Kristin & Matt's Fixer-Upper

Dining Room Upgrades

2010-11-17T12:06:00.003-05:00

Here is a before picture, before we did anything in the dining room:

Beautiful Pink, with a very classy light fixture.
For the longest time, this light stayed. We painted, refinished the floors and started adding furniture. The Black dresser in this room was a "free" piece. It was a yellow kids dresser that I painted black and added new hardware.
Here's a view from the kitchen.

We finally got a new light! I got it on sale at Lowes for $22! I waited so long to get something, because i didn't want to spend 100s of dollars on this. This isn't exactly what I wanted, but the price was right.

In the same Lowes purchase, I got the light for the front of the house, online, free shipping!

Bedrooms!

2010-11-12T16:26:00.004-05:00

A while back, this is what Our bedroom looked like. Unfortunately, our antique bed frame broke, so we slept on the mattress on the floor for a little while. We upgraded to a Queen size bed and it is awesome!
I've started hanging things on the walls, slowly, around the house. Picture of daisies with I love you, I love you not picture from my parents for our 1 year anniversary is hanging on the wall over my jewelry storage. A picture from our wedding is on my nightstand.

We have the poster the Tober girls made for our wedding in a frame.
Our new bed! We just bought a bed frame too, updates later.
The upstairs spare bedroom, formerly known as the purple room, isn't much different. Still has the weird door, ugly ceiling fan and no heat. But it doesn't get used that much, except for the closet space and the dresser, for Matt's clothes. Maybe if we had more visitors we would make more of an effort in here.
Bed in upstairs spare room.
Downstairs spare bedroom. I have tons of pictures that need to be hung up, including the picture of the golden gate bridge that Matt and I got on our trip to San Fran in March.
This is the room where Rosco's crate is for now.

We really haven't done much more work to these rooms, just acquiring more "stuff."

Living Room

2010-11-12T16:14:00.003-05:00

Not too long ago, the living room looked like this:
With wrinkly curtains and white sheers in the window seat. And a really uncomfortable futon. We recently rearranged the furniture, got some new bamboo blinds for the front window and a carpet. The pup loves the carpet.

The blinds make it look so much cleaner.
We got a different couch to replace the futon too. Its not the prettiest, but its comfy and it will do for now.
We got this carpet from some friends that were moving. It doesn't fit quite perfectly, but it does the job, its protecting the floors and Rosco likes having a big carpet to lay on. I'd eventually like to get a 8x8 square rug that fits here.

Curb Appeal

2010-11-12T16:02:00.005-05:00

I don't really have any more updated pictures of the front of the house, since I don't really take them that often, and we haven't done much to improve curb appeal, but we recently did a couple things to spruce up the front.I have always hated the aluminum awning over the front door. I think it dates the house and is not needed. Its hard to see it from the straight on view, but you can kind of see it in this pic with my mom watering the garden from last summer.
Well, its allllll gone. After less than an hour, Matt had the awning off, and was ready to power wash the house.

We also got a new light fixture, mail box and house numbers. These pictures were taken at night, but at least it shows the new light fixture.

I'll take some more, when its daylight, so you can see the new bamboo blinds instead of the ugly white sheers in the window.

The Basement

2010-11-05T15:10:00.005-04:00

Started work on the basement a while ago. Here's a really dark BEFORE picture:

Ripped out the old paneling and ceiling
Painted the walls white with paint that seals them. Dad and I got a little loopy from the fumes.

Another view

Starting to paint the floor.

And this is what it looks like now, complete with Tina's sewing machine.
The other side of the basement stairs.

Some areas still need some work, the laundry space.
Still have the red & green plaid carpet on the stairs.Still have some paneling to finish, painting the rest of the floor, organizing the storage area, etc. But its much more clean down there now :)

Over a year in review!

2010-11-02T10:55:00.026-04:00

So much has happened since I last posted over a year ago. I am really bad at keeping up with this, but I had some excuses, such as getting married! Here's a little taste of what has been going on...

