A Front Porch to Match

Before we even closed on our home, we immediately wanted to tear down the 60's era faux wrought iron supports on the porch and bring the facade back to its original state. We did some research on the home, but failed to locate any images from before they were installed. Luckily our style of home has many similarities to others in the neighborhood which still have their original porches. (The home three doors down from us is nearly identical, and it's original porch is intact) We used those as a guide and built ourselves a brand new porch that looks like it could be original. We also swapped in an antique light fixture and developed a new paint scheme (which we are still not quite done with so try and ignore the bright red trim on the top - that will soon be the darker shade of green). We are very excited to see the house regain its original identity and still can't believe what a difference it has made. There is still work to be done to finish this project (trim at the tops of the columns, paint, stair railing, etc.), so stay tuned...

Backyard Patio.

Our backyard has been basically neglected up until now, apart from the occasional grass cutting to keep the neighbors from calling the city on us we have been focused on the inside of the house since we purchased it last March. We decided to finish what we could inside in time for the enjoyable weather.

We didn't have to many things on our list when it came to getting the yard back in working shape. First was that orange mulch again that the previous owners seemed to love so much. We were able to craigslist it, because you can't throw away mulch apparently. So someone in the neighborhood picked it up for their compost pile. Our yard is not huge so taking advantage of space is a huge priority, so we decided to tuck away the patio against the garage and the back end of the yard would be designated to seating and the bbq. It would also make the view of the garage look a little bit more inviting from the house. We started to dig out the perimeter and found that there was actually a previous concrete slab left over from a prior owner. We found that it was a good size and it would be perfect for our foundation which cut out a ton of work and some money. Probably the one unexpected find that was actually a advantage so us so far. So it ended up being about 11x14 and we went with a "cream city" looking brick in a herringbone pattern to fit the era of the house. There a few details that we need to wrap up still (I feel like I just need to end every post with that statement)

I usually don't put how long things take us on here, because they always take longer then expected but to lay out the entire patio it actually only took us one weekend. It was possibly the quickest most rewarding thing we have done so far. As for the grass through all the digging we had to do, we are attempting to grow weed free grass which is taking a bit longer.

House Anniversary

I can't believe its been a year since we moved into our Bayview Bungalow. Last year we were moving in boxes in the cold rain, and couldn't sleep the night before our move because it felt like Christmas. Yesterday which marked the actual anniversary we were replacing our toilet that has been giving us problems since we moved in, which was very fitting. Mike let me smash it with a sledgehammer, now that is love. lol

This truly has been an amazing year, first the move then a major renovation followed by a beautiful wedding. I can't believe how much we managed to accomplish in just one year, our house is now a home and we have not only completely transformed the upstairs but continue to make changes throughout the entire home to bring it closer to our 1930 dream home.

What makes this year even more special is spending it with my wonderful husband who I love more and more everyday, I am very happy we managed to not electrocute ourselves and renovating has only made us stronger.

Say Wisconsin Cheeeeeeese!

Between moving 4 times in the last 4 years our collections have been sitting in boxes along with most of our belongings. When we moved into our new house unpacking was like discovering our antiques all over again. Then came the decision of where to put them and how to display them. The cameras were most important to me, because not only have we been collecting them forever family members and friends have graciously donated to our collection over the years so I wanted to give them a good home in our new home. We first decided the office/studio would be a good spot there is this one wall in between a closet and the door to the hallway that doesn't have much purpose beyond hanging something. We played with the idea of building something but that would have to go on a long list of things we had to do. Then on one of our trips to the Waukesha antique store we came across this display case that we fell in love with. It was craftsman style, with a light and was the perfect size to display all of our cameras. SOLD!

Thanks to everyone who has donated to our amazing collection we love telling everyone how we got each camera and their history. They will be apart of this home and every home in the future until our future kids tell us they don't want our junk.

I left my hairdryer out and he built me a vanity.

So I may not be the girliest person in the world (if you haven't figured it out yet Nicole is writing this post not Mike) but I am so excited to have a designated area to get ready in the morning and have all of my personal bathroom items where Mike can't hide them on me. It turned out so beautiful and completed with all salvaged pieces. The actual vanity I wanted to have a lot of drawer space but still be able to fit my legs underneath so I could sit near the counter top. We had a really difficult time finding this size cabinet, until Mike went wandering in our neighbors trash and found a discarded remnant of a kitchen cabinet that fit perfectly. All we had to do was strip it of the 50's era yellow paint and stain it to match our pocket door. The marble top was found at a local salvage yard and we had it cut to match the style of our sink top. We added hardware to tie in the look with the rest of the bathroom and added the same mirror that is above our sink. My favorite part is the top drawer that Mike put in small dividers for all my jewelry since I have been using the same crappy jewelry case since college. I have officially moved up in the world.

The background to this story shouldn't be lost, we almost made this area a closet but instead knocked out a portion of the dormer for a medium sized closet to gain space and not lose the vanity. This whole project stemmed from Mike's pure hatred for my hairdryer. Which now has a home underneath the vanity where he will never have to see it.

The Front Porch is Complete!

OK not really, but I finished doing the plans in CAD. Once the vanity for the bathroom is done, I plan to start building the columns / railings in the basement.

So - while we've made some progress on the vanity for the bathroom (pictures soon), and intend to do a few more before-and-after posts (just need to pick up our dirty socks and take some "afters"!), computer-modeled progress is the only progress that we have to show right now.

It did take quite a bit of measuring in the cold to get all of the dimensions that I needed to model the facade of the house - At least I was able to reference the pitch of the roof / upstairs window placement from the CAD model I had previously done of our bedroom; no standing on the roof required.

As a reminder of what the porch looks like now, you can look here, or here.

Looking Back

So, my favorite column in Hot Rod Magazine, "Looking Back", is the column in which they dig through obscure photos in the Hot Rod archives to uncover some gem of a snapshot-in-time  that carries some relevance; a photo worth a thousand words.

You can see where the built-in used to be, on the right wall.
Also note the faux box beams, ceiling tiles, linolium floor
and pine paneling. Our attic bedroom looked like a basement
rec-room from the 60's.

And here's the opposite wall, where I moved the built-in to.
Why? Because I find it necessary to do things the hard way. 

 Lately I've been trying to dig through all of our renovation photos to put together our own home-blog version of "looking back", since we skipped the documentation of so many important moments - (in favor of planning a wedding - priorities!)

What I've found in doing so, is that we have a thousand photos worth one word; naivete. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but I do have a few photos to prove that it all worked out. So, for our "Looking Back" entry (Part One), let's look at the built-in dresser that i mish-mash-dissassembled-reassembled with a custom built TV cabinet of my own creation on the other side of the room. In "repurposing" the 1960's built-in, i essentially built a custom cabinet around some marginally-crafted pine drawers...let's take a look back.

The panel to the left of the drawers is actually
a hidden laundry hamper (see above)