Laundry Room June 2014

My dream had always been to make our second floor laundry room AWESOME, and in 2014 we decided to go ahead with it.  Previously, our washer and dryer were housed in a closet within the room, which never made much sense to me.  There is a door from the hallway to the laundry room already, so why hide the machines even further?  It's a laundry room, they are meant to be in there!  Also, since we have front loaders, I really liked the idea if elevating them for easy access.  We also needed to have some sort of pan under the machines, being on the second floor.  Another thing I always wanted in a laundry room was a slate floor.  We ended up going with ceramic tile that had a slate appearance.  This was the last job that our contractor Brian did on the house- we miss him, he did great work!  And of course Francesco did the tile work, and built the step for the washer and dryer.  I found Francesco back when we renovated the boys' bathroom, and he has done TONS of jobs for us since- he is a true tile artist, straight off the boat from Sicily.

BEFORE pic-

Former location of the sink-

(Not pictured: coral/orange formica countertop!)

Work in Progress

Finished!

It's a gorgeous place, as it should be, considering how much time I spend in there!

March 2018! Holy Crap!

I haven't blogged since 2015- oy vey!  Since then, much has happened, both with the house and with our family!  After some bumps in the road, we welcomed a daughter, Emerson Jane, on April 19, 2017.  She is a dream come true and completely meant to be in our family.

We've also done TONS of house stuff! (shocker)  I don't even know where to start.  I guess the pool is a good place, as it was done in Spring of 2015.

The pool was ancient and crumbling.  Tiles were falling off, the bullnose edge was cracking, we had leaks, etc.  We also had a useless "spa" off to the side that we never used and never planned to use, so we decided to get rid of it.  Our pool deck was cracking concrete, so we ripped it out, as well as the backyard walkway leading up to it.  It was a massive, annoying, expensive project, but came out really beautifully.

But first, Emerson!

Ok now the pool project:

Finally, in JULY!  The project took 3 months total.

January 2013- Mud Room

We enter our house 99% of the time through our garage, which is off the kitchen.  Right when you walk in from the garage, there is a small mud room with cabinets, a sink, and an extra "beverage" refrigerator.  There is also access to the backyard through the mud room.  It's a great little room, perfect for kitchen overflow, pets, and of course, mud, boots, and coats!  Everything was very old in this room- laminate cabinets, an ancient (HUGE) refrigerator, the exterior door.  I had always dreamed of putting cubbies for the kids in this space, and in the winter of '13, it became a reality.

Before pics of the mud room:

And after demolition:

New cabinets going in:

(The black paint on the right side of the above picture is both magnetic and chalkboard paint, I painted one on top of the other.  It took many many coats to become effective, but works great!)

Cubbies going in (Brian the carpenter built them):

Fall 2012- Office

Right after Holden was born, in September of 2012, we decided to update our "office", the room right off the foyer, opposite the dining room.  Prior to this it contained a large desk and sports memorabilia on the walls.  We knew we one day wanted to make the basement really nice, and decided that all the sports stuff could go down there, and we could make the office a nice, comfortable, attractive "sitting" room.  I don't have pictures of what it looked like before we started taking everything down, but these are the "befores" once the reno was in progress:

And once the paint was finished:

The color is Benjamin Moore "Kangaroo", which is also the color in Cooper's room.

And this is the room today:

I framed the kids' pictures myself!  Rug and window panels are from Pottery Barn.  Furniture is from Jordan's.

Welcome Baby Holden!

In August 2012 we welcomed baby Holden James Hamel.  He's 2.5 now and the funniest, most loving little guy!

Cool pic I took at Christmas this year, December 2014.

Spring 2011- TV/Toy Room

I just realized I forgot a major renovation from the spring of 2011!  It wasn't major in terms of work involved, but it was major in that it went from being a room we rarely used to a room we spend a large amount of time in now!  Behold, the converted drinking game/useless junk room becomes...the TV/playroom!  I've mentioned this room in the past on the blog, it's off the back of the house and connected to the living room by 2 sets of French doors.  It's fully heated, has lots of great windows, and other nice touches like a chair rail and crown molding.  It also had a tile floor, which, before we had children, made it the perfect indoor beer pong/flip cup room.  We had lots of fun during parties in there.  It has speakers that connect to our sound system too.  The room before the reno:

In order to make it a comfy TV and toy room, it needed carpet, paint, and to lose those ancient Roman shades.  We were able to have carpet installed right on top of the tile, and our carpenter Brian built an amazing corner window seat/toy box in one corner.  It's seats flip up to access the toy boxes, and I had cushions made to fit it's unique dimensions.  We had the room painted and had a TV mounted on one wall, and purchased a sectional from Bob's Discount Furniture.  It's a great room, and keeps all of the kids' toys in one place.

The room furnished and completed:

And the room today: