Start your engines! Its contractor time!!

Sooooooo excited for today! The contractor should be well on his way starting work on Phase I of our remodel of our pretty little farm house!

This picture and a few others are actually from our appraisal report, so they have the previous tennant's furniture, but to get a REAL before and after I decided to add them :)
Phase I includes a little window wood work in the front bedroom. Then trap door, closet, flooring, insulation, & sheetrock in what will be our new master bedroom! Here are some befores of the master:

This is before we started any work at all (old tenant still living there)....Will and I and Jake (my wonderful bro-in-law) tore out all of the paneling and got it down to the studs. A layer of carpet, and our dear Dougie got the layer of linoleum that was glued to the concrete underneath! and voila!....a clean canvas :D

Oh and lets not forget those new windows and electrical (Thank you other Jake!) that we already have installed!

Here is our secret trap door, that will lead to a storm shelter underneath our bedroom. I guess its not so much of a secret now!

Part III of Phase I is building a wall where now there is just a railing in our back hallway going down to the basement.  I forgot to take that picture, so will add that later! :D  Ta ta for now! Will post progress after getting home tonight!

Sooo....here we are on day 2 and Trap door built! Insulation in! New exterior door in! Wall to basement framed! and Window fixed! Wooooohooo! I didnt realize they would be so quick on the basement wall, so I failed to get the before pic, but here is what they have so far:

There was previously just a wood railing here where the new wall is. :D

Insulation and door in master.

Can you tell Im excited?? :D

Another day of progress! We have sheetrock! I know its weird, but the smell of sheet rock reminds me of my childhood......lol!

A few days of rest and will get back to it on Monday! I've gotta start thinking paint colors!

AAAAAAACHOOOOOOO! Bleh....So Will and I painted ALL weekend including Friday night to get the room ready for floors and trim today.  Between the soreness from painting and the headache/runny/nose/cough, I do believe this might be the most exhausted Ive ever been.  But this is only the beginning.  Would you believe that I am crazy enough to plan to have company so close to finishing this part of the remodel? YIKES.....well I AM crazy, but I WILL get it done....sickness or no sickness. We said after painting 90% of the interior of "Grant" (this is what we call our other house that we rent out) last year, we vowed to hire any future painting projects. Well......I guess we forgot about that vow, as we told the contractor we would do the painting to save a little money.  All weekend I was thinking about how huge of a mistake that was until Will talked to the contractor this morning and was told that we probably saved anywhere from $1500-$2000 worth of painting!! Well worth it if you ask me and sure makes my sore arms and legs feel somewhat better!  Too bad it didnt have an affect on my head feeling like a balloon filled with helium..:S I do have  to say that I am super thankful for a tall hubby who could reach the ceiling to do that part of the painting. Even though he is oh so sore from it. :(
So here are a couple of paint pics:

Dont worry....the fly strip will not be part of the decor.  INSANE how many flies are in my house right now!!! UGH!!!
And here is the basement wall:

Yeah....stayed with the super dark brown that was already in that part of the house because we dont have time right now to completely change the entire hallway......and we found a bucket of it in the barn just waiting to be used. :) Next pictures will be of the finished product with furniture and floors! HOPE it turns out beautifully!

So I have neglected to post the final picture for a while because we have had SO much else going on.  The contractor actually finished up a little more than a week ago, but with getting ready for a ton of company and finishing up our painting, I have not had the time to take pics until now! Of course I still have some "decorating" to do, and finish painting in the closet (picture to come after paint), but here you go!

The TV will actually be mounted between the closet doors at the foot of the bed, but for now you see its just on the dresser :/ 

Oh yeah and the pics remind me.....the fans were already in the room from the previous owner, but fairly new, so I simply plan to paint the fan blades white......next time I get out the paint.:) Now all we need are our white wood blinds, pictures, and drapes! We LOVE our new place!