Adam & Dee's Home Renovation

It's a Winter Wonderland

2009-02-04T05:04:00.001-08:00

In case you don't know, the southern part of New Jersey doesn't seem to get a whole lot of snow. We're fairly close to the ocean, so the humidity is usually available, but since we are so close to the ocean I think the temperature of the air doesn't quite reach freezing as often as it does a bit further inland. In either case, since we are both winter sports enthusiasts, we love the stuff. And we woke up to a nice treat this morning.

Our Most Recent "Project"

2009-01-30T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it wasn't really a project, more a creation.

Yep, that's a baby you see. The due date is currently June 17, 2009. If I wasn't busy with the house before, I certainly will be between now and then! The baby (and Dee) are healthy and doing very well. And apparently the baby is already starting to get alot of exercise, albeit in the middle of the night. We're totally excited and can't wait to meet "Baby A&D".

More on the house to come soon!

Demolition/Framing (MMR 10)

2008-12-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

We can't seem to find all of our pictures (whoops) of the bathroom demolition, which chronicle the delicate task of removing the powder pink and baby blue tiles, so until we can dig them up, I'll just give you a peak at what the area looks like after we've done some new framing and are removing a wall from the master bedroom to expose our work.

You can see the void where the old bathroom and master closet where through the old master closet doorway. To the right is going to be the new entrance to the master bathroom.

Here we've removed the part of the wall that is now the entryway to the master bathroom and master closet, and framed in the wall where the old master closet doorway was.

After careful consideration of how beat up the old plaster wall was, and the fact that I was going to basically have to skim coat the whole thing with spackle, I decided the fastest and easiest solution would be to remove the rest of the plaster wall and just install some new drywall.

Master Bathroom Remodel (The Master Plan)

2008-12-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

Before I start flooding you with pictures of the work that we did with the remodel (if that's the right word), I thought it'd be beneficial to provide an explanation of the plan that we had come up with. As I'm sure Ive said before, our home was built in the 50's and NEVER touched (as far as we could tell). OK, so maybe the upstairs was finished in the 70's, but we'd like to forget that ever happened.

On the first floor, there are two bedrooms with a shared bathroom in between that is entered from the hallway. We weren't keen on sharing our bathroom with everyone who entered the house, mostly because that would mean we'd need to keep it looking really tidy...all of the time. We decided that the space would be best used to create a master bathroom, and then add a powder room on the hallway for company. We did so by removing a few small closets, and re purposing the second first floor bedroom into an office/nursery. Here is a visual explanation of the changes that we made (not to scale, but you get the gist of it):

Old Floor Plan

New Floor Plan

We only have one picture of what the first floor bathroom looked like when we bought the house:

Laundry & Mud Room: Before & After

2008-12-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

More PICS!

Our Laundry/Mud room is an obvious add on. We can tell because the "interior" walls are brick...the same brick that's on the outside of the rest of the house. When we moved in, this room was very dark and closed in feeling. It had dark paneling, and a dark green & brown vinyl floor. We basically just painted everything, laid a new vinyl floor (my first time doing so), and installed some system shelving that we got at the HD. Not only did the light colors really open up the room, but the increase in storage space was much needed. Eventually, we want to replace the door from the kitchen out to this room so that there is a window. Right now it's just an interior door and it doesn't let any light into the kitchen. Enjoy.

Before:

After:

Hallway: Before & After

2008-12-17T06:25:00.000-08:00

It's about time for some progress pics. As you will see, we were obviously going for a mini art gallery look here. So without further delay, here is the transformation (to date) of our hallway:

Before:

During Construction:

What it looks like now:

What's Left:

This is an area of our house that fits into what I like to call the "good enough for now" category. It's clean, functional, and mostly aesthetically pleasing. Before we can call it complete though, we still need to install the trim around the powder room door, and paint all of the trim. Good enough for now though, if you ask me...

Master Bathroom Update (4)

2008-12-11T05:25:00.000-08:00

Can you see that? We can. It's the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's rapidly approaching. Since our last post, we've installed the counter top, vanity light, crown molding on the tall linen cabinet, and a ton of caulk. Well...maybe not a TON, but a few tubes worth. We also had our faucet and rain-shower head installed. Basically, the only remaining items are window trim, crown molding, towel bars, and an access panel for the front of the tub. We also need to correct one or two spots around a light switch where there is a slight void in the spackle. Luckily, finish work is a lot more enjoyable when there are only a few items left.

