitchen now after having moved the wall. I think it makes much more sense having everything a little closer. Before it was a little too big. We love it and are SO happy that we decided to move that wall. Thanks to Luke's Dad for all his hard work and for helping us. We obviously wouldn't have been able to do it without him!

A Fresh Coat of Paint

So clearly, painting was the first job on our to-do list. Luke, being the kind-hearted, color- blind boy that he is let me pick the paint color all by myself. I opted for a creamy neutral and decided to carry it throughout the main areas of the house. 

Do you know how hard picking a cream color is? You'd think it would be the easiest thing to find because 

1) everyone likes cream paint 

2) there are a gazillion options to choose from, so you'd think you could just pick one and it would look great. 

Wrong-o! It was so difficult. It took me multiple sample cans and many trips to Lowe's to select the perfect color.  The main problem was we have a mixture of regular and fluorescent lights in our kitchen, and many of the paints looked fine when the fluorescents were off but as soon as I turned them on the paint looked pink. Eventually I found the perfect color that looks good under all types of light. I love it!

 Remember that purple/ pink/ green room? This is its beautiful, fresh makeover.

The sea shell room was the problem child.  I was able to peel up the stupid straw wall paper pretty easily but there was a paper layer underneath it that would not come off the wall.  Although I was basically spent after scraping the walls for an entire day, I did think it was cute to find this message on the wall.

I haven't taken a picture of the sea shell room post- paint makeover but it looks much better. I finally gave up on scraping the paper layer off the walls. We will cover up that section with white bead board around the room.

This is the Family Room after being painted, and that is our new baseboard! This was before we actually stapled the baseboard to the wall. I just laid it there to see how it would look compared to the old baseboard on the other wall. We put the baseboard up after taking up the carpet and laying the hard wood floors, which I will post pics of later. 

We also put up crown molding! Luke impresses me each and every day with the skills that he has. He had never done crown molding before, but because he is a genius he figured it out in no time. His boss let us borrow his air compressor and nail gun for this project.  Thanks, Tom!

Here's the family room with a fresh coat of paint and the crown molding. Excuse the mess.... 

And here's the kitchen with the crown molding and paint.