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After finishing the bar and the closet, we are now finished with two more mini-projects. I say “mini” because the work that we did was not remodeling work, but shopping & designing.

The first project that took us a long time to complete was finding an entertainment center. It took us longer than one might imagine because we wanted a few specific things, including lots of storage space for our DVDs, solid wood construction, and a nice mahogany color. What we settled on is this:

A few weeks ago, we ordered some wood blinds for the room as well. Today, they were installed and we love them. They really bring some additional warmth to the room. The valence will not stay, but it was here when we moved in and we’re going to use it until we decide what we really want to put there. Here’s a before picture [with my new fish-eye lens]:

Here’s the after picture:

And a wide-angle of the whole room:

And, yes: eventually, we’re going to ditch the rug and get one that matches better – and will stay cleaner! [Never buy a white area rug if you can help it… trust me!] That’s why we’re not completely finished yet.

Oh – and we have a better ottoman on order to replace our found-on-side-of-road coffee table.

So, now that we’ve done the bar, we started working on the master closet. There are two, actually. One “His” and one “Hers”. We’re re-doing the “Hers” closet. We painted all but one wall a light tan and the one wall a pale blue. After that, we put up an entirely new closet system using Elfa. It ROCKS and is very easy to install and assemble. We’ve gotten all the pieces up now, so Laura can move her clothes back in.

Only one thing remains: Laura wants to paint a design on the blue wall. We’ll work on that later, I think.

Oh – and we even installed a new light with a motion sensor switch… cool, eh?

I promised pictures and now you have them! Introducing our kitchen bar before renovation. Notice the large gray overhang. It was so cumbersome and we kept running into it. It also took up a couple of feet of the sitting room next to the kitchen.

Next, you’ll see the work in progress:

So we ripped the ugly gray top off and replaced it with a nice piece of wood.

Now that the painting’s done, this is the final result. It’s much easier to walk around and doesn’t feel so bulky. We love it!

We owe a special thanks to John Elliott for helping us get started [well, for doing most of the work on the construction part, but the painting was hard too!]. Many coats of paint later, we are finally finished.

We are coming to the end of our home remodeling projects… Note I said “projects” – yes, we started another one before finishing the first. We ripped out Laura’s closet and have spackled and primed the closet. Next, we will paint it and hang up new custom shelving.

As for the bar area, I’ve decided I’m going to finish priming and painting it the original dull color and we’ll chose another color for accent purposes later.

It’s off to paint now!

That’s us. Well, not really, but it’s taken longer that I like for us to come close to finishing the bar. We’ve now got the structure in place, the bar and wall fully plastered and primed, and even have some first coats of paint on the trim parts. We’re not really satisfied with the texture of the finish of the top, but I think that a couple more coats should solve the problem with that.

Then, of course, is the problem of the wall. It seems that the wall-colored paint we have that the previous owners stored in the basement is a few shades off from what the walls actually look like. We will not only have to paint the areas that have been plastered, but also the entire wall to all the seams. It’s quite an obvious difference, so we have to go floor-to-ceiling with it and corner-to-corner. With all that painting to be done, we might as well change the color. Once that’s all done, I’ll take a “final” picture and post it up here.

I’m really just a slacker for not blogging anything in the last couple of weeks, but I truly have been busy.

No! Really!

We’ve ripped out our bar counter top. Yep. Not even in the house two months and we’ve destroyed a surface. What we’ve done, though, is make the kitchen area feel so much larger. We’re just going to cap off the knee wall with a flat board and make “mini bar” of only 11″ inches wide or so. It’s our first remodeling project. The new sink doesn’t count…

Right now, though, it’s not done – just demolished. We couldn’t find the right lumber to finish the job. Hopefully, we’ll be done by Monday night and I’ll get some good pictures of the finished project.

Hopefully, I won’t be like Mike and not post ANY of the final result pictures of our kitchen remodel.. hint, hint!