Master Bathroom Update (3)

2008-12-02T05:08:00.000-08:00

The baseboard and cabinet kick plate have been finished and installed. It actually looks pretty darn good. Not a huge step, but a step nonetheless.

The only minor "flaw" that I see is that there is a slight gap between the baseboard and the wall. I chalk this up to the house being old and the drywall not being perfectly flush. But I'm only talking about a gap of 1/16" at the most, so I think I'll just run a fine bead of caulk along the edges to prevent moisture and/or dust from getting down there.

Luckily, the color came out GREAT. I know I said that we used stain from the manufacturer that was also used on the cabinets, but the wood is different. The cabinets are cherry, and the baseboard is pine. You might see a very slight difference if you sat there and stared at it for a while, but at a glance, and from more than a foot away it looks like a match.

Back to work!

Master Bathroom Update (2)

2008-12-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

We're still waiting for our counter top to come in. Unfortunately, the receipt says 4 weeks even though the brochure says 2 weeks or less. Such is life in renovationland.

In the meantime, I have managed to cut and dry-fit all of the baseboard for the master bath. I also stained and applied polyurethane, and am now just waiting for everything to dry to I can install it. I'm pretty excited about this part because it's going to be one of those instant impact items on the to-do list. When we ordered our cabinets, we also ordered some matching stain from the manufacturer for the molding and a tub panel that I plan on building to allow access to the tub motor.

Even if you aren't going to need matching stain for side projects in the same room, I would recommend considering it as insurance for potential installation blunders that may result in any scratches or dings. I think it was around $30 for a pint. At first glance this is pretty pricey, but consider the cost of the actual cabinets when making your decision.

Master Bathroom Update (1)

2008-11-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's amazing how time flies when you're working AND working on your house! Since the last post, we have made significant strides with our master bathroom. Although...we DO still have some things to do before calling it finished.

Picking up where we left of back in the tail end of spring, the first thing that we had to do was prepare the substrate for the tile. We opted to use Wonderboard on the floor, shower walls, and shower ceiling. This is by no means a steam shower, but we liked the idea of tile on the ceiling. Since I am a freak and totally overdo things, we also decided to use Schluter products between the substrate and the tile. For the floor, we laid Ditra, which is a decoupler that is supposed to ensure that even if the floors shift a bit, the tiles won't crack. For the walls and ceiling of the shower/tub, we used Kerdi as a waterproof membrane.

In hindsight, I will probably opt to just use greenboard behind the Kerdi when we do the upstairs bathroom as I really think that it will help out with keeping the surfaces smooth, which will translate to making it easier to keep all of the tiles flush. Unfortunately, after we had all of the tiling and grouting done and I taped out the are of where the cabinets were going, we realized that our toilet placement sucked. So we (I) had to remove some tiles, patch the subfloor, install some new tiles, and make appropriate cuts for where the toilet woud be moved to without breaking anything. I turned out great, but what a chore. I guess while planning the layout I should have listened to my wife...and my dad...and the plumber.

We also installed our cabinets and ordered our countertop. It's actuall starting to look like a bathroom, and not having to go into the dungeon to shower at 5:30am for work is a true pleasure that is often taken for granted (IMO).

You guessed it...pics to come!

HA! Readers...meet Slackers

2008-04-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

So much for the last few months. I'm not even sure where the time went and what we were doing the whole time. To be honest, most of the time between Thanksgiving and now went into helping our pup recover. Turns out that even a free dog isn't free. Shortly after we got him, we noticed a limp in his hind legs. Dee being the intuitively concerned "parent" that she is thought it a good idea to put her hands on his hips while he walked and yep...clicking. After about 2 second in the vets office it was confirmed, hip dysplasia. Poor little guy has his whole life in front of him, and the vet told us that with how advanced his condition was, by 5 he'd have trouble walking.

