Can you spot the differences?

There are a couple differences between these two pictures of the front of our house. Can you spot them? They're fairly easy, but the first picture is more close up than the other. I'll confirm the answers in the comment section by tomorrow. 

Here's the before picture.....

And here's the after picture....

While there haven't been too many changes on the outside of the house, the inside has gone through a lot of transformation. Still unpacking and organizing....hopefully it will all get done before the holidays!:)

Our New Home: The floors are finished!

Quentin spent many hours buffing, staining, and putting on the polyurethane on our hardwood floors. Days were spent letting it dry between coats and now it's finally done! 

Take a look at our shiny new floors...

Quentin used a basic stain and polyurethane that you can buy at Wal-mart or any home improvement store. He used a paintbrush to get it all on, but you could also use a paint roller.

I liked the "aged" look it has. We learned that Pastor Kemper put in these floors many years ago when he was living here when his kids were young. It will be easy to clean since it covers both the living and dining areas.

We're moving in the furniture into it today! Yahoo! It's been a two-week wait as we've had things piled up in the other rooms, including our many books that will go on a couple of the bookshelves in the living room.

We will be posting more pictures later as each room gets organized and decorated completely. Stay tuned...

Our New Home: loving the details...

I love finishing touches, don't you? Here are a few at our place right now that I really love:

This new faucet in bathroom 1 was installed by a friend of ours who is a plumber. Randy not only donated his labor, but also a few things for the bathrooms, including this faucet.

The built-in vanity in bedroom 2 was painted white. It looks so clean and neat looking. The handles have small flowers on them. 

And speaking of handles...you can find several of these in the kitchen. They were so dark before a couple of the ladies cleaned them up. Looks like copper to me, doesn't it?

A couple of us worked on lining the kitchen cupboards with patterned Contact paper. I was very pleased with the result. It's making it easy as I've been working on putting things away in the kitchen. 

As I'm writing this, Q is working on the hardwood floors. I'll show you a picture or two of that when he's all done.

Our New Home: finishing up the remodeling

Last week was spent hurrying about to get the house ready for our Saturday moving day. Among a few little things, here are the big things that were accomplished...

The painting in both bathrooms was completed. This is bathroom 2 looking really nice with that beautiful yellow paint. There are a few small things left to be done in this room, so in the meantime, we're using the smaller bathroom.

New bathroom tile was put in above the tub in bathroom 2.

The laundry room now has new tile. I'm really liking this look. :)

Uh-oh....didn't I say that I would never show my toes again around here? Well, it's what's underneath it that I wanted to show you. The carpet man came and put in this plush and very soft carpet. I like the color and how it matches every room.

Next...the fine details that we love!

Our New Home: floors and more...

It's been two weeks since we've begun renovating the parsonage. So much has been done in the last week and I wanted to share some of the highlights with you.

Since we've decided to keep the hardwood floors in the living and dining areas, Q buffed them to get them ready for staining. It's going to look real nice when it's all done.

The dark burgundy walls in the living and dining areas has transformed into something much lighter and inviting. The color is called "Coffee House."

This is the master bedroom, painted in the light blue color called, "Sicilian Sky." We painted the other bedroom in the same color and hope to have a different decorating theme for each room. On one side of the room is some wood paneling. We're leaving it alone for now, but Q thought it would be neat to white wash it some time in the future. Pastor Kemper worked on making new wooden frames for things around the house. You can see him here making one for the air conditioner.

I'm loving my new kitchen cupboards painted in white. This picture was taken before the handles were put back on. The walls were painted a very light tan called, "Western Adobe."

This is the laundry room which was painted the same as the kitchen. The eyesore on the bottom left (the washer/dryer hook-ups) will be taken care of and the vinyl flooring is going to be replaced.

This week, we've had a plumber working on both bathrooms, the laundry room and the kitchen. Some nice yellow paint has begun in the bathrooms, too. Small cleaning jobs are getting done as well. We are continually thankful for all who have come out to help us each day.

Next time...the bathroom remodeling, carpeting and more!

Our New Home: The renovation begins, part 2

While the men worked, the ladies were busy cleaning the master bathroom and wiping down walls, shelves and cupboards in the other rooms.

Julie, our church organist, worked all morning in this bathroom. 

Our pastor's wife, Shirley, worked on bedroom 3 while I worked in bedroom 2. Later, Julie and Donna worked in the kitchen, and Pat worked on cleaning some things outside.

In the afternoon, the men pulled up all the carpeting and took down a lot of hardware to get things ready for painting. This is Q and Dick in the master bedroom.

This is bedroom 2. It's a really good size and the closet is enormous! Bedroom 3 is very small and has built drawers and is covered in wood paneling. It will probably be my sewing room.

When we got done yesterday, we headed over to Wal-mart to pick out paint colors. I'm very happy with our decision. Can you guess what color goes to what room? There are four basic areas: the living/dining area, the kitchen/laundry area, the two bathrooms, and the two main bedrooms. The four colors from left to right are the following: coffee house, western adobe, sicilian sky and bearnaise. We are leaving the wood paneling alone in bedroom 3 so it won't get painted except for the ceiling and around the window.

I stayed home today to get things ready for my in-laws arrival tomorrow, but Q went to work on the house again. His main job today was sanding the floors. We've decided to have wood floors in the dining/living areas instead of putting carpet back in. We're really excited about this! Everyone there continued cleaning the walls to get them ready for painting.

Next time....painting, carpets and fixing more things! And go ahead--take a guess at the colors in each room. It will be revealed soon.:)

Our New Home: The renovation begins, part 1

These past two days have been very busy ones for us. Q and I went to our new house yesterday to begin the renovation process. It looks pretty nice on the outside, but the inside needed a lot of work!

The parsonage has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room/dining room area, big kitchen and a laundry room. There is also plenty of lawn space and an area on the side of the house where we can do some gardening.

We were so grateful for the seven church people who joined us to help us work on our new place. The first thing Quentin began doing was taking down the dirty popcorn ceiling in the master bedroom. He and Dick worked on it all morning long. They used a spray bottle to loosen it up for easy removal.

When we took a lunch break, this is what Quentin's hat looked like. It was quite a mess!

This is the completed ceiling. All it needs now is some paint.

Jim worked all day on the guest bathroom. It was quite a tedious task of cleaning the tiles.

Next time....what the ladies did all day and the carpet removal....