The Grove

Master Bedroom & Bath

2012-01-06T14:43:00.025-05:00

Well, I've been holding off on posting about our major project re-doing the master bedroom and master bath until we had it completed. However, it is such a MAJOR undertaking, that it has taken more than a year and we're still not finished. So, I will post our progress so far. We began in November (the 9th, I believe) 2010 with tearing apart the old tiny closet. (Even though, technically, we had started back in March 2010 by tearing out the Orange Street side bedroom wall and putting in a wall next to the steps for the closet, see that post here.)

Tearing apart the old closet

The little closet had a lower ceiling than the rest of the room, and the bathroom had a little "box" of sorts down from the ceiling. We found out what it was: the bookshelf (formerly a large window we believe) on the second landing of the stairs.

We decided to put in an attic access in the new closet because our bedroom had no access.

In order to tear out the remainder of the closet side wall, we needed to tear apart the bathroom. Since we were planning to eventually extend the bathroom, we decided that we must do them both at the same time. That wasn't our original plan, but it needed to be done. Here is the bathroom "before".

Here you can see the "box" in the bathroom ceiling/wall, which was from the bookshelf on the stairs.

The ceiling in the bathroom was a drop ceiling covering a very moldy original ceiling.

This nasty old fan/vent wasn't vented properly and there were large holes in the ceiling where there didn't need to be any.

Tearing out the bathroom wall.

Jason had to go to work, which interrupted the "flow" of work, so I decided to continue ripping out the shower on my own. It was VERY moldy beneath the tile.

The insulation had slipped down and started to rot away.

Under the floor of the shower was hardened cement, which seems odd.

The wood planking on the studs had to be cut where they went past the outer bathroom wall.

Working on the drop-down of the bookshelf. Jason just wanted to work around it because it was going to be a LOT of work cutting it down, but I really wanted a smooth ceiling for the closet and the bathroom, so I begged him to cut it down.

This is the front of the bookshelf on the stairway side. You can see the cuts that were made from the bedroom side.

Jason cutting the drop down from the stairway side.

Peter thought that was a lot of fun being able to see into Daddy & Mommy's room from the stairway!

The hole boarded up.

Insulation going up.

Drywall up in the bathroom.

We discovered what must have been an old doorway. On the steps going down to the basement, it was a shallow shelf, so we tore it apart. This picture shows the hole looking into the basement stairway.

The hole boarded up. We had to cut and remove the majority of the old door trim and casing because it was sticking out beyond the studs.

Preparing to cut the floor to extend the bathroom floor.

The bathroom floor with new plywood sub-floor to extend the bathroom.

The new bathroom floor linoleum.

Working on the water supply for the shower.

Originally, we were going to re-use the old shower. The next few pictures are re-installation of the old shower with new plastic walls, and new shower control knob.

Preparing to mud the walls.

Walls mudded.

Priming.

Ceiling mudded, beginning to prime.

Walls primed, ceiling primed and painted.

Ceiling painted.

Beginning to paint the walls. (This picture is deceiving, because that's pretty much all the priming and painting Jason did, the rest was done by me while he was at work.)

This picture is more representative of the bathroom prime & paint job! ;)

Walls painted and baseboard in.

Starting on the pluming and vanity for the sink.

While Jason was off work for Christmas 2010, my parents took our kids for the day. We decided that was the ideal day to tear out the bedroom wall that faced the stairway, so we could do both at once without fear of the kids falling down the hole(s).

Insulation up and drywall being put up.

Working on the front of the closet.

Drywall up, preparing to mud.

Painting with paint-and-primer-in-one paint.

Ceiling painted, trim up. This is also a view of the attic access, and the new light fixture.

Working on the closet insert.

Putting up the sliding doors for the closet.

Putting up drywall on the outside of the bathroom.

The new bathroom door installed.

The old shower leaked, and we could not locate where the leak was coming from, so we gave in, tore it out, and replaced it.

I either need to take more pictures, or download them off of my camera! Our shower has been installed since May 2011, we have a boarder up in the bathroom, and the sink is in place. We are currently working on the walls of the bedroom. Jason has them mudded, and he's working on sanding so we can prime & paint. This has been a very long involved process that has taken us more than a year to get to this point and we're not even done. My poor kitchen has been waiting, half finished, for a VERY long time!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

2011-12-27T11:20:00.004-05:00

It's a bit late, but we're finally getting our "white Christmas"! It is snowing out and so gorgeous, I decided to plug in the Christmas lights and take some pictures before the decorations come down. From our house to yours: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Also, I never took pictures of our porch and front walk project from this summer. We re-did the screens on the porch and made them permanent, we put in a new screen door and changed the location of the door. We also added a "nub" to the porch with steps and railings (the Myrtle side railing is removable so we can take R2-D2 down the steps), and we added a boardwalk connecting the steps to the front side walk. Also, we added a post light at the end of the boardwalk, something I've always wanted. Here is a "before" picture:

And here it is now, all covered in freshly falling snow and my Christmas lights and garlands:

Two Years!

2011-09-07T20:22:00.003-04:00

Two years ago, we were moving our belongings into our house so we could begin living here. It's amazing all the things that we've been able to accomplish in those two years...and how many we still need to do!