So we decided to give him a shot a normal dog life by taking him to a vet surgeon (recommended over U of Penn animal hospital I might add) in Malvern. Our pup Jake ended up having two surgeries during which each hip had a procedure known as TPO (Triple Pelvic Osteotomy). See here for details (http://www.gcvs.com/surgery/triple_pelvic.htm). The short story is that they cut the pelvic bone around the hip joint and reposition the joint so that the head of the femur stops popping out of the socket. They use plates to hold the pelvic bone in place while the bone heals.

We are pretty impressed at how well Jake took all of this. Never fussed about pain or being confined to his crate for the bulk of a few months. He has recently gotten back to 100% bone strength and we are building his muscles back up. I think we are also now dealing with his pent up puppieness for the past few months as he's starting to drive us nuts, but a nice walk takes care of that.

Anyway, we ARE actually plugging away on the master bathroom, and a dedicated update will be coming shortly. We should even have some tile pictures!

New Lighting in the Basement Workroom (MMR7)

2007-11-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

...Okay...so I lied. I do have ONE update that warrants it's own post. I finally got tired of only having one pull string light fixture in the basement workroom, and decided to do something about it other than continue to use a shop light on an extension chord.

There is an exposed junction box in the ceiling (it's an unfinished ceiling in that room) that supplied power to the original light fixture. Since I wanted to put all of the new lights on one switch at the door, I disconnected the light fixture from the junction box and ran a new wire from the box to a new switch location. Then I ran a new wire from the switch location to the first light. I stopped at this point and made all of the appropriate connections in order to get the first light working as a way to check my work up to that point.

After confirming that the first light was working, I installed the remaining ceiling fixture boxes, and ran the appropriate wiring from the first light to the second, second to third, and so on. While I had light in the room, I finished all of the connections and installation of fixtures in lights 2-4 before turning off the breaker and connecting the load wire to light one. Once I turned the breaker back on...let there be light! It works perfectly and there is now MUCH more light down there for me to find tools and prevent accidents.

At some point, I will be replacing one or two of the simple one bulb ceiling fixtures with hard wired shop lights. The great thing about already having a ceiling box at each light is that I can use that as a junction box when wiring the shop lights. This will also provide a good opportunity to run a wire to an air compressor that I got for free that I will be putting in the basement soon.

I love it when a plan comes together...

Pre-Holiday Slump

2007-11-16T05:30:00.001-08:00

In case no one has noticed, the last update was posted in the middle of October...about a month ago. Although we have gotten some things done around the house, they are fairly menial and non-deserving of an actual post. We moved our bedroom furniture into our newly painted bedroom, and cleaned up around the house a bit.

I had to build a slat system for the bed since for some strange reason the queen bedframe rails were too wide for the queen box spring that we have by about a half inch. How does that happen? It's a universal size as far as I know. But in either case, the frame is built and I feel the bed is more sturdy. Ever since we bought that thing and I saw the side rails that the box spring is supposed to sit on, I've had nightmares of our expensive new bedframe breaking...bleh. Not now!

We also got a dog! He is an 8 month old black lab named Jake. He has been a really good dog so far, and continues to learn everything that we try to teach him very quickly. Luckily he enjoys car rides, meeting new people and dogs, and is GREAT with small children.

I have some time off during the holidays this year, and I'm hoping that we'll get some things done during that time. I think our main objectives for the winter are going to be the following:

Tile & finish the master bathroom (shower ceiling, walls, and bathroom floor)
Build a corner vanity for the powder room and install sink and faucet
Build a mantle for the fireplace (hopefully before Christmas)
Install recessed lighting in the living room
Install crown molding in the living room, dining room, hallway, office, powder room, master bedroom, and master bathroom....basically everywhere on the first floor except the kitchen and master closet.

Quite a list, but if you don't think big, it's hard to keep moving forward. More to come soon!

Nice Fresh Paint! (MMR4)

2007-10-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, after working from home, I was able to get an early start on painting the master bedroom and the hallway. I started with the ceilings, applying two coats. I though I was going to need three after looking at the old yellow ceiling showing through the primer, but after the second coat started to dry I realized two would be enough. Let me just say the difference is amazing, and I have the pictures to prove it (coming this weekend I promise).

After making fairly quick work with of the ceilings, I turned my attention to the bedroom walls. It would have been faster to get the hallway finished first so as not to be inclined to take a break between the large bedroom and small hallway later in the evening, but I wanted to see some instant impact. We chose to go with Behr Eggshell Enamel in Wild Porcini. It's basically between tan and light brown. We think it work well with the different shades of wood in the room, light floors, and dark furniture.

