finishing touches

well it's officially september, and if you remember, my goal was to get it up on the market by september 1st -- before winter sets in and minnesota buyers flee back into their homes until spring. so it's a rush to the finish line as i continue moving my belongings to tim's house (box by box), cleaning every last inch, and staging it to really wow everyone who walks through it.

new cabinet hardware. check!

and speaking about staging...notice the cute owl perched next to my knife block? my grandma actually painted that little fella long ago, and i've kept him with me as i move from place to place.

why did i swap out my Urban Outfitters statement chandelier? well, i was told to de-personalize as much as possible during the staging process. aka: take down photos and make the place as neutral as possible so anyone who walks through could envision themselves living here.

so i found a budget-friendly option at Menards that really fit well with my color scheme and wrought iron door and cabinet hardware throughout my entire place.

never-ending cabinets

i feel like we've been working on cabinets of all sorts for...forever! slow and steady. here's the latest progress on the new bathroom closet. i envision fluffy towels and pretty decor adorning these shelves. i still need to do a little touch-up paint to cover that raw wood.

oh, and today also marked the beginning of a 4-day (okay, four days over a week's time) solo journey of painting the kitchen cabinets -- prior to installing the brand new cabinet doors that dad so lovingly made for me -- we figured it would be easier without the drawers and doors! let the painting begin!

italian walnut flooring

and so began the week of flooring. if you remember from my previous post, the bedroom project had 3 steps:

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

with budget in mind, but also wanting to keep my sense of eclectic style, i decided on an italian walnut laminate that was available online and available for pickup at menards. so long cement floor!

and then dad, my superhero handyman, once again came to the rescue. he spent the week working and oh. emm. gee. am i giddy with the results (don't mind my wrinkled bedding). my only regret is not doing this sooner!

white on white

well, we are officially on the home stretch to get my condo up on the market and sold. so all the things i've been putting off or that were (indefinitely) on the back burner are now on my weekend "to do" list.

first up: refreshing the bathroom with a fresh coat of paint. who knew that an old "white" wall could -- in fact -- be so...unwhite?!!

(for some reason only being able to see Tim's hand and the paintbrush was absolutely adorably hilarious to me)

so tim and i got to work on painting the bathroom while dad worked on the final pieces of trim.

 

oh, and who could forget my little inset "DVD" closet nook in the living room? aka: the wall we tore down long ago in hopes to reveal more exposed brick! obviously that wasn't the case, but we made the best of it and turned the demolished wall into another space for storage or decor.

that needed a few coats of paint over the raw wood and sheetrock.

a look at the completed DVD nook...

 and a before and after view of the bathroom walls and new closet (before the shelving and doors).

inside the closets

remember that time we found a hidden "trap door" in the floor? it was actually the access port to the bathroom plumbing.

well, dad -- being the thoughtful and responsible handyman he is -- decided it might be useful to make a removable access panel in the closet floor in case any issues every come up again. what a smart guy! it's tacked down by a few screws, but easy enough to remove if necessary.

meanwhile, dad has also been making progress on the new bathroom closet. our plan is to leave the upper half open shelving, and put a closet door with shelves in the lower half.

think of all the fluffy towels these shelves will be able to hold!

a white coat for all

now that all the doors are finally in, it was time to give them all a fresh (or a first) coat of white paint.

so the gang (okay, just my parents and tim) came over to help me tackle the project.

in case you don't remember, i wanted to keep a consistent flow throughout my condo, so all of my doors and trim are painted a nice, fresh white. 

all in all we painted the double-door living room closet, the hallway closet next to the bar, the bathroom door, and the new bi-fold pantry doors in the kitchen.

i absolutely LOVE how the living room closet turned out! love, love, love!

hollow core doors shouldn't be cut

 i'm planning a holiday party at my place this christmas and decided to ask dad if he had time in his busy schedule to put doors on my living room closet before the party. you know, so it would look a little less under construction.

above is the before photo...it's a nice closet, but looks really junky without a door!

if you remember, when i first bought the place it HAD a closet with a door. but after demo, rebuilding the closet, and finishing it back in 2009, it needed a new set of doors.

 dad had to do quite a bit of prep work before he even got to my house. first, he bough hollow core doors, but then realized that my closet has unique dimensions and cutting a hollow door wouldn't work. so back to the store he went.

 after getting solid doors, he then had to take the doors apart and cut exact measurements off EACH side of each door panel so the new dimensions would be evenly distributed.

 i love it! now we just need to putty up the unfinished edges and add a few coats of white paint.

swapping a curtain for a door

as much as i love my "door" curtains, i was super excited when dad brought over the bi-fold door that would be my new pantry!

i tore down my green curtain and dad got to work. it didn't take him too long, and his only question was where to mount the door handle.

who knew opening and closing a door could be so much fun!

