The next leg of the Adventure
So once DEMO day passed and we started the work. This time we did a lot of work ourselves but hired out some of what we didn’t want to do.
I wanted drywall on my walls and ceiling, lights, bamboo floors, light colored walls, plenty of cabinet space, lots of storage, a window bench and shiny things. Also, to understand some of my design choices remember that I am the only woman living in a house full of testosterone. I add a few fancy things in with my blues and woods and it keeps everyone happy. I’ll give you one example now. This tiny chandelier.
Isn't it adorable! I hung it over my kitchen sink. It was so cute and classic but it didn’t overpower anything going on. Just a little piece of glitz in with the rest of my house.
Anyway…on with the story.
We hung the dry wall and hired someone else to finish it for us. We learned this lesson when we renovated our bathroom.
We hired a handy man who was willing to teach my husband along the way. He learned a ton about electrical work and some plumbing. This saved money during this project and a lot of future ones. Well, kind of…there is that “I will need this new tool and this new tool and this new tool”, but after you pay those off, it does save a ton of money in labor. And to be fair to him, yes he has used the tools for lots of other projects. And to bring it back around to me, I’m really good with coming up with new projects to be done. He just loves my ever-expanding list. (read that line with total sarcasm)
Because we were working with a small space we wanted to maximize every inch, so we had our cabinets custom built. This was an interesting process. I’m a person with excellent imagination vision. I can see exactly what it is going to look like at the end (as long as everything goes as planned). So I explained and drew pictures and explained where all to measure. Our cabinet maker did everything that I told him. I assumed that he was right on page with me, but that was not exactly the case. He did an excellent job. I was thrilled with them. I was so amused though when after he finished installing them, he said “wow, I didn’t know what this was going to be like. This turned out really nice.” Those kinds of conversations have happened quite a few times since then.
Another place that I added a small feminine touch was an accent cabinet. I made it a complimentary color of blue and added crystal knobs. And everybody ended up loving these because at a certain time of day as the sun was setting in the west, the light would hit the knobs and cast tiny rainbows all over the room.
I absolutely loved the way that it turned out.
A peek into the future:
I loved this so much, I made quite a few of the same decisions when we rebuilt our new house. The crystal knobs moved to my bathroom and I upped it to 3 mini chandeliers.