For the hallway, we just used plain, un-tinted, white. Since the hallway is a bit on the narrow side, we wanted to make sure the paint we used in there would make the space feel bright. We also figured that since we love color so much, and have all sorts of nice, rich colors in the rooms, that it would be kinda cool to make the hallway feel like a little art gallery. We'll be installing a wire system with halogen spot lights to highlight some wall hangings. Should look pretty cool.

The last item on the painting list for the evening was to touch up a few seems in the powder room walls that needed more spackle work. The seems still aren't perfect, but you can't tell what is new paint and what we did a few weeks ago, so that's a plus. And let's face it, although I think we do a pretty good job with all of the work we are doing, we are by no means professional spacklers.

Pictures coming soon...

All Primed and Ready to Go (MMR3)

2007-10-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

We have finally begun the finishing stages of the Master Bathroom and Hallway. Last night we primed the walls and ceilings in each area. The plan is to paint both ceilings tonight, and all of the walls tomorrow night.

I labeled this as MMR3 due to the inherent risk of catching primer drops with our eyes...something that I am apparently the world champion of. We use BULLS EYE 1-2-3, and find that it works equally well on new drywall, spackle, and old plaster. Just after the primer, even I can barely tell where the seems between old and new are. It's certainly nice to be finishing up the crappy work and doing more of the cheap instant impact stuff.

I Hate Wall Prep II (MMR1)

2007-10-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Finally we are ready to paint. We spent the weekend sanding all of the walls in the master bedroom and hallway, and then cleaning up all of the dust. Three notes here:

1) I very much dislike sanding ceilings.

2) Spackle dust doesn't feel good in your eyes. (Yeah, I know...wear goggles...but after 30 seconds of sanding you can't see out of them)

3) Despite all of the spackle drips on the floor, we were happy to see after a quick mopping that they will still look awesome after a final cleaning.

Tonight we will be priming the two areas all at once to reduce the number of rollers that we have to either clean or trash. Then we'll paint both ceilings, and hopefully put a first coat of paint on the bedroom walls. We're pretty excited to see this change.

I Hate Wall Prep (MMR1)

2007-10-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

I HATE wall prep. Let me say this again....I HATE WALL PREP. I'm not sure if it's because the actual task is just boring and tedious, or if it's because we have been working on 4 rooms and a hallway all at once and are now in the middle of preparing all of the walls for primer and paint. The first coat of spackle doesn't get to me, and is actually fairly rewarding despite all of the inside corners.

At first I was using the good 'ol fashion plain paper tape for all of the seems, including inside corners. The use of Bon Tool Sure Corner Drywall Joint Tape has made inside corner frustrations a thing of the past. The two metal strips that run down the center of the tape maintain a straight seem and prevent the tape from pulling out of the corners too much. This has been a critical element in maintaining my ever shortening patience during the joint taping that we've done.

Once the initial coat is down and dry, I don't even mind the second coat, third coat, or the sanding. The thing that has been killing me is preparing the walls that aren't new drywall. Since our house was built in the 50's, the walls are old school sheet rock (i think the sheets are 8 feet long and maybe 16-24 inches wide) with rough and skim coats of plaster over top. These walls are actually pretty nice...at least where the builders did a good job of making sure the numerous seems were hidden. However, it looks like there was either a primer applied to the plaster, or a few coats of paint, and then at least one layer of wall paper. Simple enough to remove, right? Wrong. Over time, the first layer has begun to separate from the plaster in some places, and still holds tight in others. Trying to scrape this stuff off has been a long and arduous process, and was followed by washing all of the walls down with the water and vinegar solution (that I mentioned in a previous post) to remove any remaining wallpaper glue.

Inherently, there are areas of the walls where we gouged the crap out of the plaster. This past weekend, we decided it was time for our own skim coat so we can put an end to the bedroom remodel. Now we have to sand all of the walls down, prime, and check for any spots that we missed. I've found that once you get the first coat of primer or paint on the walls, if there is a spot on the wall that needs additional attention it will rear it's ugly head at this stage.

...I hate wall prep...

