Home Improvements

Since Mark and I have SO much free time on our hands (ha!) we decided it would be a good time to make some improvements to our home. We started by ripping out all the carpet and linoleum in our living room, entry way, and hall. That was almost two months ago... Word to the wise is, don't start a project until you have the time to finish it! Just ask Angie - she had to live thru our ghetto-ness with us while she visited last month. Anyway, we figured as long as the floors were all ripped up, we might as well go for the gold and do whatever else we wanted. So we decied to build a bar from the "window" that leads from our kitchen into our living room. I was actually quite proud of us on this one - neither of us has ANY experience doing anything like this. But one phone call to Mark's dad, and Mark was ready to begin. It wasn't really all that hard. We glued/nailed some plywood together and topped it off with cement board. We hung brackets on the wall to stabilize the bar top, and then screwed the bar into the brackets. Then came the fun part: tiling the bar. It really wasn't that bad either. We still have some finishing touches to add (like a little more grout and a frame around the window) but I think it came out pretty well, all things considered.

Here is a closer look at the bar. It has been really nice to have - we just need to get some bar stools now so it can be completely functional.

And in case you hadn't noticed in the first picture, here is our new floor! We actually started laying it ourselves. We did a great job, but a very SLOW job. We laid about 30 square feet in about 8 hours and 100 curse words before calling a professional to finish the job. Needless to say, I will NEVER attempt something like that again, but I am sure happy with the result. Now we just need to do the bedrooms and we will be good to go.