laying the kitchen floor...

The previous owner had a workshop down in the basement. It comes in handy for this type of work.

I think this is a drastic improvement over the ugly vinyl flooring we used to have. Also you can see the new paint on the wall behind us.

the work begins...

This is the 1st thing we did... rip the wallpaper off in the dining room. This took way longer than you might think!


Luckily the kitchen wallpaper was much easier - it came off in large sections at a time.

After the wallpaper was off, we began priming all the woodwork. That blue tape costs 6 bucks a roll... we've probably gone through nearly 10 rolls already!

The postman stopped delivering our mail because he saw the newspaper over the windows and thought the place had been abandoned!

The doors and crown moulding are painted down here in the basement.

this is how it looked when we bought it

This is the front door on the right, which takes you straight into our living room.

We have a proper wood-burning fireplace, which is should come in handy for the Chicago winters (and making s'mores).

To the right of the fireplace is the dining room. As you can see, the previous owner was fond of the old colonial style. Isn't the wallpaper... um... 'lovely'?

It's possible the dining room used to be a bedroom, as it's unusual to have a closet in the dining room.

This is the view from the dining room into the kitchen.

This is our eat-in kitchen, complete with Burger King tile floor.

This is the bathroom/washroom/lavatory/loo/bog, whatever you wanna call it.

We decided to keep the tiling since it was in such good condition.

This is the main bedroom. The lamp in the picture is now hung from the ceiling in the basement (seriously)!

This door leads out to the backyard.

This is the 2nd bedroom, which we will be turning into an office/guest room.

our street

This is our street. Chris & Fran live just around the corner!

pics of the outside

The long driveway is a bitch to shovel when it snows.

Note the old school doorbell on the sidedoor!

Our 2.5 car detached garage with obligatory weather vane.

For some reason, we have a backdoor that goes right into our bedroom.

Our garden, or "yard" as they like to call it here.

we closed on our house!