Work Shop Shelving Unit (MMR 9)

2007-10-05T05:15:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a recurring theme that older houses have less storage space than new houses. This becomes a particularly glaring issue due to the fact that much of our stuff is still packed away due to the ongoing renovation. We all know I'm not going to go around and dust it all (MMR1).

Fortunately, we have a very large partially finished basement. There is utility room (furnace, water heater, electrical panel), a walk in storage closet, a fairly large storage room, and a nice sized workshop area. These spaces are all in addition to a pretty substantial "finished" area, and by "finished" I mean paneled walls, linoleum tiles, and drop ceiling.

Since we are getting closer to finishing some of our renovation and the need for items such as the electrical supplies and circular saw is dwindling, we decided it was time to start thinking about where we were going to put all of the tools and building supplies. After searching the internet for "Heavy Duty Storage Shelves", I had found enough different ideas that I figured I could build my own.

We have a perfect wall right behind the opening of the workshop door for a shelving unit 8 feet long, about 6 1/2 feet tall, and 2 feet deep. This made the supply list pretty easy to come up with. I went with 4 shelves total. The lowest shelf is right next too the floor, just to keep items off of the floor in case of water accumulation in the basement. Between the 1st & 2nd,and 2nd & 3rd shelves, there is approximately 19.5 inches of height (which is just enough for some big rubbermaid storage bins). Between the and 3rd & 4th shelves, there is approximately 16 inches of height since I figured it'd be less likely Dee or I would really want to heave large and bulky items up there.

Since each shelf is effectively 2 feet by 8 feet, it was easy enough to cut two standard sheets of plywood (4' x 8') right down the middle. The framing was made out of 2" x 4" studs, but keep in mind that if you want 8 foot long shelves, you need to get 96" 2x4s, not standard studs (standard studs are shorter than 8 feet because when combined with the top plate and the bottom plate in wall framing, the finished wall is 8 feet and not 8' & 3").

I decided to use screws for this project for two reasons:

1) I think that they hold pieces of wood together stronger than nails (as I'm sure most will agree).

2) If I ever want to take the shelf apart to move it, I can. I'll just need to remember to number the pieces so I can put it back together the same way.

I'd say this project took about a half a day for just me to build. Not too bad. If you have specific questions about how to construct the frame, feel free to drop a question in the comments below this post.

The Office (MMR 8)

2007-10-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

One of the rooms on the main floor of our house that was originally a bedroom when we moved in has since been converted into an office. There was a nice large closet on the same side of the office that the bathroom was on, so we closed the closet to add more square footage to what would become the master bathroom. The first step was to remove all of the moulding around the closet opening, as well as the hardwood flooring inside the closet to be used elsewhere if needed. The old sheet rock and plaster walls were removed from the inside of the closet as well. Once the demo was finished, we simply framed in the old closet opening to match the existing wall. After some drywall, spackle, primer, and paint, the room is now ready for some office furniture.

We are currently using this room as an office / closet until we are finished with the master..."area". I use the term 'area' because I'm not sure that a bedroom, closet, and bathroom are the only components typical of a master suite. In any case, I know that some people will argue that by closing the closet we have lost an official bedroom if we ever sell the house. We, however, think that converting that space for the creation of a master bathroom and powder room will more than make up for it. And if need be, we can always add a small corner closet in the room to turn it back into a bedroom, albeit a small one.

Kitchen Updates (MMR 7)

2007-10-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

The kitchen has gone through some fairly significant changes since we bought the house. We made quick work of the 70's paneling on the walls by replacing it with an inexpensive wainscoating. We added new chair rail with some nice detail to cap off the wianscoating, which allowed for imperfect cuts to be hidden.

We removed all the cabinet doors, added some trim around the edges of them, and primed/painted for a new look. The hardware was also replaced, and a section of cabinet was removed to make room for the installation of a dishwasher, because we all know that I'm not washing any dishes.

The existing dark, retro ceiling light was replaced with a nice new ceiling fan/light combo. The walls were given a fresh coat of paint, and a small LCD TV was mounted on one of the walls. A power supply and cable supply still need to be added, but at this point that is more of a luxury than necessity.

We still need to replace the countertop, for which we bought some nice discounted granite tile, and install some new flooring. I think for the time being, we will be using a dark laminate wood floor. It certainly won't match the rest of the house, but with the colors we used it should look pretty nice.

