House #2 - Hallway - FINAL

The room I miss the most at House #2 was the "hallway".  Strange room to miss but there was a reason I absolutely loved this room...all the storage.  The room was originally an extra kitchen.  Apparently one of the previous owners ran a catering company and had an extra stove and countertop put into the enclosed space between the house and the garage.

We removed the "extra" kitchen.  I barely cook enough for one kitchen (although I have gotten much better these days).  In its place we built floor-to-ceiling cabinets. 

The storage in this room was amazing.  I miss it!!

House #2 - Game Room - FINAL

The game room/4th bedroom used to be open to the family room.  We closed it off so you could enjoy the family room without the noise of the game room.  It also gave us a possible 4th bedroom. 

Here is the before with the house "open" to the backyard.

Once completed we filled the game room with Justin's sister's pool table.  She and her husband temporarily moved to North Carolina while he attended business school. 

I had grand ideas for the decor in this room but didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a room that we will not have in every house.

House #2 - Master Bath - FINAL

Like most things in this house the master bath was also previously remodeled.  The previous owner expanded what was once a VERY small bathroom into a very narrow, long bathroom.  They went cheap and instead of tearing up the concrete to move the pipes they ran the drain pipe above the ground and created a step up to get the bathtub, which is not visible in the picture below.

 
We eventually decided that we needed to remodel the bathroom to get rid of that step.  In the process we expanded the shower.

House #2 - Guest Bath - FINAL

The guest bath of House #2 had previously been remodeled.  They had put in new counters (the lovely black granite...note the sarcasm) and new tile floors.  While I don't mind black granite I much prefer the more neutral granite we typically use in our houses.  The previous owner also refinished the original tile.  BUT...they didn't do it properly so it was peeling off in big chunks.  Therefore we had it refinished properly. 

House #2 - Bedrooms - FINAL

The bedrooms on any house we remodel are the least changed.  Typically they are just paint and carpet.  This house was no different so I will just show you the finished product which shows them decorated (for the  most part).  This house technically had 4 bedrooms but one we used as a game room which I will get to soon.

This is the front bedroom.  We used it mostly for our books.

This is the middle bedroom, which we used as a guest bedroom.  At this point the bed had been moved to the new house.

And finally, this is the master bedroom. 

House #2 - Kitchen - FINAL

The kitchen of House #2 was pretty closed off to the family room when we purchased the house.  Because the house had recently been remodeled and already contained granite counters, we were originally just going to leave the kitchen pretty much untouched.  But after looking at the kitchen closely we discovered that the granite was already cracked by the sink.  Therefore...out comes the granite (which didn't hurt my feelings too much because I didn't really care for the color of the granite.  Too green.).  They had also used the granite on the backsplash which was 3-4" thick in some places because they had miscut the counters.  All in all it was a poor installation job. 

Because the counters had to come out we went ahead and rearranged the kitchen to be able to take out the wall that originally housed the fridge as you can see below.

The weird shaped opening in the ceiling in the picture below was courtesy of a contractor's foot.  It always amazes me to find someone that doesn't know to NOT step on the sheetrock!

Here the granite is in and you can see the entertainment center taking shape in the background.

Here are the final pictures.  The blank spot next to the door would normally contain the refrigerator but we had already moved out by the time this was taken.

House #2 - Family Room - FINAL

When we bought the house the family room was dark with very little natural light making it to the center of the house.  It opened into another room that we chose to close off to make a 4th bedroom/game room. 

I always wanted to get a painting for the area above the couch but I didn't find anything I liked so the spot stayed bare.  Oh well...it's not the end of the world.

House #2 - Parlor - FINAL

The parlor did not change much.  The previous owner was using it as a dining room so there was a chandelier.  In our opinion the room was much too small to be a dining room (reason #1...the dining room table wouldn't fit in there).  It was a nice chandelier so we moved it to the new dining room.

Other than that the floor was the major change to the room.  We kept a couch in there but at the point this picture was taken it was being used to stage another house.

House #2 - Dining - FINAL

A little background information.  This house was remodeled and sold before going into foreclosure when we purchased the house from the bank.  This house was known as the "ghost house" by our realtor who had shown the house several times with no success.  That was before we purchased and remodeled what would become the second house we lived in.

Here is the before picture.

As I said yesterday we were going for the open feel in the house.  Here the sheetrock has been removed and is ready for the contractor to remove the wall.

We also opened up the wall close to the entry as you can see below.  At this point the walls are ready for the new sheetrock.

Here is the princess doing what she does best...supervising the work.  You can also see the gap we had to contend with and the reason we decided on laying a wood floor over the existing floor.

Here is the dining room all finished and decorated.

House #2 - Entry - FINAL

A few months ago, we finally sold the second house we purchased.  I never got around to posting pictures of the final product.  And now that I am thinking about it I may not have posted the final pictures from other houses.  I will have to check that out.  As for House #2 I will be posting pictures over the next several days.  Hope you enjoy.

Here are the before pictures of the entry.

As you can see we took down all the sheetrock to be able to remove the wall separating the dining and the family rooms.  In the process we closed the door into the family room in order to build an entertainment center in the family room.  I will get to that room later.

Here is the final product.  The tile was still in great condition so we left that.  There was original wood in the dining room and parlor.  Because we removed the wall something would have to be done to connect the existing tile to the existing wood.  We felt the easiest thing to do was lay another floor over this.  We chose an engineered wood that held up great to the nails of our pups.

Maui, Hawaii - Rainbows

We saw many rainbows while we were on Maui.  Above is my favorite rainbow picture from the trip.

Speaking of rainbows...yes we did see double rainbows but no one reacted like this.

Maui, Hawaii - Maui Ocean Center

If you are looking for something to do in Maui to stay of the sun during the middle of the day, try the Maui Ocean Center. 

This aquarium has the typical marine life but has an emphasis on the creatures you would see while snorkling or diving off the Hawaiian coast.