Valentines Day Flowers

This is my first winter in the southern part of the US and having flowers bloom in February is still a shock to me.  In our back yard we have a huge Camellia bush or tree that has started to flower.  I grabbed a few off and made a nice little bouquet for Cassie.

Happy Valentines Day

~Drew~

Leaks and the laundry room part 3

Welcome to part 3 of our water heater leak and laundry room project.  Again a huge thank you to my dad who helped with some of the ideas and heavy lifting.

We had freeed up a some space in the kitchen after moving a small cabinet and wire rack into the pantry area.  Also we had an upper and lower cabinet left with a piece of counter top from Cassie's Lowes score.  Cassie really liked the idea of a coffee bar area so that's what my dad and I built for her.

Before

After mounting the cabinets and counter top.

We extended the counter to the edge of the door frame giving us a little more the 5 and half square feet of added counter space.  Our plab is to paint the cabinets white and eventually replace the counter top but the added functionality is worth the miss mashed look for now.

For we'll under $1000 we replaced the leaking hot water heater, moved the washer and dryer to create a laundry room started a pantry under the stairs and added much needed storage and counter space in the kitchen.  The projects took us 3 weekend to finish.  We do owe a big thank you to our friend Nelly for helping with the dryer, to my parents Kathleen and Kai for helping this weekend and to every one reading this blog.

Drew

Leaks and the laundry room part 2

First I need to thank my parents for helping us out.  My mom and Cassie spent the weekend working on wedding plans and dad and I worked on the house.

After finishing up the water heater Cassie and I moved the washer and dryer into our bonus room that used to be the side porch.

I had run most the drain water and electrical lines to the new laundry room area and we had decided to stack the units. On one of our Lowes runs to get a few things we looked at cabinets to go in the laundry area so we could keep the area a little cleaner.  Cassie found a set of returned cabinets 2 uppers and 2 lowers that were marked clearance.  After finding someone she made them an offer of $200 for all 4. the countered at $225.  We also scored a clearance counter top as well.

Who says you need a truck to do home improvement.

After getting everything home Cassie went for a run and hurt her ankle so the project was delayed for another week.  My parents came down to see the house, help with some of our wedding plans and get away from the cold and snow in NY for the weekend.  The girls headed off to work on wedding stuff and Dad and I finished the laundry room.  

We stacked the washer and dryer. Then added the base cabinet and counter top next to the washer.  Finally we mounted the upper cabinet.  its a little lower then a kitchen upper but it makes it a lot more usable and reachable space.

Stay tuned for part 3 and where we used the other two cabinets

~Drew~

Leaks and the laundry room part 1

The old saying when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.  In our case the lemon is that our hot water heater sprung a leak and the lemonade is moving our washer and dryer out of the kitchen and into their own space.  In addition we will be converting the area where the washer and dryer were into a walk in pantry for the kitchen.

Pardon the mess but here is our staring point.  The space wasting laundry room under the stairs and the hot water heater tucked into the back.  One major issue is getting the stacked washer and dryer out because of the small opening.  The dryer needs to be lifted off the washer then the washer pulled out then the dryer can come out then finally we can pull the hot water heater.

 

A good friend of ours came over to help get the washer and dryer out so I could put in the new hot water heater.  We opted to go with a 50 gallon model vs the 40 just to give us a little more hot water.

Out with the old

In with the new

We still have some work to do to finish the pantry area we moved a cabinet and a small wire rack into the space to clean up the kitchen.  I also modified a set of bi fold doors into french doors to close the space off and hide the pantry area.  The plan is to add permanent shelving in an L shape to make better use of the space.

There seems to be a good amount of space between the end of the cabinets and the doorway into the dining room.  stay tuned for parts 2 and 3.