Dining Room (MMR 5)

2007-10-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

The dining room is by no means complete, but we have made some big steps in making the room more pleasant to live in. We started by removing all of the old, ugly wallpaper. We did this with a white vinegar - warm water solution in spray bottles. For those of you who have never removed wallpaper, or haven't employed a vinegar solution, this is a very cheap and effective way to do so. We peeled most of the loose paper off before spraying the walls down, and then went to work with the solution. It took a few minutes of soaking to start breaking down the glue, and once that happened we were able to make quick work of the walls. I will note that the wallpaper was on plaster walls, which may have made it slightly easier then removing it from regular drywall...but I'm not sure.

Once we finished removing the wallpaper, we did any spackleing and sanding that needed to be done, and then primed and painted. There is an off white chair rail throughout the room, and we decided to go with two tone green. They are the same color (at least when you look at the color swatches), just different shades, with the darker green below the chair rail, and the lighter green above. For some reason I prefer to use Behr paint that we get from the local Home Depot...I like the finish and texture of it. We also paint all of our ceilings with Sears Easy Living White Ceiling paint, again, preferring the finish over other choices we've played with.

After painting, we installed double curtain rods over each of the windows with matching pull back hooks. We also installed a new dimmer switch for the light, but still have not had the time to replace the light fixture itself.

The Manly Meter Reading System

2007-10-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

I would like to note the incorporation of the Manly Meter Reading System. This self devised system is used to indicate to our readers the extent to which the activities in a particular post are Manly. A scale of 10 - 1 will be used in each posting title (MMR #), where 10 is the most manly (like tearing a tree out of the ground with your bare hands) and 1 is the least manly (like stencilling little designs on woodwork or something of that nature). Examples of activities that will warrant high Manly Meter Readings would include, but are not limited to the following (not in any order of significance):

Framing
Cutting
Demo
Electrical
Plumbing
Installation of Flooring
Multi Media
Various Other Construction Activities
Home Brewing

I am including this indicator so as not to promote extreme hazing from friends.

Inaugural Post

2007-10-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome! To kick it off, a little bit of history on Adam & Dee, our house, and the progress that we've made so far...

Adam & Dee: We were originally introduced by mutual friends in April of 2004. After hitting it off right away, we spent the next three years learning about each other, skiing/snowboarding, traveling, and having a great time in general. I (Adam) am from Bucks County, PA, and Dee was born and raised in Southern New Jersey. We love the outdoors, especially when it's cold out, and are both fairly easy going people. We got married in April of 2007, and are currently in the living/renovating situation that I would imagine many newlyweds find themselves in. We have been doing all of the work ourselves (except the plumbing, which scares me for some reason) in an effort to save a ton of cash.

Our House: We bought a house in Southern New Jersey in August of 2006. The house is a brick Cape Cod (I think) that was built by the original owner in the 1950's. Being built by the original owner (who was a carpenter), is certainly a blessing in most cases....notice the most? It means that the house is very well built and extremely sturdy. I would liken it to an above ground bomb shelter. The only drawback is that when doing major renovations, like moving walls, it can get a bit tricky since the house is built like an above ground bomb shelter.

The Progress So Far: The first thing that we did on settlement day was remove ALL of the old carpeting, padding, and staples. The thought of what had accumulated in there before we arrived was not a pleasant one, to say the least. After that, we started removing wallpaper, scraping loose paint, and patching holes in the walls. We managed to prime and paint the living room and dining room fairly early in the process, which made an immediate impact and carried our motivation forward. Next, we decided to have a little fun with DEMO! Well, after gutting a bedroom, two full bathrooms, and numerous closets, all remnants of that...interesting... baby blue and powder pink tile are gone. I'd like to note that although carrying two WHOLE cast iron tubs seems like a daunting task, even with your brother-in-law's help, I consider it much easier than breaking them up and then cleaning all of the enamel shards out of my skin. We ended up claiming the space of a few closets and a hall bath, to make a hall powder room, a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, and a roomy master bathroom. As of right now, we are finishing the painting in the hallway, and are ready to polish off the master bedroom and begin tile in the master bathroom. More details to follow on each project as we go, but that should do well as a catch up.