The Fun Continues

The dumpster is getting filled! Ty Pennington would be proud. If only the Payne Family could be in Disney World during all of this like on the show...

Kel, Dan and Dan's friend Ryan got a lot accomplished this weekend, knocking down walls, sledgehammering a bathtub to get it out of the house... Already, the house feels bigger and more open, which allows us to get a better sense of layout and what will go where. We spent hours at the house yesterday just talking through different ideas and formulating opinions on things that we had no idea we'd ever have to even have an opinion on!

Here are more "before" photos, followed by what we are using as inspiration for eventual "after" photos. So, you walk in through the front door and the stair case is straight ahead... Here is the view from the dining room.

Imagine this staircase being flipped in the finished product. The full/more opened staircase will be on the dining room side and just 3 stairs will be seen from the living room. Kind of like this... but again flipped, since the living room is on the right.

Now for the mudroom/enclosed breezeway that connects the house to the garage. It's currently not viewed as "living area," but we're putting a heating element out there and opening up the doorway into the kitchen, making those ugly cement stairs look pretty rounded and "internal" looking. This will be our sunroom/den with tile floors, comfy furniture, lots of light. We will be replacing the door and front windows that you see here. The back of the room will have 3 square awning windows that pop out and look a bit more modern. A 6 foot slider door will slide open to our patio. Two ceiling fans. You get the picture.

Some inspiration for this new living space...

Not a big fan of the animal print rug or tile, but those double doors to the left will be an opening to our kitchen and a nice step up. Oh - and see where the desk is, that's where we want a cute built-in bench with storage and hooks etc. Like this on a smaller scale...

The first floor bath, which used to have a gross tub...

We toyed with the idea of putting a glass shower stall here, but, since we will have a clawfoot tub and tiled shower in the master bath and a tub/shower combo in the guest bath (all upstairs), we just don't know that it is necessary. Instead, we thought we could do some sort of storage. Like this:

But less overwhelming...and white?

Here is another view of the bathroom that will be a powder room...

Leaning toward a pedestal sink, nice clean-looking mirror and ditchinig the old vanity/cabinet...though a case could be made for refinishing them...but they're low, so we'll see. As for the wallpaper and toothbrush...we'll probably keep those. I mean, they say combine the old with the new, right?

Happy Sunday everyone! We're off to Barnes and Noble to read magazines that cost $15 while sipping lattes that cost $15...and might stop by Lowes and a tile store for inspiration. Living the dream!