#palace updates (in progress)

I continue to neglect this space…and I’m okay with that! Popping in to share a few #palace updates that we’ve been up to….

I posted a few photos from our house in this post, and never managed to add to that view. We’re so grateful that we moved into this beautiful home as renters, and then had the opportunity to buy at the end of last year. We knew that we’d likely make a few small changes, but were relieved that there wasn’t anything that HAD to be done. Dan and I are very clear that we are not DIY home reno people…so we’ve taken our time figuring out what we’d like to update & who we need to hire to make it happen.

Project #1: taking down the half-wall…

We never quite understood the purpose of this half-wall with pass-through that separated the kitchen from the dining room. It wasn’t load-bearing. It didn’t function any real purpose. And so…we had it taken down!

We love the wide open space that was created. The dining room table is more centered in the space…we had moved it to make room for our contractor to work.

Taking the wall out created a few additional needs – a transition between flooring, removing the make-shift “mudroom” wall in the kitchen, and remedying the shelving area that functioned as a pantry.

Dan re-organized the entry closet so that we could remove the shoes/jackets/junk from the garage-to-kitchen entrance. I ordered a simple sideboard to sit along that wall. We pondered having a custom pantry solution built, but ultimately decided to just slide this pantry cabinet in for now.

Project #2 – removing the ceiling from Austin’s room.

I don’t have a ‘before’ picture of this, but I’m sure you can imagine a normal ceiling in a normal room. No big deal, right? Here’s the thing – virtually all of our house has open beam ceilings. Austin’s room was the anomaly.

We weren’t sure exactly what we’d find above that ceiling, but thankfully we only found a bit of old water damage that was easily patched.

With the space created by opening up the ceiling, we wanted to give the room a brighter vibe…so our weekend project has been painting the walls off-white. It makes SUCH a difference!

We still have some details to finish, but we’re confident that we can make it happen before all (four) kids are home for Christmas. I’ll do my best to post pics when we’re done!