Posted in Home, Home Improvement, Living, tagged Christmas card and home update on December 14, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of the Appreciating Life Up North readers.
We have a lot to be thankful for as 2009 comes to a close. It was the year of “the house” with endless remodeling. Can you believe that a year ago, our house looked like this?
Isn’t it just amazing how far [...]
Posted in Home Improvement, tagged http://appreciatinglifeupnorth.wordpress.com, Let there be light on November 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Happy Thanksgiving! Our crockpot turkey meal (a completely new kitchen coming soon… with an oven!) will be shown off in all it’s glory under the new dining room chandelier that David installed. We like this brushed nickel model because of it’s simplicity. We also wanted to be able to enjoy the bay window without a [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, tagged area rug, Getting comfy in the living room on November 25, 2009 | 7 Comments »
It’s all icing on the cake from here! Now that David is finishing up some of the baseboard and window trim projects (don’t get me wrong, we still have many painting hours ahead of us), it’s been extremely rewarding to see the house unfold. A living room rug really grounds the space and makes it [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, tagged doors, http://appreciatinglifeupnorth.wordpress.com, recycle, reduce, reuse, We're re-using..., window trim on November 24, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Part of the charm of an old house is, well… just that, it’s old. We really liked the character of the old doors and woodwork, so we put it in a safe place during the renovation and now David is re-hanging the 1880’s doors and window trim. How cool!
As you can see, the old doors [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, tagged cast iron radiator, paint radiator, radiator, repaint cast iron radiators, that's totally rad: radiator rehab on November 12, 2009 | 2 Comments »
We enjoy the constant and even heat from our radiators, but they were seriously in need of some major TLC.
First off, we needed to clean the radiators. There were years of dust bunnies built up in all of the nooks and crannies.
I used two types of wire brushes and an old toothbrush.
It was a lot [...]
Posted in Home Improvement, tagged baseboard, diy, Home Improvement on October 22, 2009 | 3 Comments »
David’s nail gun has been putting in some overtime and the Victorian-style baseboard is going up. The floor trim includes 3 parts- the baseboard, corner pieces and shoe moulding. We think the 3 piece baseboards work in harmony and add an attractive and cohesive look.
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, tagged birch cabinets, custom cabinets, kitchen cabinets, kitchen remodel, warden's point woodworking on October 12, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It’s been a long time coming. Here are a few pics of how the space is shaping up. Our friend Scott, who owns Warden’s Point Woodworking, is building our lovely kitchen cabinets. Pictured below are the beginnings of the peninsula area. There will be a raised breakfast bar off the back of the peninsula row. [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, How To, tagged dining room, finishing hardwood flooring, Get Floored: Part III, hardwood flooring in living room, hardwood floors, hickory, Hickory flooring, how to install hardwood floors, install hardwood floors, kitchen, living room, natural hickory floors, water based sealer on August 20, 2009 | 6 Comments »
David has been toiling away at finishing the new hardwood floors in our 100+ year-old house. Originally, we were hoping to find wonderful flooring underneath the layers of carpeting and tile, but sadly, that wasn’t the case. So, we had to buy new flooring and decided on Natural Hickory. We really wanted to choose a North American hardwood [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, How To, tagged dining room, hardwood flooring in living room, hardwood floors, hickory, Hickory flooring, how to install hardwood floors, install hardwood floors, kitchen, living room, natural hickory floors on July 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »
We rented the flooring nailer again and completed the installation of the Hickory hardwood flooring. The nailer attached to a small air compressor and made the job much easier than using the older, non-compressed nailers. Near walls and in tight spots where we didn’t have enough room to use the nailer, David used a regular nail gun (again attached to [...]
Posted in Home, Home Improvement, How To, tagged dining room, hardwood flooring in living room, hardwood floors, hickory, Hickory flooring, how to install hardwood floors, install hardwood floors, kitchen, living room, natural hickory floors on July 16, 2009 | 6 Comments »
We actually got down on our knees and began installing the Hickory hardwood floors last weekend. David’s friend, Scott, came over to help give us the boost and moral support to start the big job. We had completed the floor prep work some time ago and had been walking over flooring bundles for weeks!
We rented a nailer [...]
Appreciating Life Up North is a look into my interests and love of life in Traverse City, Michigan. I aspire to live simply, support local businesses, embrace ‘green’ living and try to enjoy every minute of it.
