we felt like we would never get to this point. we are almost finished with the renovations on our house from hurricane katrina and the flooding. the only thing we have left to do is to paint the oustide, and re-do the master bath upstairs. but that won't happen until after the summer. it is way too hot to paint during the summer in new orleans. what else? oh, i need to hang drapes and some artwork. the walls are pretty bare right now. i also plan on painting a dr. suess mural on fletcher's wall in his room.
here are a few before and after pics...
Because the house is a raised house (3 feet off the ground), the floors are heart pine and there was no sub-floor, we were able to salvage all the floors in the house, except the kitchen floors. We were also able to salvage most of the brass + glass hardware that are on the doors.
Front + Back - we haven't yet landscaped...excuse the boring-ness. We are also planning to paint the house and probably put up an iron fence.
In the kitchen: we were able to salvage the custom cypress cabinets on the top (with the glass over the stove). Everything that was on the floor had to be tossed out because of damage from the flood water. We also kept the old copper awning as the hood over the stove and the copper backsplash behind the stove. We used 3cm absolute black granite on the countertops (to match the black granite on the walls on either side of the stove) and we used 2cm granite on the breakfast bar over the sink. We tried to save the wood floors in the kitchen, but we would've had to replace the wood and we couldn't find the heart pine (that is throughout the house) to match. We ended up using 18" inch porcelain tiles, in a diagonal pattern.


Hallway from Dining Room
This is on the wall outside of Fletcher's room.
Dining Room: it's hard to get a good picture of the dining room. We were able to save the iron fireplace surrounds in the dining room and my office. They are orginal to the house (1870). They were all rusted and needed some serious cleaning with a wire brush and some smelly rust cleaner. Ick. The paneling the dining room was also salvaged because all the wood is cypress and there was nothing behind the paneling to trap moisture. Once we had the house mold remediated (American Mold Guard A+++++), all the wood work looked new. I wish I had pictures to show. I think I might, I need to dig around. Anyway, I decided to go back with color in all the rooms instead of the neutral palette that was throughout the house.


Looking into the dining room from living room and pocket doors that lead from the dining room into my office.

Here is a good picture of my office before I actually moved my stuff into it. This is from the shower we threw for Hadley. Oh how I miss a clean office!
Living room: this is a post-flood pic and also a pic from Christmas 2006. I still need to hang drapes. I plan on making my own drapes because the ones I really, really like are also really, really expensive. :( Part of the problem with the drapes is that the ceilings are 12 feet high. When you hang drapes in a room with high ceilings, you're supposed to hang the rod directly under the crown moulding. Do the math on the amount of material I need. Sucks.
Downstairs bathroom 1: this bathroom is directly across the hall from Fletcher's room. I've thought about making it his bath, but this bathroom is also the closet bath to the dining room. Won't work. I have yet to decorate because I am procrastinating. The claw foot tub is orginal to the house and it has a s'bath (shower/bath - think europe) faucet. The sink is a new vessel sink and we got a cabinet in the Duncan Phyfe style because it goes with the antique furniture that is in Fletcher's room. It is also my favorite style of antique furniture. It mixes well with modern pieces.
Downstairs bathroom 2: this is a hidden half bath under the stairway.
Master Bedroom: I couldn't really get any good pics of the bedroom. The day I was taking the pics, Andy was in bed sick with food poisoning from some bad sushi. I tried my best. I will post pics when I get a chance.
One the dressers in the room - Master bedroom closet - excuse the mess!
it's also antique Duncan Phyfe.

Master bedroom laundry room - it's awesome having a washer + dryer in the room!
Master Bath - here's where we are a little embarrassed to show pics. We hate this room. We hate the tile, the shower, the layout. We plan on gutting this room in the fall and going back with either slate tiles or beach glass mixed with something else. we also plan on making the shower bigger with a bench seat and moving the tub. personally, i would be happy if we nixed the tub and made a 2 person shower.

Ok, we bought a Toto toilet and seat. It's a nice toilet and the seat is cool because it lowers down on its own. But overall, probably not worth the money.
Porch - we have a side porch off the kitchen that is covered and we have a back deck off the kitchen that is not covered.