Scotty graduated from Alfred University. He's a College Graduate now & he looks so happy.
We went to visit Matt's family for Matthew's 1st birthday party.
Lorelei (6 months) & Matthew (1yr.)
We got married on the most beautiful day in September, 9/12/09!
All the professional pics can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kawunsch/WeddingProPics#
We went to Aruba for our honeymoon & went on an ATV tour of the island and a Snorkeling tour.
We got a puppy a couple days before Thanksgiving from the Smilin Pit Bull Rescue. His name was Finley, but we named him Rosco. He has tons of energy.
Matty & Lauren got married in Baton Rouge, LA on 12/5/09. They had an awesome grooms cake & we got to see lots of friends.
For New Years Eve, we went to 2 parties.
During the holidays, visited with friends :)
I had to go to San Francisco for a conference in March. Matt joined me and we did some sight seeing in Palo Alto, San Francisco & went on a wine tour in Napa Valley. This picture is along the coast, it was pretty chilly.

In May we went back to Syracuse for the 40th Anniversary of the Rugby team. Got to see lots of former teammates and friends & played some rugby in prom dresses.
For the 4th of July we went to visit our friends Michelle and Grizz in Boston.
In August we took our Annual trip to Saranac Lake for the Rugby Tournament. These are some of the guys Matt played with on the Syracuse Alumni team.
We took Rosco and went camping with Sue, Chris, Lorelei, Natalie, Ben, Jeanetta & Kevin. We took a trip to the Renaissance festival.
To celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary, we were planning on going camping, but the weather didn't cooperate. We went to Akron park for a little while until it rained on us. We celebrated a week early, since we were both going to be away the next weekend for rugby. The wedding cake was still delicious after we thawed it.
On Labor day weekend, I broke my jaw in 3 places after I fell off my bike. I had my jaw wired shut for 4 weeks. The wires are off now and I am almost completely healed.
Since I was out for rugby season, I was home for our actual anniversary. We headed up to Beaver Island (where our reception was) to walk around and do some off leash stuff with Rosco since the park is closed for the season.

I had signed up to do the Warrior Dash in March, so I still went (9/18/10) but didn't participate in the race. I am looking forward to it next year. We camped in the Catskills and the rest of the group ran the 3.23 miles and did the obstacle course.

I was really excited right before I got my wires clipped and I could start to eat solid food again.
We recently went to Octoberfest in Ellicottville and rode the ski lift up to the top of one of the slopes at Holiday Valley. The leaves were all changing and the weather was beautiful!
The wires are completely off now and back to eating a regular diet.
For Halloween we dressed Rosco up as a banana.
And we dressed up as lawn gnomes!

So that has been the past year plus a couple months. I am going to try to be better about updating more often. I will post soon with updates that we have done recently on the house.

xoxo
Kristin

Summer Time!

2009-07-24T10:03:00.003-04:00

The garden has filled out from all this rain we have been getting. There is even more flowers blooming since I took this picture last weekend.

The Lilies in the back have started to bloom. They have huge flowers, pink and white.

Green beans, in the vegetable garden
Our vegetable garden: Green beans, eggplant, cucumber, tomatoes, hot peppers, broccoli & onion. The broccoli and green beans seem to grow the fastest. We have some large green tomatoes too.
The garden behind the sun porch.
tomato plants

We are quickly approaching the wedding. I have started a wedding website with details for the wedding http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/KristinWunsch&MatthewSutton

My wedding shower was 2 weeks ago. I had a blast. Many friends and family showed up to celebrate with me. Here are a couple pictures from the shower.The card the Tober's sent me before my wedding shower. They weren't able to make it to the shower because Ali's softball team made it to Nationals! It is a picture of Matt & I on our honeymoon. I framed it and scanned in the notes they wrote on the back.

