Out with the Old and in with the Newel

I have been dying to type that for days!! Woo Hoo!!

So we are doing a little project here at the Mangiaracina home and while we typically like to save the blog post until the project is 100% complete, we are just too excited to wait. 

We mentioned in a previous post that we will be starting a painting project and that is the truth.  It just hasn't started yet.  Before the paint gets slapped up on the walls, we needed to take care of something that has been bothering us since the day we moved into the house. 

The bannister. 

You are probably saying to yourself, that doesn't look so bad.  And it doesn't.  But if you were here and saw it in person, you would see that the construction is anything but good.  It is totally wobbly and the parts used are not solid or sturdy.  Plus it is not our style so it was time to go. 

Enter Doug Kidd.

This is the guy that has done some amazing stuff around our house including our windows and sliding doors, our front window bench, our pantry drawers and countless other projects.  We brought him in a few weeks ago to get an estimate on the bannister along with a few other small projects (more on them later!) and he called us during our 8 hour drive Monday to tell us he was ready to get started on Operation: Update Bannister.

We did our part of the mission - we ordered the beautiful solid red oak square newels for both the bottom and top of the stairs.  And in case you were wondering, the newel is the big base at the bottom of the bannister that keeps things secure. We learned a lot about the anatomy of a staircase during our newel search! 

Doug brought the rest of the parts and got started on transforming our space.  It was easy to pull the junky bannister down and we were happy to see that the parts were in fact screwed in and not glued to the walls and floor. 

After running a few errands, we came home to this:

Which soon became this:

And this:

The finished product is so gorgeous and it is not even painted/stained yet!!!

You may also notice that in addition to replacing the bannister newels and pickets on the upper and lower levels, we also added a handrail along the right wall to complete the function and look. 

Now that this sucker is in place it is time to get the painting party started!  Because of the size of the job and our recent lack of time to do anything other than chase James around, we decided to hire a painter. 

Enter John Montgomery. 

This guy has done many jobs at casa de Quartuccio and works closely with Doug so we are confident he is the right man for the job.  He will be painting the entire first floor (kitchen/hall/living room), the stairwell leading upstairs, the upstairs hallway, all of the ceilings, our master bedroom ceiling and James' bathroom.  Whew.  And I didn't even mention the outdoor job he is doing but that is another post for another time. 

We are still figuring out paint colors and will have some samples on the walls as early as next week.  We also are changing the light fixtures which we will share with everyone when they are all up and running.  Lots of stuff going on and all of it is exciting. We can't wait until it is all complete because we truly believe it will make our house look fresh and clean.  Stay tuned!!



Pantry Makeover

When we moved into this house, we knew we were missing one important element in the kitchen - the all important pantry. Many of the houses we looked at had lovely pantries behind doors with ample shelf space. In this house ~ not so much. But we made do. One of the cabinets naturally lended itself to being a pantry, but it was somewhat of a pain in the you know what.

The problem: really deep shelves.

One wouldn't think that would be a problem, but think about if you need that one thing that is all the way in the back. In order to get to it, you have to take everything out, grab it and then re-organize the shelf. Not fun.

So we called Doug Kidd a.k.a our Home Improvement Super Hero. He transformed our mediocre pantry...

... into a stellar pantry by installing drawers. Check it out:

I am SOOOOOOOOO excited about this change - you have no idea. Now I have an easy way to reach the stuff in the back. It really is the little things in life that make you happy. :)

A Seat with a View

In addition to the nursery and master bath projects, we had some home improvement activity taking place on the first floor over the weekend. When we first moved in, one of the first things we thought of when we looked at the bump out window in the front of the house was "wouldn't a window seat look great there?". Well, we finally put those words into action.

Our awesome contractor, Doug Kidd of Kidd Construction, arrived at 8:30 am on Saturday and got right to it. Doug is like a little gift from the heavens. There is nothing that that man can't do. He installed all the windows and sliding glass doors in the house about a year ago along with the chair rail in the kitchen and did an amazing job so we knew we were in good hands with this project. He set up shop out front and got to it.


And of course, Lucy was on hand to make sure that things ran smoothly.


Once the frame was in place, Doug installed the "seat" which is also the lid to the storage area below.


It took about 4 hours to build the custom storage bench and we couldn't be happier with the outcome. Now all we need to do is have a cushion made and we will be all set.


While we had Doug here, we also had him install a recessed light in our very dark kitchen...and let me tell you, I am SO happy we did. I can finally see what I'm doing when I make dinner!!


As I said, Doug is a Godsend. We can't wait to have him back to tackle more of the many projects on our house list. All in good time. And all in good tax return. :)