The Schmoopies

Aside from being my favorite holiday of the year, I am very thankful on this day for many reasons - one of which is the recent restoration of our home. For those not aware, we've been living with major construction since July 17 and it has been stressful and overwhelming to say the least. Our contractor lived with us, yes, he actually slept in our guest room, with rare visits home to South Georgia. At this point, the construction is done, but we have a lot of caulking, scraping, sanding, priming and painting to do. We also are in need of a $6,000+ electrical overhaul on our home and since we are tapped out financially, we will have to wait at least a year before we can have this work performed. We pray nothing too serious will go awry between now and then. It's a bit aggravating because we have no light in our original bathroom but do have an outlet that is functioning so a lamp it is for now. Hope you enjoy the pictures. More to come as rooms are finalized with paint and decor emerges with Jana's homemade roman shades.

Here's what we lived in for several weeks. This is our living room and dining room with the view from our front door. We had a small space to walk between the bicycle and chairs. Note the kitchen cabinets in the dining room and since we refaced our kitchen cabinets, you will see the cabinet doors stacked in front of the fireplace. We went without our kitchen for 10 weeks with zero dinner invitations. Seriously, we were so tired of eating out and it got expensive. Very thankful to have our kitchen back!

Before the construction project, we had a 2 bedroom/1 bath home. Now, we have a 3 bedroom/2 bath home. Below are before and after pictures of our old (original) bath. The clawfoot tub you see below was moved into our new (added) bath, and we replaced this bathroom with a standard tub and tiled shower. We replaced the linolium floors with matte, white hexagon tile, and closed up the window (b/c the screen porch is on the other side) with matte, white subway tile. The walls are tiled 48" high. We replaced the sink. Very thankful to have our old bath back and better than before!

After all the fixtures were moved out, Gary began demolishing on the old bath. He tore down the plaster and the wood slats behind the plaster creating a lot of dust. You can literally see the dust flying around in this picture and the mounds of plaster on the floor. Plaster weighs a lot for those not familiar.
And after...

The kitchen before - tile floor that was never grouted, plain white cabinets, ugly blue formica countertops.

And after - wide plank hardwood floors, mushroom color cabinets, earth corian countertops, wainscoat on walls with sheetrock at the top, built-in shelf, new stainless steel appliances. The beautiful door with the wavy glass you see at the end of the kitchen is original to the house. Gary found it in the basement, stripped off the paint and stained it.

The screened-in back porch before - hardwood floors were painted gray, a roof leak caused mold and damage to the ceiling, and a window looking into what is now our 3rd (new) bedroom was there.

The porch and new deck after - we had the hardwood floors stripped and refinished to their natural color, Gary demolished the ceiling and installed new insulation and wood ceilings, large columns were built to allow the porch to be in sync with the craftsman style of the house, moved the screen door from the left to the center, added ceiling fans, and built deck to match. The screen porch is a good size room - 22'x16'. We're still trying to find a quality screen door.

The room below is off the kitchen (at the rear of the house) and originally was a porch b/c of the way the floors sloped away from the house causing unleveled floors as much as 3.75". At some point it was closed in and divided into two smaller rooms where the laundry resided in the outward room. We converted this to a 3rd bedroom, bathroom and closet which contains our laundry and shelving. Below are before and after pictures of the 3rd bedroom and new bath.

And after - new bedroom, bathroom and closet - floors are hardwood and leveled, sheetrock walls, and trim on windows and doors perfectly match the rest of the house. Our house has the original push button light switches throughout. We were able to find and order these and use them everywhere a new light switch had to be installed.

New Bathroom - This weekend, we plan to disconnect the clawfoot tub, pressure wash, sand, prime and paint the outside of it black. We also plan to paint the baseboards and apply a second, light coat of grout to the floor and seal it. Time permitting, Gary will finish scraping the trim in the dining room and living room, sand the trim, prime it, and we'll paint both rooms.

So Friday night Gary and I headed down to Newnan to meet the famous DeAnna Pappas, The Bachelorette, and last guy standing, Jesse Csincsak. As demonstrated on the show, both were extremely down to earth and friendly. For those of you who don't know, I am the fan who mailed DeAnna the book "Motherless Daughters" when she was one of women vying for Brad Womack's heart. DeAnna immediatey wrote me back to thank me for the gift, and when she met me Friday night, she opened her arms wide open and gave me a big 'ole hug, once again expressing her appreciation for the book. Gary kicked it with Jesse complimenting him on snowboarding down the mountain with DeAnna on his back. Both were a hoot to meet! Special thanks to Kelly for allowing us to use her camera after my battery died.

Jana with the happy couple who plan to wed on May 9, 2009 -

the day they got engaged and Mother's Day weekend.