From Wedding Shower

Matt brought me flowers at the end of the shower. They are the same kinds of flowers that will be in the bouquets for our wedding.

The bridesmaids at the end of the shower, with the beautiful bow bouquet that Lauren made for me :)

From Wedding Shower

Thanks to everyone who came to the shower and we can't wait to see everyone at the wedding! Less than 2 months away!

Gardening

2009-07-19T20:36:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure anyone still reads this blog, but I did plant gardens at our house with my mom around Memorial Day weekend. This is my first attempt at gardening and it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Here are some pictures from before I started.

The back of the house gets much more sun than the front, which is mostly shaded.

This is where the vegetable garden/Matt's farm is now, below are the "crops" we started from seeds.
Here are some pictures from after the garden was planted. The plants have filled out much more since then.Mom watering the garden
The window box planted. It is now hung under the dining room window.
Matt getting ready to cut some branches in the backyard. There are branches hanging over all of the neighbors garages.Matt in the tree. He cut lots of firewood for bonfires too :)

Playing with Jillian outside
This is the dress she will be wearing for our wedding. Less than 2 months away!

I have more pictures to post, hopefully I will do that soon.

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy

2009-04-29T00:25:00.006-04:00

Since Christmas time, We haven't really been working on the house. We have been starting to add things here and there, but its mostly just curtains and furniture. I still don't have the most recent pictures up. Since Rugby season started, and we are both playing and coaching we have had less time to work on the house. Oh and the wedding plans are going pretty well too.

The living room on a sunny day. Since these pictures, we got a "new" couch.

Our bedroomUpstairs spare bedroom

Matt painting my old desk. We are using it as a computer desk now in our room.The guest room. This is where Alex is staying. Got a new bed spread and brought my bed from my childhood over.

We are going to start working on the gardens soon. We plan to have a garden in the front and a veggie garden in the back yard. I'll try to be better about updating this.....

2008-12-19T08:41:00.006-05:00

I can't believe its been a month since I have posted last. It seems like we don't get as much work done on the house since we have been living in it. We started decorating for the holidays, just a few decorations inside the house and an "imported" tree from Matt's family's Christmas Tree farm. We tied it to the top of my car Thanksgiving weekend and drove it back to Buffalo about 200 miles!

Here's the tree! My parents came over to help decorate.

We don't have a mantle to hang our stockings from this year. So this will have to do.
I haven't made any Christmas cookies yet. But both of us were craving some cookies and milk last night, so Matt made peanut butter M&M cookies. Not exactly Christmas cookies, but delicious!

Here's some more general pictures of the house. Starting to put the finishing touches on things.

I have a week off between Christmas and New Years, so maybe I will finally touch up the paint when I'm off. We will be visiting Matt's family on Christmas day and staying for a little while to visit and see Jeanetta's beautiful baby Matthew :)

Happy Holidays!

New Appliances & Countertops!

2008-11-19T08:56:00.019-05:00

The main focus now is getting the kitchen to a point where we can cook and clean up. The countertops were installed last week, but they didn't finish installing all the back splash and the breakfast bar yet, but you can get an idea of what they look like from a few pictures. We bought a new oven and dishwasher and picked them up yesterday. The oven is installed and in working condition. The dishwasher still needs to be hooked up.

New oven, perfect fit. Microwave will be installed above the oven.

Close-up of the counter top. Its called In-depth surfacing, like an acrylic material with the sink built into it.

View from the back door. New dishwasher. There will be back splash between the counter and the breakfast bar.

Microwave has been the only thing we can cook with. The refrigerator will go where the stool and bucket are. There are still 2 cabinets that aren't put back up here from when there was a leak in the pipes.

Dining room, starting to clean up and finish unpacking.

Looking into the kitchen from the dining room

Matt putting the trim over the sink back up.

Matt the plumber

Floor between the kitchen and dining room. My Grandpa made custom transition pieces for us.