ice cubes and counter tops

today was a big day for my condo! new kitchen counters, water access to my fridge ice machine, and lots of insulation around my outside door, windows and air conditioner. as you can see in the first picture, it looks as if dad almost moved in! my entire dining room was filled with tools and such.

do you remember my original counter tops? they were light wood and kind of ugly (top photo). a while back -- think spring/summer -- dad found these dark "granite" counters at menards for a really good deal. they've been sitting in his garage ever since.

the other week dad stopped over to prepare the counter top. he measured my original wooden one and drew out a template onto a giant roll of paper of the exact dimensions and the sink cutout area.

meanwhile, on the other side of the kitchen...i now have ice cubes (crushed and cubed) and water! i have waited so long for this day :)

this proved to be quite the task however. the water tube had to snake from the back of the fridge, up through the ceiling and into the pantry closet, from the top-right of my closet to the bottom-left (see photo), out the pantry closet next to the oven, and behind my counter tops into the water access under the sink. luckily the tube is clear so it's nearly invisible.

next, dad covered up my air conditioner window unit, plastic'd up all my windows, and added insulation around my exterior door to try to keep the draft out...although my snowflakes would prefer the wind so they can twirl.

all through the house

today was a beautifully gorgeous november day here in minneapolis. i biked home from work (in a tank top!) with my headphones on, just enjoying the unusually warm sunshine and colorful leaves still covering the ground. when i got home, i saw dad was taking advantage of the nice weather too...with his electric saw and building materials scattered about my steps and entry way.

today's projects took place all throughout the house. dad was over around 11am and worked until dinner time in the living room, bathroom and kitchen.

living room: dvd cabinet. the first project dad worked on today was adding the trim around my living room inset cabinet that i plan on using for dvd's. now we just need to add shelving and putty up the screws around the trim and i can finally get rid of my cd towers!

plus, now you all know my guilty pleasures of owning (and repetitively watching) all seasons of The OC and The Office :)

the bathroom: closet. see that board that my cabinet is sitting on? well that's my new raised floor of the cabinet. that way, if my bathroom ever floods, my closet supplies will be safe.

our plan is to create storage in the bottom half of the closet, with a single cabinet door. and then the top half of the closet will be open shelving.

the kitchen: fridge water dispenser. this project has been a long time coming, and we got about halfway today. see, the problem is that there's no water access along the wall my fridge is sitting against. so dad used the can light fixture (see photo above) as his access point. he drilled a hole through the beam nearest the fridge and another into my pantry closet, and then fished the tube through them both.

the tube connects to the fridge (you can see the clear tube sticking out near the red arrow), goes through the ceiling, into the pantry closet (more tube near the left arrow), and eventually will emerge along the floor near my stove, and snake through the back of the kitchen cabinets to connect up to the water valve under the sink. and voila, i will have water and ice fresh from my fridge!

where's the rainbow?

so i'm in my bedroom getting ready for work when i notice an odd reflection near the wall. 

standing water. 

the fridge must be leaking! i remember back to last night when i had too many lights and electronics on and ended up blowing a few breakers. the freezer must not have turned back on and leaked the ice (which turned into water) out onto the floor...

nope.

i run into my kitchen only to see that is definitely not the case. my entire pantry is flooded, along with the hallway to my back door, which then leads through to my bedroom. i open my door to find even deeper water covering the back section of my condo, and it seems to be coming from my laundry room.

sure enough, the floor drain is completely filled with about a half foot of water, and it has spilled from there, through the walls into my kitchen, then through the walkway and into my bedroom. my floor drain in my bathroom closet was also completely flooded, but luckily nothing flooded too far in there. 

not exactly how i want to use my work vacation hours...

the white door

among many other projects that dad is working on, he somehow found the time to come over and put up the door to my hallway closet. as you probably know, i am trying to keep a few themes running throughout my condo: white trim along along all the floors, and white interior doors.

now all i need is door handles.

two new places to hide things away

tonight dad finished up the shelving in my two main closets! now i just need some doors to hide all my junk ;)

and as you can see, dad's already moved in!

inside the plastic fort

whenever my dad sets off to do work -- whether around the house, at crappy house (our other extreme makeover house), or my place -- he simply says with a smile "well, i'm off to play!" and heads out. i'm so glad he loves it.

anyways, tonight he was over working on my two main closets. first we hung plastic from the ceiling to protect the rest of my place from suffocating beneath a layer of dust. then he started sanding and puttying away behind the plastic sheets...

hey, at least he got to play in a fort ;)

bye bye open closets

say goodbye to all the open inlets in the unfinished walls...because we are starting to sheetrock all three closets! so of course I had to take one final picture through the wall.

first dad put up the exterior walls...

then we measured inside the closets, fastened the sheetrock, and called it a night!