Monday, June 16, 2014

Making Old Things New by Merrillee Whren

To piggy back on a recent post by Aileen Fish and Melinda Curtis, I'm going to give you a peek at my remodeling project. Unlike Aileen and Melinda, I am not a do-it-yourself person when it comes to major renovations. A year ago, I was in the middle of this mess.
The photo shows my kitchen minus the cabinets, appliances and tile. We lived that way for over two months. Thankfully, my daughter lives nearby and had us over for dinner many nights. Below you can see parts of the original kitchen layout.
 We hired someone to paint the walls after we decided we didn't want to be up on tall ladders. Here is one area that was painted.
Next we had the same people who tore out the tile install the hardwood floors. Here is the work in progress.
Then the cabinetmakers installed the cabinets minus the doors. The doors were supposed to be installed after the granite counter tops to avoid having the granite installers scuff the doors. As it turned out, a miscommunication had them all there on the same day. Thankfully, the installation went forward without any problems. Below is a photo of the cabinets without doors.
Here is a final look at the kitchen.
Whether you do it yourself or hire it done. Remodeling isn't for the faint of heart. We not only remodeled the kitchen, but we did three bathrooms, too. We are now enjoying our new kitchen and baths. The do-it-yourself portion of this project, painting the laundry room, is still yet to be done. I have it scheduled for when I finish my current three-book contract. The writing comes before the painting.

In my latest book, A Place to Call Home, my heroine is in the middle of a remodeling project although her kitchen is already done. Have you engaged in a big remodeling project?




Merrillee Whren is an award-winning author who writes inspirational romance. She is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award for best inspirational romance manuscript presented by Romance Writers of America. She has also been the recipient of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence. She is married to her own personal hero and makes her home in the Arizona desert. When she’s not writing or working for her husband’s recruiting firm, she spends her free time playing tennis or walking while she does the plotting for her novels.







14 comments:

  1. What a wonderful change! I have a soffit like that in my kitchen too (as I took down a flourescent fixture) and I painted it different color--orange!

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  2. Your kitchen is beautiful, Merrillee. Aren't remodeling projects great -- when they're over? I've never done a major remodeling, but I've certainly done many smaller ones including scraping popcorn ceilings, plastering, and then painting them. Hate that popcorn stuff.

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  3. What a beautiful result! I love the before and after. We are currently in the midst of remodeling a bathroom. Ran into one small snag that has stalled us. Mr. Curtis installed a new toilet - which was too high to fit beneath a banjo countertop after we installed tiled floors. Too bad we didn't notice before we installed the toilet. Can't put the lid on.

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  4. It's gorgeous, Merrilee! I'm getting ready to try laminate flooring and love how yours turned out.

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  5. Wow! What a make-over. Cool! We have some like that planned, but haven't gotten there yet. Kudos for seeing it through. Looks lovely.

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  6. Patricia, thanks. Popcorn ceilings are something I wouldn't want to tackle. That had to be messy.

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  7. Mel, thanks. Every little change can result in a new problem. We ran into problems in the one bathroom because of the placement of the light switch, but we managed to work around it.

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  8. Aileen, thanks. I love the flooring. It is so much nicer under the feet than the tile. It gives the house such a warm look, too.

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  9. Thanks, Margaret. If you lived in Arizona, I can recommend the people who did ours. We were very pleased with all the people we hired.

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  10. Ginny, thanks. We interviewed a lot of people before we decided who to go with. That was a major part of the project, finding the right people. We also went around and looked at model homes for inspiration.

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  11. Loving all these before and after stories. I love your kitchen, and the flooring is gorgeous.

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  12. Not for the faint of heart. But a gorgeous result! Strangely enough, both the heros in my last and in my forthcoming books are remodeling or building homes. I didn't intend for it to be that way. You know how those characters can sometimes march right up to you and tell you that's what they're going to be doing whether you like it or not ...

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