It's actually a little weird looking at them since it's been almost 5 months since this was our home.

This bedroom was never actually used. The "bed" is literally an inflatable mattress ontop of some boxes and leftover plywood. Classy!

This bathroom got a brand new tile floor along with some new baseboards.

Our sad bedroom was like this until the end. Real bedroom furniture is in our future of reals this time. We already have a bed and bed side tables, and a new dresser is just around the corner. Getting rid of our bedroom furniture helped to light a fire under our asses to remedy this embarrassment.

New tile floor, paint, and baseboards for the tiniest bathroom in the house as well. When we got our new kitchen countertops people asked if we wished we had done this sooner. I did, however the bathroom floors were so gross and embarrassing that they were the winner of the "I wish I had done this sooner" contest.

The guest room really didn't change at all, it was probably the first room to look "finished".

Again, another area that was never fully realized. We had dreamt of building a wall of pipe shelves on the right hand wall. Also, never used this fireplace.

Did you know we had a basement? Well we did and it was huge but we never used it. Matt's brother was a life saver and basically took care of the basement for us. Paint, clean, stage.

And that just leaves the backyard. It was way overgrown from this point. The tree was probably double this size and needed some trimming. The spring growth spurt was just crazy.

Ok, so now that we've said good bye to the old, here's a quick sleek peak of the new!

I'll give you the full tour next time!

Nikki Kelly

The kitchen marathon is over! I had hoped to get it finished before I went back to work last week, but it just wasn't quite there. Probably like 95%, but that's not enough when you're getting ready to list your house! That's also the reason I didn't post last week. I've been slaving away until at least 9 most nights to get it done, and I've just been too tired to do much else.

So, what ended up getting checked off last weeks to-do list?

• The backsplash is done!
• Toe kicks are done (no more black holes to eat up all the kitty toys)
• Cabinets have a fresh coat of paint
• The outlets and switches are blindingly white

The big fluorescent light fixture didn't get replaced, but I just don't care anymore. So really the kitchen from about 4" down is beautiful. That's what cropping if for, right? Speaking of cropping, let's just jump to some pretty after pictures!

I just love how the backsplash turned out! Don't let this picture fool you, the granite is not that yellow. It's not quite as white as the tile, I think the artificial lighting made it look that way. It's more accurate in the picture above. And I really love that the's little brown flecks scattered throughout. It's like I picked the paint for the cabinets just to match (I totally didn't).

Now for my attempt at listing photos. Our realtor (and Matt's brother) said we should have a professional shoot our listing photos, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. It will be fun to see the difference.

So now that the kitchen is ready to woo a buyer, I'm moving on to our sad little bathroom situation in the master bedroom.

Nikki Kelly

P.S. Just for funsies here are some real early before (pre move-in) pics of the kitchen.

While I was working on the stairs I finally had had enough of this situation.

Yep, that's two buckets under the sink. On the left we have a garbage disposal with a crack in the housing, and on the right the sink strainer was so stripped that it would not attach to the drain pipes. The bottom of the cabinet had pretty much disintegrated from water damage. At this point I had cleaned out the remaining cabinet floor and created some support for a new sheet of plywood. Oh, and don't worry about water damage. I didn't use the water for a couple of days and it was bone dry.

Sadly the sink cabinet wasn't the only one needing a little work. When we removed the old flooring in the kitchen (before we even moved in) there was this nasty commercial carpet attached to the toe kicks. When we pulled it off some of the toe kicks came with it. Right now they are blocked off with some wood, but I plan on painting some 1/4" plywood so it looks like the rest of the cabinets. No more lost kitty toys, well in the kitchen at least.

As boring as toe kicks and under the sink messes are, they were a way of preparing for new countertops! Smell ya later leaky sink.

We went with a company called Granite Direct because we had heard from a few friends that they were the least expensive in town. Part of that reduced rate was having to remove the exsisting countertops, and installing the sink. Since I like doing what I can, I didn't have a problem with that at all.

