Happy Thursday friends, one of my favorite days of the week! I’m SO happy to share this final addition to our renovation with you today! It’s not done, so bear with me because there’s a lot left to do. But I’m excited about how it’s looking and that we’re done with this reno!
So if you’re new here – this past summer we took a wall down between my office and our family room to give us more space. You can see the completed space here. :) What we didn’t realize till we knocked down the wall was how much this was going to completely transform our kitchen as well.
So part of the plan was to tweak the bay window area a bit, where our back door used to be:
It’s now all windows and ready for me to build the window seat. Yum.
We decided to move the back door over to where the double windows in the room are:
It just made more sense overall – that window just felt like the logical spot for the door when everything shifted.
Here’s an idea of how where that window was in the old space:
The sectional sat up against it, which I didn’t mind too much but try to avoid if I can.
So here’s the thing – we ordered the windows for the bay area and the new door at the same time from Lowe’s. The windows were coming in in a couple weeks. The door was going to take 28 days. I never expected either one of them to come in on time, just because I’m no spring chicken. ;)
Well the windows came in on time but they never called to tell us, so on the fourth week I stopped by to check on the status of things. They told me the door was scheduled to be delivered that week, exactly on time. Whoot! I was so excited, so we picked up the windows and went ahead and had those installed.
Before they replaced our back door with the third window I called Lowe’s again – and they told me that the door would be in that day. So I had the guys go ahead, knowing it would only be a day or two before the new door went in.
We never got a call so I called again later and they told me again in was in…but it wasn’t. ;) It was delayed a little over a week, which was annoying but fine, not a biggie, #firstworldproblems. But a week turned into two, three…four. :) Finally this week it came in.
It took the guys just over half a day to get it in and when I walked into the room I LOVED it!:
It was worth the wait. :) It is exactly how I envisioned it – it makes total sense in that spot. Only one side of the door opens – the other is stationary. I just felt like this way would be more secure. I had dreams of having two doors opened up to the deck and having the warm breeze waft in…and then I woke up and realized we have four animals that we’d never see again. Ha!
You can see in that pic how much work I have left to do – they are framing out the door today in my Craftsman style trim and then I’ll paint. I also have to finish that wall to the right with the base and board and batten that goes throughout the rest of the room.
That speaker isn’t being used anymore so I need to patch that drywall as well. I think it’s going to look so beautiful when it’s all done! I can’t wait!
Our main floor windows are super tall, 72 inches. Because of that we had a big space to fill – instead of having them fill in the area above the door with drywall I had it made with a transom. It adds a nice detail:
Here’s how this area looked a few weeks ago:
And here it is now:
Sorry about light – I had to take the pics in morning (bright) light before the guys got here to work.
Although I think my favorite before and after is this one from a couple years ago:
It still is crazy to me how far our family room used to sit in what is now kitchen space for us:
Goodness, I’m so excited to finish this up and make it look pretty and I’m so excited that after today there will be no one working in our house for a very long time. Well, other than me. ;)
I have big plans for the outside as well:
The siding will go back up today when it warms up a bit. I want to build some kind of decorative cover over the door since the door opens out instead of in. I knew it would take up valuable floor space to have it open in. We didn’t have any coverage over the old door and it was fine but I think it would be nice. I don’t want to block the sun though, that’s the only thing.
I see this spot with big beautiful planters on either side next summer too. Can’t wait! We are also having a new porch light installed to the left of the doors. So overall we’ve added two additional lights to the back of the house and more light is always nice.
Of COURSE I plan on painting the doors black on the inside. ;) All of our interior doors (at least on the main floor) are and I know it will look stunning. The only problem is the panes on the transom are inside the window – but I think I have a solution for that. Stay tuned. :)
I can’t wait to get this finished up and start on the rest of the kitchen next year! Whoo!! Oh, and by the way, the windows were ordered were Pella and they came in right on time. This door is Jeld-Wen and I’m not thrilled so far. Not only because of the delay (it was an issue on their end, not Lowe’s). It’s a good solid door but they really cut corners on things like the trim. You can kind of tell in the pic above that the exterior trim is a mess – it’s all getting redone. Thankfully Lowe’s covered the cost of all the new trim.
At least we didn’t have a big hole in the house! Living without a back door for a month wasn’t a big deal. Have you ever had a reno mishap that you didn’t plan for? I knew this whole thing went way too well. ;)
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