living room | ourvintagepleasure

Wow! It has been months without an update posted on here about our progress…and yet it seems as if the entire holiday season passed in the blink of an eye! We worked at full speed for several months in order to get the house ready for the Holiday Home tour. The two day tour was a complete success bringing in over 1300 guests and lots of exposure for our great neighborhood as well as The Reclamation Project, a community initiative to create a center for refugee immigrants which occupies the space at the former Rialto Theater on Calhoun Street. The two days of the tour were absolutely exhausting but hearing so many people say nice things about the work that we have done made it totally worth it. We opened up the foyer, the living room, the dining room, the master bedroom, the bathroom, and Raul’s office for the tour. I thought it would be fun to show all of you just how far we have come since purchasing this home last March (wow, 1 year already!). I’ve been seriously procrastinating as it is now almost Spring and I am just now getting around to editing and posting pictures of our house decorated for Christmas but better late than never! I was so fortunate to have the help of my mother and gram who helped me decorate for the tour. Also, my grandmother even asked some of her friends to donate some Christmas decorations which just looked absolutely beautiful in our home. I am so thankful! With everyone’s help I was able to do so much more than I could have managed on my own.

So without further ado please take a look at the colorful before and the marvelous after! (click on each picture to see it bigger)

Foyer BEFORE:

Foyer AFTER:

Living Room BEFORE:

Living Room AFTER:

Dining Room BEFORE:

Dining Room AFTER:

Master Bedroom BEFORE:

Master Bedroom AFTER:

Bathroom BEFORE:

Bathroom AFTER:

That’s what I feel that I need after these last few weeks. A nice big shot of tequila. Make it a double.

Wow! I’m sorry to all my readers (all 10 of you 😉 I have neglected this blog over the last month. Things have been non-stop, go, go, GO! at the house. It seems like every day I have the same routine. It’s wake up at 7. Work 8-4. Then jet over to the house and put in 4 or 5 hours of work before I head home for a quick shower and a chapter out of my book. Then it’s lights out.

I think that has been part of my blog writer’s block. I feel like the last month has been like the movie Groundhog- we are working our asses off day and night (and not just me- mad props to my MOM, my DAD, Raul and his FAM,too) yet we aren’t getting anything actually DONE.

There is definitely one thing I have learned though; I waaayyyy underestimated the time that it would take to get this house looking like I want it…Oh! and I also learned that I never, ever, ever, ever in my life and in all my future lives want to strip, sand, and refinish a hardwood floor again. Ever. The process is long, messy, hot and EXPENSIVE!!!!! Granted, it is not as expensive as new hardwoods but stilllll….

When we first purchased the home the floors were not even a priority to me. They were kinda one of those projects that was lingering in the back of mind- I knew they needed to be done, but honestly their ugliness wouldn’t be any kind of barrier to me living in the house.

And then…we started making everything else so beautiful around the floors. They became a huge eyesore. So we decided to tackle the upstairs. At first it was just the master bedroom. There was just a fine layer of stain left on the original flooring. A bit of sanding wouldn’t be too difficut. Right? WRONG!!! Then the bedroom looked so good that we decided to do the hallway, too. Now the hallway was covered in 3 layers of ugly grey paint. We had to add tons of stripping to the process. Then sanding. Then staining. Then protecting with a glossy polyurethane.

And then we figured as long as we were doing the hallway why not do the 3rd bedroom, too. Just while we were at it, you know. That room was also painted. And we soon discovered that whatever paint they had used on the floor, well, it wasn’t coming off with regular paint stripper. Like not at all. So that meant a lot of heavy duty sanding.

To make a long story short the whole process was very complicated and took ffoooorrrrreeevvveerrrr. In fact, it took so long, and affected me so deeply, that I would rather not even write about it. I will, however, provide you with a lot of cool pictures! The progress is amazing!