New house progress (photo blitz)

Since we moved in on the first of June, there's been a ton of goings on around the new place. As you can tell the outside of the house, which was built in 1969, has had significant updating and doesn't look its age.

On the inside, besides the colors being kinda funky, the kitchen was pretty small. not very much counter space, and keep in mind, on the left side of this picture is where the fridge is supposed to be and would stick out two feet into the kitchen. It would have been tight.

That's why we decided to gut it and start from scratch. We intend to be in this home for the foreseeable future, like till we're too old to keep up with it, so we felt a total kitchen do over was warranted now rather than once we were living in it already.

Below you can see where the left side wall has been re-engineered into a recessed wall nook where cabinets and a fridge will now be INSIDE the walls rather than sticking out into the kitchen. Because of full span ceiling trusses we were able to really have some flexibility with design.

We loved out oak flooring so much in our last house that we went ahead and installed it in this new kitchen as well. The yellow hose you see in the middle of the floor is the new gas line drop that we had installed, the only contract work we hired out for by the way. This process had us moving gas lines, running new 220 outlets for the oven and new water lines for a fridge. It was a pretty comprehensive overhaul.

We were lucky because under the carpet was an original oak flooring that we could tie into. As coincidence would have it, it had been milled by the same millworks as the new flooring we found! weird huh?

After some serious sanding the differnce between the old and new had vanished!

As of last week. The kitchen is finished. We installed an IKEA kitchen and loved the results. The backsplash is tile, our first attempt at it and A~ is already making plans for a new bathtub surround.

The wall with the built in fridge, Oven and that top thing is a microwave.

We love our giant "Farm Sink"

The bar side of the kitchen with gas cook top.

In the living room, A~ painted and repurposed a credenza from a thrift store and matched it with great new buys for a pretty damn good looking room if I do say so. This is the view from the front door.

View from the dining area adjacent to the kitchen.

This is the view of our property from our bedroom window. The play house is gone now too. Our 2.6 acres goes pretty much all the way back to the treeline you can see on the horizon.

Here's the pasture. The barn on the right is the same small one from middle of the picture above.
The field is planted in a pasture grass that for this year at least I am letting my neighbor harvest for his horses. Building bridges!

This is our Russian olive that's at almose the back of the pasture. We want to make a nice get away sitting area out here at some point to just enjoy being away from stuff and to appreciate the great views.

And  speaking of great views. This is one of my favorite. Taken from our covered porch after a stormy day had cleared and the colors were intense! This is my new happy place!

Well, a picture says a thousand words so... there's about 18000 for you! Hope you like. Talk to you again soon!
P~