Updates, get 'em while they are fresh!

I guess it is a good thing that we have been so busy I keep forgetting to blog... I will post more detailed pictures of each of these things soon, but here is a quick update on how the house is coming along. 

One of the biggest problems we had was that the columns on the outside of the house were rotting, so we had to replace them.

Yucky rotting wood...

And here was our contraption to fix it!  We used a short board and a car jack next to the bad beams so they would be easy to pull down.

Another thing that needed to be replaced was some smashed tile downstairs.  When we dug it up, we realized it was real marble, so we knew we would NEVER find marble that would match the original for goodness knows how many years ago.  We went to a local salvage store, and low and behold, actually found some that was pretty darn close!  It looks just fine against the old marble, and as soon as we seal it and shine the old pieces, we are pretty sure you won't be able to tell a difference unless you are looking for it.

Smashed tile...

New tile sitting next to old tile.  This is before we laid the tile, because apparently 12x12 doesn't always mean 12x12, because the old tiles were closer to 11 3/4 inches, so we had to shave a little off of the new tile.  Finished pics will happen as soon as I get the chance to take some.

 

Onward to our pain in the neck project, removing the texture from the kitchen.  This is one of those projects we thought we would knock out in no time and be done with it, but man, did it take forever.  Here is proof, though, that we got it done.  Finished pics to follow.

I love the paint color... :)

Follow up to smoothing out the kitchen walls, we decided to go ahead and do the walls in the upstairs bathroom because the texture looked like what you would put on a popcorn ceiling.  It is almost finished, thank goodness, but here is a during shot:

Ahhhh... plaster...

And the thing I am probably the most excited about now, the floor under the carpet is gorgeous!  We have gotten as far as pulling up the old carpet and padding, and are working on pulling up carpet tacks and tack strips.  Not a fun job, but the floor is totally going to be worth it.

The floors are gorgeous!  To top it off, they are in really good shape, so it won't be as big of a nightmare to fix them as I thought it might have been...  We actually have this room painted now, but I might wait for the big reveal for when the floors are finished.

And icing on the cake...
We have two laundry rooms, a walk in laundry room in the main house that will hold our full sized units, and space for a stack-able unit in the walk in closet in the guest house.  I found a unit on craigslist for $175, which is awesome, that is in really good condition, so it is set up now, which is making it easier to transition to the new house.  We now have 90% of our clothes moved to the new house and can keep them clean there!  :)

Three cheers for clean laundry at the new house!!!

Lastly, we were worried about having a drainage problem because of the way the front of the house is set up, because all the water from the front of the house would gather and set in-between the carport and the guesthouse.  But lookie what we found!  When cleaning out leaves and around the grounds, we unearthed a drain in the very spot the water would sit, so now we know our drainage problem won't be an issue.

Finally the water has somewhere to go!

And, that is all for now.  There are more pictures of some of the things above that are finished now, but all in good time...