Sunday, March 23, 2014

Gilbert Temple Open House

 We had the opportunity to take the kids to the Gilbert Arizona Temple open house in February. It was so neat to be able to go as a family and to see the kids faces as they saw the different rooms. The art work and chandeliers are to die for in this temple! It was beautiful!! I'm so thankful that through the temple we can be a forever family!






The Kitchen Reno

Back in October of 2013 we renovated our kitchen, dinning room, and laundry room. They were the last of the rooms that needed to be redone in our house. We had decided that while we wait for the market to come back up to sell our house we would make the one big change that it needed to help sell it. Cris did a lot of the work himself. In one day we tore out all the old cabinets, counters, and flooring. It was quite messy but it was so nice to get rid of the old smelly cabinets. This is what our kitchen looked like before hand. It wasn't too bad but it needed a major update from the original cabinets. We had added a few things over the years to make it seem more up to date. We tiled the counters and added some trim to the cabinets. I'm so happy to be rid of the sliding doors in the bottom cabinets that would stick often so you couldn't open them. Pain in the butt!!!

 These are a few of the pictures I have of the construction process. We tore out a wall and rebuilt it about 4 feet back to make the dinning room area bigger. They also had to put a beam up since the wall we tore out was load bearing. We also made the doorway into the dinning area from the living room bigger. I love how it opens up the house more. 
Our friend Tim helped us a lot with this project. He cut concrete for about 2 hours so we could move our washing machine into a nook that was used for storage junk. It was so dusty!!! Then Cris had the daunting task of breaking the concrete out so we could make a new drain for the washing machine.
We also had to remove 30 year old linoleum. It was a pain!! Cris tiled the floors and we went with a diagonal pattern which we really like.  And we also closed off the access to the old family/dinning room. We turned it into a 4th bedroom, all that's left for it is to build a closet.


 Here's the after pics. 
The laundry room, that I'm wanting Cris to build some mudroom "lockers" to hang coats, and kids backpacks that will go were the laundry basket is.
The dinning room
 Standing at the end of the table looking towards the kitchen.
 The kitchen. We went with a rustic alder for the cabinets and a solid surface counter top with a seamless sink. All the cabinets have soft close hinges along with all the drawers. The bottom cabinets all have pull out drawers, and both corners have lazy Susan's in them. I love the soft close feature!!! The kids can't slam the doors, and they automatically close after you shut it so far.
 Another view of the dinning room.
 We love it, and think that it seems so much bigger!! We can't believe we waited 9 years to redo it. The only thing left to do is the trim work. Cris hates doing it so it may be a while. :)