These little water droplets were quite the victory! It took me about 3 1/2 hours to get the sink installed. It was a totally new experience for me. On the front side of the sink I only had an inch gap to get the little sink clips attached, and I dropped a screwdriver on my face. All while crammed into a sink cabinet. Now that I've done it, here are a few things I would do differently: get as much of the water lines connected first, and put the little screw parts of the clips in place before dropping the sink into the countertop.

The countertops are great and all, but they need a backsplash. We picked out a simple beveled edge subway tile, and I set to install them yesterday afternoon.

I've got it almost finished.

I still have a partial row under the cabinets and the area under the microwave.

And I have to do this on the other side of the window. It's two rows of tile, metered corners, and all topped off with a schluter strip.

I think I'll link up to Sara's Dueling DIY post, you know, since I'm kicking this kitchen's ass.

Things left in the kitchen before we list the house:

• Finish installing backsplash tile and grout
• Paint and install toe kicks
• Touch up cabinet paint
• Replace outlets and switches
• Replace main light fixture

I'm trying to focus my attentions on one room at a time in an effort to get the house ready to sell. That way I don't have a million little finishing touches left at the end.

Nikki Kelly

So, I stalked my dad's travel schedule via my mom and talked him into helping me route a nice rounded edge like the one on the front of the steps. Dads are great like that, especially mine.

Fancy round edges were quite a hurdle in the top half of the stair makeover project. I may have routed the wrong side of one, and set the bit a little too high on others. I don't really want to talk about it. What's important is that they eventually were routed and I could move on to staining, notching out a spot for the railing, and installing them.

I also templated and cut out the skirt for under the stair overhang on the side. Perhaps I will call it a slip, you know, since it's "under" the stairs. Whateves, to template this I taped some old resume paper we've had laying around for the last 8 years, attached the railing and cut around the spindles with an exacto knife. Maybe I'll regret that once we move and I become a trophy wife jobless. Who knows!

Tracing the template onto the plywood was pretty easy, but I did need to selectively sand some edges to get it to fit into place. Once it did I painted it and installed it.

And added some molding to make it look pretty. I used the same baseboards, but for the top piece I riped the top inch to make a smaller piece. It just needs some caulk and touch up paint.

I'm so excited to have this project behind us! There's nothing like a big life change to light a fire under your ass to get some projects done.

Nikki Kelly

Then using a straight edge, I used a level, I continued the lines from the treads and risers onto my skirt.

Easy peasy so far. You might notice that some of my steps don't quite reach the skirt, don't worry too much about that. Once all your steps are marked you need to cut those little triangles out.

Now for the word painting. After you cut all the triangles out your skirt will actually fit into the voids above the steps, although not perfectly. There will be gaps in some spots and none in others. As disappointing as this may sound, you will need to re-trace and cut your stair notches. To do that I used my trusty level again, but this time I laid it on its side so that I would be marking my skirt about an inch above my steps. Once you've re-traced your treads and risers and cut along the new lines your skirt should fit like a glove. The last steps for cutting your skirt is to rip some of the height off, and cut the top and bottom ends off. I marked the height of my skirts at 3" above the old tread so they would all be consistent. At the top of the stairs I cut the riser so it would sit flush with the exsisting floor, and at the bottom of the stairs I cut it perpendicular to the floor about an inch and a half in front of the bottom riser. Hopefully that description helps, but if your still confused just leave me a comment with your question below.

This is an almost finished skirt. You can see I still have to cut the top (flush with the flooring) and bottom (perpendicular to the floor) bits off, but the height has been cut.

Moving on to the risers. Since one side of the staircase is open I was excited to skip the measuring part. I took the railing down to make things a little easier, and to add an element of danger! Dunt dunt dunnnnn.

Then I placed my riser material in its future home...

And marked my cut line from the back. My plan for this ugliness is to make a skirt but for under the stairs (like this). I figure I will need to install the skirt and risers before I start to trace my steps and cut this other skirt, so that's where I'm at for now.

I'm hoping for some decent weather (not freezing or windy) so I can finish painting these pieces this weekend. Also, we ordered the treads last week and they should be here by Monday evening. I've got a little more figuring out to do with these new treads (some of which will require some help from my dad), but I'm hopeful I don't 1) ruin them and 2) it doesn't take forever.

Nikki Kelly