The upper cabinets are finished

 After playing around with the upper cabinets I decided I liked the open shelves on the outside.That makes the doors open backwards from normal but I am going with it anyway. I found a wood scrap from a previous project with a nice shape to use as the separator between the cabinets. Rather than a range hood I'm planning to use a photo of a vintage wall mounted fan.

I also made the counter tops a bit more gray to give more contrast between the counters and the wallpaper. I may have a finished kitchen to show later today. The current project is turning thin birch ply sheets into knotty pine paneling. I should have something to write about later, anyway. :-)

Early morning progress

It's a white out...

Or at least it was for a short time in the Westville. I got rid of the dreary colors and dirt with a couple of coats of Gesso in both lower level rooms then got started on the kitchen. I made great progress today.

 Even with one window boarded up the kitchen looks ten times brighter. The ceiling had never been painted and the staircase was left the plain plywood color with no sealer or anything on it. The wood was so dry it just soaked up the paint.

 Please excuse the blue tape. The living room bay was falling off. I don't have photos but the porch had some demolition work done today, too. After some research, I am excited about the exterior now. I don't know what I'm going to do with the living room floor but I am currently leaning towards knotty pine on all the walls. (I know - what am I thinking?) It's a lot of work but it's appropriate for the time period and I think it will look really cool.I love the knotty pine I did in the wall house that represents my inlaws home.

 I love the kitchen! Once I get the upper cabinets and shelves in place with a range hood the large expanse of busy wallpaper will be toned down. I am pleased with how bright and cheerful this room is. I plan to make some gingham valances or cafe curtains for the three windows. I got some canned goods from hubby for Christmas but I will need to make more food to fill up that pantry.

The dining nook has white washed plank flooring. The replacement windows look good, too. I was pleased to find three window frames that survived the demolition. That made at least that part go quickly.

Tomorrow we are helping our daughter and her family move so I won't be doing any mini work. I will get back to it next week. Have a wonderful weekend, my friends!

While Hubby's Away, I Get to Play...With the Dollhouse

 Today was very productive, at least in the Sherwood house. (I did go to work then come home and run and unload the real dishwasher and make dinner so all was not lost in the real world, lol.) Sometime last summer my husband found some nice sized pieces of very thin tree bark that he thought I might be able to use. I chopped them into nice plank size using my paper cutter. I glued them in place and weighted them down with cookbooks while they dried. Then I sanded them down and put a light coat of matte Mod Podge on the floor to seal it. It looks great! I also finished the hall window - although what possessed me to wait until all the walls were in place before putting the trim on, I'll never know. I'm glad my hands aren't any larger or the window would just be trim less.

 The master bedroom may be my favorite so far. My carpet piece wasn't quite large enough to cover the entire lumpy floor so I laid more of my plank flooring around the outer edge of the floor and fastened the carpet down in the middle. No more ugly zebra felt! I am changing out the windows as I go. The ones original to the house were in really bad shape. These look a bit more contemporary as if the Sherwoods replaced all the windows as they redecorated their home. This room has the new windows and trim and all the baseboard in. I need to make nightstands and then add artwork and accessories so it looks like they really live here. The decor is fairly traditional except for the colors and bedroom set. I'm very happy with the drapes and cornice.

I got a start on the kitchen, too. The pantry shelves are in place and I did some work on the stairs. No pictures of that yet because it's still really ugly. I have to think on that problem some more. At least I have the gaps filled and the steps no longer move. That's progress, I guess.

Hubby has quartet practice tomorrow evening so I will have time to work on the kitchen. I'm still pondering about the living room. The interior is coming together very nicely. I hope I'm as happy with my brick exterior as I am so far with the inside. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned for more progress.

Davy's Room

 This room is mostly finished now. I still need to do baseboard, glue the door in place, and add a lamp, ceiling fixture, and toys and books and other little boy things.

This photo is without the door so you can see the window shutter. I decided on that rather than a curtain. I think I will add a small bookcase at this end of the room on the door wall. There's not really room for a desk but I can fit a bookcase in here.

The cowboy wallpaper came from Jennifer's Printables.

Snow Day Equals Play Day!

 With a combination of cutting and prying I was finally able to get the dreaded zebra felt up. A round of sanding with the palm sander made it smooth enough to work with.

 Next up was the bathroom. Here it is without the walls so you can see that I decorated it and added the essentials like a towel and toilet paper - even though once the walls are installed no one will ever see anything but a glimpse of the bathroom. I'm just going to have to pretend that there's a tub or shower in there, too. ;-)

 Here it is with the walls installed.

This is all you can see now. I'm still glad I made an actual bathroom, though.

Hopefully I will have more to share later today. I'm doing laundry, too, so I can play guilt-free, lol.
I love snow days!

A Makeover Story

The dinette set got a small makeover this afternoon. The chairs were much too wide and they'd been bugging me since I "finished" them. So I did some cutting, sanding, and repainting and they look much more in scale. I also added just a bit of pink to the table top and trimmed and evened up the table feet. I think I'm truly finished with it this time.