First Remodeling Project (Part 1)

I'm excited to share our first remodeling project at our new place. A short while ago I showed you a photo of the living room fireplace:

Technically there was nothing wrong with this fireplace other than it needed some touch-ups here and there. However, two weekends ago we got the itch to make some serious changes and decided the living room fireplace was a perfect candidate. It's an electric fireplace so we knew going in we wouldn't have to worry about gas lines or a chimney flue. We began by taking down the TV and wall mount:

Then I started removing the trim around the base:

Next came the mantle. My other half was visiting with his dad for the weekend and I was too antsy to wait for him to get back so I jumped at the chance to do a little demo work. I used two scrap 2x4's from Home Depot as a makeshift lever:

The mantle piece came off way easier than I thought it would. Phew! After taking off the remaining trim pieces, I started removing the tile using a small pry bar and a flat-head screwdriver. About halfway through I started thinking I was crazy to be removing perfectly good tile on a perfectly good fireplace and got up to take a break. I had left the screwdriver jammed into the sheet rock and when I came back I found my cat hard at work where I left off:

That was all the motivation I needed to keep going with the project (although I decided it would be better to keep kitty in a different room while I worked so off he went). The tile came off easily enough and I was done in a relatively short amount of time. I then decided I would tear off the sheet rock. You know those TV shows where you see people busting through walls with hammers and everyone looks so happy because, well, demo work is fun right? Oh how I wish I could experience that feeling! I picked up a hammer and swung it as hard as I could at the sheet rock, fully expecting to blast out a hole the size of a basketball (or at least a golf ball) and nope. CLANG!!! It just bounced right off and made the loudest noise possible. Since we have neighbors sharing walls with us, I decided it would be best to not continue with this method. And since it was also past the hour of noise-making (one thing house owners don't have to worry about as much) I called it quits for the night.

The next day I woke up to a surprise visit by my parents! They came up to help me with the rest of the demo work (what a nice thing to do huh?)

And we left off with a clean slate:

I'll be back to share more soon!

P.S. I put the old fireplace mantle on Craigslist for free and found a new home for it the same day. Woo hoo!

Pics of the New Digs! (with seller's stuff)

We've been at the new condo a week now and we're finally making some headway on all those boxes left to unpack (how on earth did we get so much stuff??) I've woken up every morning with the hugest smile on my face. I love it here!

I'll spare you the pictures of our junk everywhere (in reality it's not that bad but in 859 sq ft, the tiniest mess looks huge). Here are some shots we snapped on our first visit & during inspection.

As you walk in you see the kitchen first:

 After living in apartments for the last 5 or 6 years I'm definitely used to small kitchens, but this one had me at hello. The tall upper cabinets are perfect for extra storage, the layout is great and the kitchen even has some quirky little things I love like these tiny spice cabinets next to the microwave and tiny cabinets next to the stove for baking pans (hooray)! And yes, we have some ideas for changing up this perfectly good kitchen already (I know I know, we're crazy)

 The picture above is looking back at the entry way & coat closet. Behind the louvered doors is the washer/dryer (stacked).

 Above is the living/dining room (yep, it's gonna be a cozy fit!) Sooooo many ideas for this room (although currently it's the place of "box mountains")

The view! (taken the day after we moved in)

Yay! A fireplace!

Backing up a bit, the hallway starts near the louvered doors (washer/dryer). To the right (not pictured) is the door to the 2nd bedroom. The door on the left goes to the guest bathroom while door straight ahead leads to the master bedroom/bath.

 Here's the 2nd bedroom. The seller was using it as a home office (we are too)

Guest bathroom

Looking from the guest bathroom into the master bedroom hall (the open bi-fold door is the walk-in closet, which I don't have a picture of just yet)

Checkin' out the master bedroom. This room is pretty small, but who cares! The view!

I'm not usually a fan of fans, but this one is actually pretty cool. I think it's staying :)

Master bathroom

 We've only been here one week and I keep finding excuses for taking a bath in that tub. I feel really spoiled. Oh and in case you were wondering the seller did not leave the basketball tv behind :)

So there you have it! My new home. I'm excited to get back into blogging and I'm really excited to have a place to decorate again. We've already started on a big project (and no it's not unpacking), wahoo!

News!

I'm breaking my blogging silence to pop in and say I'm now officially a home owner! (And no this isn't an April fools joke, I promise). My significant other and I purchased a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo in a city and building we both love. We closed on Friday and spent the weekend moving in. The building is fairly new but we've already got a few projects in mind to make the condo feel more like us and I can't wait to get started (gotta take time to properly plan though!) I'll share some pictures soon!