{the renovation} drywall day!

The days keep zipping past, quick decisions are being made, my little Volvo has been turned into a low rider (due to an entire trunk and back seat full of tile and marble…hey, at least I fit in with all the hoopties now!), and I have been a slacker poster!  No worries, I have gobs of pics, but I’ll bring you up to speed stat.

Where I last left off was sharing the porch enclosure and the framing of the new walls.  What a difference already!  Drywall was finally put up the end of last week, and now I’m finally getting a feel of how my plan is going to look…and I like it. 

Starting at the front of the house, the living room got some drywall patching where the previous owner didn’t do so great a job installing drywall around the windows.  The windows themselves also got some love, like repaired wood where it was rotted, and I think they even fixed the sash pulleys!

You can also see that can lights were wired in.  Can’t wait to pull out that lighting fixture!  We’ll be replacing it with a ceiling fan.  I know that designers generally don’t like fans (I’m in that camp too), but remember, this is M’ssippi, and it gets HOT.  Whatever we can do to move the air we do!  I can’t decide on whether to do a plain ol’ white one so it kind of disappears, or something more interesting (but still very inexpensive) that goes with the fireplace mantle…  Anyone?

Another big thing they finished was flipping the bookshelf from facing into the master bedroom (on the other side of that wall) and into the living room.  We’ll use it to house our TV (most likely) and components.  We may put some cabinet doors on it but we’ll see.  And yes I still sigh every time I look at the mantle…it’s just so cool!

Now a more straight-on view of that wall.  Though the bookshelf kind of takes away from the mantle a bit, we really needed the storage in this tiny house!  You can also see that the master bedroom door was swapped out, from a shorter door to one of the spare transom windows from the entry.  We’ll keep it stained like the mantle.  Part of me wishes all of the doors were still stained, they’re so gorgeous!

Here’s a view looking from the living room into the entry/dining/kitchen via the cased opening.  The opening will be cased out like the rest of the moulding in the house.  The window you can see in the pic is what will be between the oven wall and the peninsula island with sink.  Nice and open!

Inside the master bedroom, you can see how the bookshelf was closed up to face into the living room.

Back in the living space, here is a pic of the view from the future kitchen sink into the dining/entry/living room.  We’ll probably end up getting a small round table for the kitchen area since it’s a small space.  Luckily we’ll have a breakfast bar too, so we won’t be in want of seating!  I’m just loving how more open and usable the space feels.

Looking from the laundry hallway, you can get a better idea of the size of the kitchen/dining/entry space.  It will be cozy but also open!  I’m so glad we closed in that porch – it added so much space to the house.

I’m super pumped to see our laundry closet coming together!  The washer and dryer will be stacked on the left hand side, and a coat rod and shelving will be on the right.  I had wanted to do a pair of the spare doors to close the closet, or perhaps cut them in half to make bi-fold doors, but they were so heavy that the carpenters would have to do some serious reinforcement to hold them.  Instead we’ll be doing 5-foot wood bi-folds.  The fridge will be on far left of the pic (though now that I’m looking at it, I’m not sure why there is a switch and outlet!…hmmm…code I guess…).

The second bedroom is all drywalled as well!  I wish I had a wide angle lens so I could show a better pic, but alas.  It’s not a huge room (9.5′ by 11′ I think) but it feels large because of the high ceilings and massive window.

And the second bedroom closet is all framed out too!  I think it will have a wooden bi-fold door as well (though in retrospect I wish we would have done a pocket door!!!).

I really love how the hallway is turning out.  The repetition of the transomed openings just gets me!!!  They’re re-using the transoms from doorways that were removed from walls that were taken out.  The attic access (big hole in ceiling) was moved to the back hallway from what is now the mini closet in the office nook.  The electrical box was also moved to this hallway, out of the now second bathroom.  As soon as it passes inspection, a nice piece of artwork will be hung over it! 

And last but not least, cement board was put up in both bathrooms.  Here is the second bathroom with the cement board up, plumbing in, and stained glass window lit up. 

So that’s where we’re at!  Work on the kitchen cabinets began this week – I can’t wait to see everything in place!  I’m pretty nervous since the whole house is pretty much all my design (with LOTS of input from Husband and my mom though) – I’m no professional by any means, but I’m really happy with how things are turning out so far.

I’ll have more pics soon!

Tagged as: transom, {renovation}