Remodeling has begun

So the remodeling of our condo has begun .... we spent 3 days last week (well, let's be honest here - my dad came in and spent 3 days) going through an insane checklist - of which we accomplished about 1/3 of it... hahaha... But the good news is that we have plenty of time since this is OUR place... That's what I have to keep reminding myself.

I think the moment I finally realized it was ours was not when I signed an insane amount of my life away to the bank for the mortgage... it wasn't when we got our first set of keys or when we refinished the floors (which look awesome by the way)... it was most definitely when I bought my first appliance (a dishwasher) and when we did our first demolish (the cabinets you will see below).

A lot of the "before" pictures you can see from my previous post. I apologize for the fact that I have about a million pictures (only a handful of which are posted here) and our new dishwasher might need to be in its own post since I apparently haven't taken a picture with my actual camera - only the camera phone. Please bear with me as I show you some of the renovations that we have been working on over the last week and some descriptions of what else we are thinking of... hopefully you enjoy. :)

These are our cabinets above our peninsula that are going to be shortly ripped out.. I'm sure our upstairs neighbors were very pleased when it was over. Hopefully we have not made enemies too quickly!!

The cabinets are gone - only the soffit remains!!!!

All the "stuff" that my dad brought with him... we pretty much could have built a new condo I think, but it was definitely better to be safe than sorry - and I'm pretty sure he ran into some crazy snags that it was a good idea to have as much as we had... :)

Soffit is gone!!! We now have a clear view of our dining and living room from our kitchen. I had NO idea how much I would love it.. but honestly, as soon as those cabinets were gone, it just felt so amazing in there!!

Hahaha... I just thought this was funny! We are in the process of installing little metal racks to hold the baking sheets and stuff so they don't have to be stacked. An ingenious invention I assure you.

A new light in our hallway on the way to the bathroom... No more boob-lights here!!! (Alright, we have 2 more, but we have lights to replace them so they won't last for too long!!)

Our sweet new bathroom light. We put one in our master and one in our guest bathroom... They are so much better than the ones we had in there before. Ikea has been amazing!

It may not be exciting, but a shower rod is pretty awesome - especially since now I feel like I can turn on the lights at night and not have our neighbors be able to see through the glass brick. :)

The hole from where the soffit was in the kitchen has been filled (with multiple layers of drywall and expanding foam).... and it's starting to look like a real ceiling. Not to mention we now have an outlet so we can hang some pendant lights over the peninsula.

Our old dishwasher... We got a new GE that is clean steel (won't smudge like stainless, but still looks pretty). I apparently didn't take a picture of our new one - so that will have to come in a later post... But, I will spoil the surprise and let you know that it's quiet and pretty and gives me great hopes for how wonderful our kitchen will be!

A glimpse into our living room before we put up our mantle (also from Ikea)...

Post mantle (and with the new TV... life is looking so 2D now that we have the 3D.. okay, it looks like real life).... One day we will get rid of the blue wall AND the 12" green marble tile around the fireplace. That is for a different day....

Our new couch (matching love seat and orange chair to be following in about 3 weeks)... with our color coordinated bookcase behind (thanks Chris!!)... Don't be fooled, the boxes are in the spare bedroom... hahaha.. we did NOT unpack that quickly.

Our house set up for company. John's parents, sister, and grandma came for dinner and so we had to make it look as presentable as possible. I think we did a pretty good job. Our new dining table worked great for 6 people.. and with the space we can keep it up a lot more than we used to on Fremont.

The one thing I can take a picture of that John and I did, sans help from my dad... hahaha... yeah, you're impressed... We don't charge much if you need help in your home!

Our previous living room TV mounted in our bedroom. If you think it seems excessively large for a bedroom, you are probably right... but it still looks great!

Our new shelves in our spare bathroom. Right now thy are storing our paint that we will be using on our trim and walls in the living room and dining room and kitchen.

John hanging out in our kitchen.. if you look closely you can catch a glimpse of that new dishwasher to his left.... We had a lot of dishes to put away - still have a lot of dishes to put away...

Just a general picture of our living room. Where the white shelves are we have some new black shelves (Ikea) that we are going to put up which will clean that area up a lot. We will also be putting the wires behind the wall so that they don't show... It will be wonderful.

So yeah - just the beginning of what we are doing. Hopefully it looks like we are starting to come up with a vision and a plan that everyone can see. The next step will be painting, putting up and/or replacing ceiling fans.. some more light fixtures, and just some general updates. We were able to repurpose the cabinets from the kitchen over the washer and dryer which is fantastic. It really just made everything look so much more clean and less cluttered in there. It was great. We also replaced the broken faucets in both bathrooms so we are starting to have everything working!!!! Ohhhh and we have an ice maker! How exciting is that? (and a garbage disposal... my first here in Chicago... it takes a backseat to having a coat closet though.. who knew that Chicago didn't think those should come standard?)

Alright... I guess that's it for now - but I will keep you all (all 2 of you) updated with our future home improvements and the adjustments we are facing with having a mortgage (yikes!)...