Put up a mirror in the bathroom. Not sure if I'll keep this one here, it used to be over our mantle in our apartment on Cleveburn.

New shower curtain from Grandma. New rug: Really ties the room together.

Bathroom has the toilet and vanity back in. Still not hooked up though.

Got a new curtain rod to put up curtains, but didn't get curtains yet, so these don't match. They are from our apartment too.

Hopefully Matt will be able to install the dishwasher and hook up the sink by the end of the week and we will have a working kitchen. I still have some painting to finish up, but the To Do List is getting shorter :)

2 Months after closing & We live in our new house!

2008-11-06T10:46:00.023-05:00

So most of the major projects are done now and we are living in the house. We closed on the house on September 5th and I took pictures on November 5th to compare with the first day we looked at the house. I'll do before and after pictures soon.

Downstairs bedroom: Painted, new molding, floors refinished and repaired.

Downstairs bedroom floor and new molding

Kitchen: New cabinets, new tile floor, painted, walls fixed, half of the wall removed between the dining room.

Coming soon: New plumbing and countertops

Living Room: Painted, floors refinished, New molding

Dining room: Painted, new half wall, floors refinished, new molding
Coming soon: New chandelier!

Hallway: New tile floor, painted

Living room with our furniture moved in.
Matt worked on this while I was away. Still need to do alot of unpacking!

Had to take down 2 of the kitchen cabinets to work on some plumbing to make the plumbing drain faster in the upstairs bathroom :( But we also got an early Christmas present: A new shop vac! Thanks Dad!

The bathroom ceiling after Matt cut open the ceiling and started putting it back up.

Downstairs bathroom: Painted (once, needs to be done over), New tile floor, new light fixture.
Coming soon: Toilet, vanity, new coat of paint and trim.

Kitchen ceiling where it was cut open and the cabinets were taken down. Still wet.

Scott wrote this, when he was helping install the cabinets. Thanks Scott.

Self-explanatory I think

Tile in the kitchen

Unpacking and our makeshift kitchen until we get real appliances.

More kitchen pictures.

Living room: TV is hooked up, but we can't find the remote control or the screws for the stand.

The spare bedroom upstairs, still not unpacked

Our bedroom finally has a bed in it!

Upstairs bathroom: Complete remodel, new walls, ceiling, paint, light fixture, vanity, bathtub, bath fixtures, and floor.

We still have a bunch of stuff to work on, but we can do it little by little as we are living at the house. Maybe we will have a functional kitchen by Thanksgiving :) The countertops in the kitchen are scheduled to be installed November the 13th. We are taking the weekend off, Matt is going to Chicago for Rugby playoffs and I am going to New York City with Lauren for Kim's birthday! Back to working on the house next week.

We're finally in!

2008-11-05T11:34:00.002-05:00

We spent our first night in the new house last night. We have managed to get it to a point where we can live there while we finish working on it. While I was at a conference in Pittsburgh, Matt and my Dad continued to work on the house and start setting up furniture. The tile in the kitchen, hall and bathroom is done. We have ordered our countertops and they should be installed in the next 2 weeks. The living room now has furniture in it, including the TV (with bunny ears, no cable). I know I haven't posted pictures in a while. I will take some tonight to show how much progress we have made in just 2 months.

Happy Birthday Dad!

No new pics....

2008-10-28T09:32:00.003-04:00

We have been having technical difficulties with cameras lately. We have finished tiling the kitchen floor and it is ready to be sealed. I have started unpacking upstairs and we are almost ready to move in! Hopefully any day now.....

Finishing floors and New Baby Matthew

2008-10-21T08:48:00.017-04:00

I have started putting the finishing touches on the bedrooms. I've put up the molding in our bedroom and the downstairs bedroom with the brad gun. It's a lot more fun than painting.

We started working on the tile floor, which will go in the kitchen, bathroom and downstairs hallway. Grandpa and Dad came over to help out with that and to make sure the tiles are level. I placed the whole tiles on Saturday and we are waiting for them to dry to cut the rest of the tile and put those in.

