Before and after french doors

The two sets of french doors on both levels have been removed.  Now the kitchen and living room are opened to each other as well as the old upstairs deck which is now opened to the master suite. 

Wall down beam up...

The studs are gone, the support beam is up, and so far doing its job keeping the second floor on the second floor :)  Before and after.

For Where Art Thou Color...

I have discovered the 'Martha Living' paint brochure at Home Depot which takes all of the guessing out of compatible and harmonic color matching in deciding the color palette of house's interior and exterior color scheme for you.  This is a serious time saver and incredibly helpful to to this already overwhelmed Fugly House short sale purchaser whom owns two little hyperactive boys and one infant.  Trying to wrench a 20 foot long shopping cart representing a large orange double seater Nascar with two unwieldy screaming boys in a store is a full blown nightmare.  Yes I am that parent- the one that succumbs to the begging of 'mommy pleeaase can we ride in the car?' And I end up taking out the end-cap displays because the cart's turning radius does not work.  Oh, and our chosen cart never has working restraining straps so the orange vested elf helpers are always mentioning that my hairless monkeys should sit down so as not to crack their skulls on the sealed concrete floor, and, 'oh- I didn't know there was a circus in town?'.

Back to Martha....thank you Ms. M for making color choices easier for me, thus not traumatizing the local HD shoppers and employees with our family's prolonged presence.  I am also grateful I did not have to dig up my old color wheel and try and remember what I had learned in college.  Martha's handy dandy paint palette brochure has a color key where all of the paint chips have their individual names as well as a symbol for their represented 'hue' family for easy color coordination or contrast.  And for the Ms. M obsessed you can follow your chosen colors' symbol and purchase coordinating carpets and drapes.  There are six symbols/ color families to choose from.  My only nit pick is that it would have been nice to have a 'map legend' for the brochure explaining the six color groupings, warms vs. grays, etc...

Currently I am leaning towards the astrix group with colors such as Potters Clay, Cappuccino, Wild Turkey, Bedford Gray, Caraway Seed, and Whetstone Gray.  With maybe a couple of accent furniture pieces in Cornflower Blue. 

Windows with Sol

The windows are almost all framed in.  Temperature wise the house is like a walk in freezer.  Most of the time the outside air temp is much warmer. 

Both the french doors have been removed opening up the upstairs master bedroom as well as the french doors separating the living room and old outside deck area downstairs too.  I am really hoping the look/layout will be cohesive and not look like cardboard shanty amateur night on hobo hill. 

The load bearing beam has been installed and the last remaining studs have been removed opening up the kitchen to the future living room.  *will add pics of that later

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Oh, yeah the windows are being installed today! 

Which Wood Would a Woodchuck Choose?

Due to the hydronic heat flooring we were limited in our wood floor choices.  We primarily focused on the floating easy click system flooring options which will not buckle or become totally destroyed over time from the radiant heat.  So, da dat ta da.... Hand Scraped 'Potomac Plank' from Lumber Liquidators.  We checked their web site every weekend and pounced when there was a price drop, plus 15% off.  Woohoo!  The new wood floors will be a medium warm brown, not too light, or too dark.  This will be the new flooring for both floors and bedrooms (the thought being that we'll have throw rugs in place and when the boys ruin them they can easily be tossed out).  Our next big decision is choosing tile for the kitchen and hall entryway, and then paint colors, bathroom/kitchen fixtures, garage doors, etc. etc. etc.   **the wood sample has been used as a drink coaster for several weeks now and I have pounded various hot wheel vehicles into it to see how it holds up.  Surprisingly, the smaller indentations rather add to the rustic handscraped look.  If a major gouge ever did occur, a black sharpie touch-up would add more rustic charm in going along with the handscraped look.  That is the hope anyway :-)