Yesterday, Monday was clean the dining room. Since we had a Super Bowl Party on Sunday we had already vacuumed and cleaned, so there was not much to do.

You will also notice that I primed all the walls in our dining room/living room on Saturday. We are finally moving along with our home renovations. Hopefully, I'll be able to show all of you the full transformation soon.

Here is the before and after.

Before

After

Last week I showed you how we started our living room/dining room/hall project by tearing down the wall in between the living room and dining room.

This weekend we continue the project with more demo by taking down the rest of the wallpaper in the living room and most of the wallpaper in the hall. This time it was only myself and Aaron so it was slow going but, we did make considerable progress.


By the end of Saturday we had one wall in the hallway done and started on the finishing the living room, (this weekend we did not start until 11am, we wanted to sleep in a little this weekend). We stopped at around 5pm.

Sunday, we started again, working from 11am to about 3pm. We finished the living room and most of the second wall in the hall. The hall that is adjacent to the living room/dining room had the same wallpaper as the living room, which had been painted over and plastered over in certain parts which made it harder to take down than regular wallpaper.

When we stopped at 3pm, we went on a cleaning rampage because the dust was driving me crazy.

Later this week I'll be able to finally show off the finished bathroom, stay tuned.

Sunday the 16th,

1:30pm, Lunch is now finished and my Mom, me and Aaron's Mom and my Grandmother are back to taking the wallpaper off the living room walls. This was quite the job because they had primed and painted over the wallpaper.
Aaron and his Dad are off to Home Depot again for more supplies and my Dad is starting to work on completing the fake beam and start the finish work on the two posts at either end of the beam.

2:30pm, Aaron and his Dad are back from Home Depot and join in, in helping my Dad with the finish work.


4pm, We are still working on the wallpaper, the beam and posts are now installed and they begin to work on the threshold between the two rooms.


5pm, They complete the threshold and we call it quits on the wallpaper till next weekend and clean up.

I will keep posting all our adventures in home renovation as they happen, stay tuned.

Sunday the 16th

Wake up 7am

8am, Aaron and my Dad off to Home Depot to get more supplies, while I finish taking the wallpaper down in the dining room and more clean up.

10am, Aaron and my Dad are back from Home Depot we unload the supplies and start figuring out what needs to get done.

10:30am, Aaron and my Dad install the new digital thermostat and myself and my Mom start taking down the wallpaper in the living room.

11am, Aaron and my Dad close up the door way and install the thermostat on the new drywall. We installed this on the drywall because we have a guy coming this week to assess the heating system.


12pm, Aaron's parents arrive and Aaron's Dad helps the guys start building the fake beam that is going to divide the two spaces.


1pm, The fake beam is partially installed, time to break for lunch.

Check back in tomorrow for Tear Down the Wall, Day 2: Part 2

Here is what we got accomplished on Saturday the 15th, Part 2.

After eating lunch, 1pm
I started taking down the wall paper in the dining room. My Mom came over and helped and by 4pm we had almost all the wallpaper in the dining room done.



Aaron, my Dad and my brother worked on taking out the door frame from the dining room and started to prep the space for drywall.



Saturday the 15th, 4pm
End of the day,
Aaron and my Dad cap off the electrical that was in the wall,
Aaron made a list of what we needed to buy at Home Depot on Sunday and we did a little clean up. It was a long day in the heat and humidity.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Tear Down the Wall, Day 2: Part 1

This past weekend we tackled our "tearing the wall down" project in between the living room and dining room. We had a load of help from my parents, my grandmother, my brother and Aaron's parents.

Saturday 15th: 8am
Here are what the rooms looked like before it all started.

Saturday 15th: 10am
Aaron and my Dad have taken off the moldings and started to ripe out the wall board.


Saturday 15th: 10:15am
They have now gotten almost all the wall board off and are ready to start removing the studs.

Saturday 15th: 10:30am
Here go the studs.


Saturday 15th: 11:00 am
Here is what the project looked like by the time that they broke to take the debris to the dump and eat some lunch.



Come back tomorrow for Tear Down the Wall, Day 1: Part 2.

Having a romantic candle lite Valentine's Day dinner at home is a great way to save money while creating great memories to share with your loved one. I'll show you how to set a romantic atmosphere at the dinner table.

1. Start with a nice set or glass or white plates they can be dressed up for any occasion, which saves you money in the long run.
2. Use a red plate charger to liven up your plate setting, this one from saveoncrafts.com is only $3.99 each.
3. Use cloth napkins they have a more elegant look than paper and you can use them again and again.
4. If you don't have glass candle stick holders pick a couple of them up at your local craft store they usually cost around $1.00 each. Also get two tapered white candles to go in them. Place the candles in the center of the table between the two place setting and push them apart so that when you are sitting at the table you are able to see the person sitting across from you.
5. You can or cannot include place mats under your place setting. If you would like to choose a black or dark wood color these colors will go great with the dark red chargers and napkins.
6. When choosing items for the romantic table stay away from pink, it is not so much romantic as it is cute.
7. Another nice touch is a very small glass vase with one or two roses. Make sure that the vase and roses are short enough that you can see the person across from you and should be located in the very center of the table setting.

Enjoy dinner! I will have more interesting Valentine's Day ideas as the weeks go on.