Dad and Grandpa starting out.

Grandpa and I in the hall.

Almost done in the kitchen.

Sideways view of the hallway

Applying the last coat of polyurethane in the dining room.

We also went to see Matt's family in Truxton this weekend. Jeanetta & Kevin came home from Tennessee to show off their new baby boy, Matthew Scott. He's really cute.

Matt & Matthew. They are both smiling in this picture!

Susan and Matthew. I'm sure shes going to be a great mom too!

I didn't get any pictures of the parents holding the baby, but you can look at their blog at http://tnhillbillies.blogspot.com/

This week we will hopefully finish the tile in the kitchen and finish up all the painting. I'll finish putting up all the trim and unpacking boxes!

Cabinets are installed and Fall fun

2008-10-13T10:04:00.035-04:00

This week I finished up most of the painting, still need to do some touching up here and there. The whole upstairs is done, except some minor finishing touches in the bathroom. The downstairs is almost finished, the floors need a little work. The big thing this weekend was the installation of the kitchen cabinets. There's a whole bunch of pictures from that. I'm not really sure why it looks like its snowing in some of the pictures, it was actually a really nice weekend.

Looking in from the back door.

Scott, Dad and Matt contemplating what to do after Matt's rugby game.Hanging the cabinet that goes over the refrigerator.Top cabinets installed

Matt installed all the bottom cabinets

I went to Becker Farms to go apple picking with my family. I wanted to do something "fall-like" and this weekend was supposed to be the prime weekend for fall foliage. I picked enough apples to make applesauce and the little girls loved the farm.Jillian, Alyssa and Alexis

Alexis and Jillian Amanda and Jillian petting the horsey
Jillian's first time apple picking

Alyssa climbing the apple trees.

Jillian and her MimaMe, Alyssa and Amanda after we finished apple picking.

This week I will finish painting the trim and put up the 1/4 round and get the upstairs all clean and ready to start unpacking up there. We are still deciding on a countertop color and tile color for the kitchen. We have to do a little more floor finishing in the living room and dining room. Move in date should be just around the corner......

Its all starting to come together.

2008-10-07T08:39:00.011-04:00

The kitchen has been the major project for the week. The ceiling needed to be fixed and alot of patching up needed to be done around where the beam was put in and in other spots just to make the walls flat and ready to paint. The walls have been primed and we are ready to start painting! The cabinets came in last Thursday and are sitting in our garage waiting to be installed.

My Dad and I

Downstairs bedroom painted. I painted it the same color as the master bedroom upstairs.

One of the cabinets

Matt ripping out the bathroom floor

Many layers of floor

The room formerly known as the purple room.

All the rooms have been painted, except the kitchen. I still have to paint the trim and do some touching up. We should be able to start installing cabinets in the kitchen later this week.

I finally got to do something besides painting!

2008-09-29T09:59:00.016-04:00

We started off the weekend a little early. Matt took a half day to work on the kitchen. I worked on putting the first coat of polyurethane on the floors on Friday. Matt went to Chicago for the weekend for rugby. I put down the second coat on the floors on Saturday morning, and painted the basement with waterproofing paint with my Dad in the afternoon. Sunday, I learned how to put down the floor in the upstairs bathroom and we moved our stuff out of storage and into our basement and garage. Here's some more pics!

My Dad moving stuff around in the garage that my Grandpa spent a lot of time organizing and cleaning up.

Matt and Terry Lee moving stuff.

Bunch of our crap in the freshly painted basement.

Living room, with freshly finished floor.

Downstairs bedroom floor.

Difference between finished and unfinished. Living room and Dining room floors.

The purple room is still purple, but the floor is done.
Our Bedroom painted, before the floor was finished

Our bedroom freshly painted and floor done.

Upstairs bathroom.

Bathroom floor, Dad taught me how to do it.

