It has been nearly a year since we purchased this house and I've done a very poor job of keeping up with the documentation of the changes!

I'm quite possibly the most pathetic home restoration blogger. I take a lot (A LOT) of photographs! However, it will never be ready for a photo shoot so here goes, I'm throwing my fantasy of having a spotless home out the window, and I'm going to document this beauty as a lived in home.

First up - the end of the brick saga - you remember, the way the brick appeared when we purchased the house?

After a failed attempt at soda blasting (brick just crumbled) and an attempt at citrus stripping (which worked, but would have taken a year... we painted them (ahem, Jarrod painted them).

 And unless you are right up on the brick, you wouldn't be able to tell they had been painted. WIN!

Walls and Windows

We have been hard at work ripping out the many layers of wallpaper in the kitchen. In retrospect, it may have been easier to just have a plaster dude come in and plaster right over the wallpaper, but the journey through the layers certainly brings us a bit closer to the history of the house.

This is the in-process shot of the kitchen wallpaper removal. 

The bottom layer of wallpaper appears to be a faux brick pattern with vines. Likely this was the original paper in the kitchen. The red is my favorite (matches the floor!) It appears that they removed most of this paper prior to installing the lovely fruit print.

 

We managed to remove all of the curtains from the breakfast nook and kitchen revealing this amazing bank of windows. I need to get in there first thing in the morning for a bright and sunny shot, but this gives an idea. You can also sort of see the major damage to the plaster under the nook window from removing the fake wood paneling. Such a shame. We can't decide if we need to get new window coverings for this space. Depends on how much time we plan to spend naked in the kitchen, I suppose?