4renovators

After reading the featrued story on House Blogs by Jeanne ''Built-In... Form and Function'' , I began thinking about what built-ins we have done and which are my favorite. (Or favorite so far, as we've got a lot of house left that we haven't re-furbished.)  So far my favorites are the built-in drawers under the nook seats and the garbage ...

A few weeks ago I stopped by Second Use, one of our favorite salvage yards in Seattle. They had a lot of slate from two old Seattle High Schools that are being renovated. Being a teacher, I immediately wanted to pick out the biggest and nicest piece they had to bring home. Since I didn't have the van, I waited until Nick got home later that  ...

I haven't made any progress towards varnishing the baking center cabinets, unless you count cleaning the kitchen. But Nick's been working on the breakfast nook. He had me sit down to see if I liked the angle of the bench & it seemed perfect. I'll take some pictures as soon as he lets me back in the kitchen. (I'm not supposed to peak at the ...

When I bought our house it had a large foyer but no closet for hanging coats.  The previous owners had installed a couple of generic hooks, but that was it.  For me, one of the desirable features of our first-floor remodel was a coat closet, and I worked hard to figure out the best way to incorporate one.  In the end, we shortened ...

Last week Nick painted the livingroom and dining room. We chose a very pale cream color that has a hint of yellow to it and we're really happy with how it turned out. It looks good with all the fir. That allowed him to finally install the mantel that he and his dad built awhile ago. I'm still adjusting to this new phase of putting things back ...

It's much faster hiring someone to come in and do the mudding and taping for the drywall- especially with a baby. We came home from our trip to Iowa to find the walls taped, mudded and primed. It is so nice to look at clean, smooth walls. I especially like how the section with the old chimney turned out.   We were able to paint the pantry ...

So we went to Rejuve and they had quite a bit of stuff on sale.  They even had the doorbell I liked on sale, but we decided we were going to look for one that has a different twist/knob mechanism.   Then we found the Sears, Roebuck Home Builder's Catalog: 1910 Edition. It's a lot of fun to browse through and see all the things that ...