Kitchen and dining room are still a mess.

The cabinets are supposed to be delievered some time this week. All of our stuff is moved to the house, once the kitchen is in working condition, we will be able to move in!

Leftovers from the weekend

2008-09-23T09:58:00.007-04:00

Here are some pictures that were on Matt's camera before the battery died from this weekend. They are a little bit out of order.

Scott inspecting the project.

Starting to tear down the wall between the kitchen and dining room.

Scott pulling up the layers and layers of linoleum and plywood

Kitchen Floor

Starting to tear down the cabinets in the kitchen.

Lots of help this weekend!

2008-09-22T09:19:00.025-04:00

This past week we didn't get much done after Monday when Matt finished sanding all the floors in one day. We've also been having some camera trouble, since all the cords that go with my camera are in storage. Scott came home from school to help demolish the kitchen and Matt's parents came to help knock out the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Here's a couple pictures of what our kitchen looks like now (not much like a kitchen at all).

Starting to build up the wall again.

Matt and his Dad.

The new beam where the wall used to be.

Matt's Mom and his sister Natalie helping out.

The only thing left in the kitchen, the sink and part of the counter top.

I painted the bathroom upstairs and started painting one of the upstairs bedrooms. Natalie and Ben painted the basement walls. My brother and Dad helped rip up the floors in the kitchen and ripped out all the cabinets and helped with a bunch of other stuff.

Primed...

First coat of paint.
Basement walls painted.
Picked up a washer and dryer this weekend.

It's starting to come together. We get the cabinets for the kitchen late this week or early next week. Until then, there is still lots of painting to do and lots of prep work in the kitchen, like wiring and stuff. We appreciate all the help that we have been getting!

Weekend Progress: working around rugby games

2008-09-15T09:38:00.014-04:00

This weekend we got more accomplished than I expected since we both played Rugby this weekend (Matt at home vs. Detroit and I played in Detroit). We still managed to get some more painting and bathroom work done.

The Living Room. Not too sure how I like this color. It turned out darker than I expected. What do you think?

The Sunroom with the Adirondack chairs Scott made along with the patio furniture my Dad "found."

The downstairs bathroom with new light fixture up.

New Bathtub

We now have the drywall all up in the bathroom and we its ready to be sanded and painted. We are going to take a break from painting and the bathroom and work on refinishing the floors this week.

First week of progress

2008-09-11T13:47:00.000-04:00

Almost a weeks worth of work on the house....

We are getting somewhere. There was lots of destruction in the first couple days. The first thing that had to be done was to rip out all the paneling in the basement since it was moldy. The upstairs bathroom was completely demolished including the ~500lb bathtub.

From Kristin & Matt's Fixer-Upper

Matt & my dad did a good job demolishing the bathroom. Matt is standing in the spot where the bathtub used to be.

Plumbing and electric need to be redone. Matt is almost done with that.

Look the tub is in!

The 2 upstairs bedrooms double as workspace.

I started painting. The brownish room is the dining room which used to be bright pink. The greenish blue room is the half bathroom downstairs which used to be light blue. Still have alot more painting to go, but all the downstairs rooms, besides the kitchen are ready to be painted.

Stairway to basement. Red Shag carpet removed from the walls and ceilings. There is still red and green plaid carpet on the stairs. Bare walls, without moldy paneling. Almost dry basement.

The kitchen is full of at least 4 toolboxes and lots of paint, nothing kitchen related.

Sunroom has lots of miscellaneous stuff, but most importantly a fridge!

Hopefully we can get some work done this weekend. We need to get the floors refinished before we move in.

305 Springville: We Finally Got It!

2008-09-11T13:27:00.000-04:00

We finally closed on our house last friday! Michelle suggested I start a blog to document our progress. Check back for pictures!

Here are some "before" pictures from when we first looked at the house.

So it's kind of rough around the edges, but with some TLC we can make it our own.