Renovation Roadtrip Results

Ooo, all the words in my title started with R!  That is how you BLOG, people!  I wanted to show you all what Meryl and Chris did to our house.  Because, rest assured, I didn't do much but act goofy and take pictures.  Anywho, we originally wanted to tackle our sad storage space of a basement, but we realized that was a can of worms we didn't want to open right now.  So, we turned to a few other smaller projects.  One was installing a new storm door on the door to our deck above the garage.  Here it is the first day we saw the place, with the old storm door laying there against the house:

It has been without a storm door for who knows how long, and the bedroom leading out to the deck was always freezing in the winter.  First we ripped out the existing frame from the old door, it was so rusted the screws kind of crumbled out.

When we pulled out the frame, there were holes left in the rubber membrane roof up here, so we had to fill the voids with some GREAT STUFF!

Then Chris was a genius and got some flashing to cover the rotted parts of the door frame.  

Meryl was official direction-reciter.

In no time at all, that door was up!

Mission accomplished.

Now I just need to scrape and paint the main door.  Ew.

The next thing we needed help with, was those blasted kitchen shelves.  

I put another coat of Deft spray lacquer on the shelves....

...while Chris did some surgery to the brackets

A 1/2in glass and tile bit made some dandy holes in the subway tile for the brackets to be attached with toggle bolts, since this side had no stud.

I almost wept with joy when I saw those brackets getting attached.  

How he managed to get them all lined up perfectly is beyond me, I always mess up even though I measure twice and drill once.  

Beautiful!  

Chris was a genius and picked up these screw covers that can be stained and everything.  

I used the matching stain and also sprayed them with the spray lacquer.  

Before:

After:

After the shelves were done, Chris helped us put a vent cover on the open toe-kick vent beneath the cabinet.  That vent used to freeze the floor with A/C in the summer, so I'm happy to have a way to control it.  

He also put all the switch plate covers on the outlets and switches.  We had lots of areas where the tile needed to be notched out.  If I can't just screw it on, I sort of say 'no thanks' and leave it be.  I'm so grateful all these finishing touches are done!

I'm taking photos of the finished kitchen for the official post right now, that will come later this week.  In the meantime, check out Chris and Meryl's post on their Renovation Roadtrip stop at our house here!  

Thanks so much, guys!