I have a load of pictures I'm eager to share, but I'm hoping we'll finish something before I can post them. We've been working on the front porch, adding steps to the left side, and a wooden walk. I'll post pictures of that soon. Also, we've been working on expanding the bathroom and the closet in the master bedroom as well as redoing the walls with better insulation and drywall instead of thin wood paneling.

Here is a beautiful sunset picture I just took a few minutes ago. I LOVE living here!!

Blizzard!

2011-02-03T17:37:00.003-05:00

Here is our place after the blizzard on February 2nd, 2011:

Back Door!

2010-10-21T13:52:00.004-04:00

September 23rd, 2010 we finally were able to buy a new back door for the mudroom! Jason had been working mandatory 7-day weeks for three weeks straight, which is why we could afford the door (on sale) but also made it tight to fit replacing the door into the schedule. But, we desperately needed to replace the old door which was NOT at all weather tight.

The old door showing the light (and cold or heat, depending on the season) that would stream in:

Taking off the old storm door. We put the old storm door back on, but we will eventually replace it as well.

No doors!

The old door off. The bottom window panel was actually a very thin Plexiglas instead of real glass.

Fitting the new door in the old slot:

The new door installed! Jason had to go to work before the knobs and deadbolt were in, so I chiseled the spots and installed the door knobs and deadbolt:

Trim Work

2010-10-21T13:47:00.001-04:00

In September, 2010 we finally got the trim work around the front door finished up. Here are pictures that were taken the 12th of September.

One Full Year

2010-09-20T17:43:00.003-04:00

We have officially been living in this house for a full year. Last year on Labor day September 7th, 2009 we moved in and started staying here. I was going to post this glorious post to compare pictures of how it looked then and how it looks now on the actual anniversary, but I got so caught up in preparing for Benjamin's first day of school, it just didn't happen. That, and I still don't think I got the moving day pictures from my sister...

One Year Ago!

2010-08-17T23:45:00.003-04:00

One year ago today we signed on the house and "The Grove" became officially ours! See my original post about it here.

Here are the pictures I took that day:

We've had a busy day today with unpacking from our trip to Orlando, doing some errands in Grand Rapids, laundry, and decorating for the "Tivoli Town" contest for the Danish Festival this week. I'm excited that we'll be celebrating our first official Danish Festival as Greenville residents this year. :)

Anna's Curtains

2010-08-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

I had the curtains in Anna's room finished for quite some time, but I hadn't gotten the tie backs or the swag I was planning to put over the windows made. For the swag, I wanted 3 silver crowns cut from wood (we made them ourselves) that I would drape a sheer pink fabric that has swirls of metallic silver on it. June 28th, 2010 I finally got everything finished.

This is how we had to open the curtains for quite a while:

Putting up the crowns:

The crowns, complete with jewels, are up:

The swag and tie backs finished and in place:

Anna, checking out her new curtain swags:

Anna's Cinderella Mural

2010-08-03T00:00:00.001-04:00

Anna loves the Disney Princesses, especially Cinderella. Before we moved, I had plans to make her room into a princess wonderland featuring Cinderella. I didn't get a chance to start, but I'm so glad I was able to do that here at this house. Anna's room is so much bigger and better here!

On June 8th, 2010 I took the life-sized drawing of Cinderella that I had done on paper and transferred it onto the wall that Anna's bed is on.

Then, I began to paint, starting with Cinderella's dress and headband:

Just before I ended for the night, I took this picture of Anna with her developing mural. You can tell she's very excited about it!

The next day, I started first thing and got the entire thing finished.

Adding the light blue:

All painted, before the detail line work:

Finished:

Two Princesses:

I plan to paint flowers of various sizes cascading down the walls and I hope to have "Princess Anna" painted above her headboard. I still need to paint the trim in her room a darker shade of pink.

(Look for another post soon with the work on the curtains.)

Playset

2010-08-02T00:00:00.000-04:00

This really doesn't have anything to do with our house, but it was a project that needed doing, and a very important one to the kids, so I thought I'd blog about it. We were trying to get the playset put up before frost set in, but we ran out of time so the poor thing sat rather crooked the entire winter. Then, one day in March (I believe) I had two guys come to the back door. I had been waiting for some people from Freecycle to come pick up the old toilet we took out of the upstairs bathroom, so I was expecting it to be them. I stood there telling them the best way would be to bring the truck to the front since the toilet was on the porch. They looked at me like I had trees growing out of my ears or something and then told me they were there about the playset. I told them it WAS NOT for sale, it belonged to our kids. I felt like saying "Do you see a 'for sale' sign on it? No? Well then go away!" But, I didn't. I secretly hope that they see it now, often, perhaps while our kids are actually using to know how stupid their request was! :)

We had to dig quite a bit because the spot we set up the play equipment is hilly. The back legs of the swing set (and the fort) were lower than the front legs, so we had to dig into the ground so the front legs would be level.

We had a toad visit us in my strawberry garden while we were out working:

Testing out the swings:

Everything set up and ready for play!

Bedroom Wall

2010-08-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

The front porch light mysteriously stopped working just before Halloween. We needed to take the paneling off the wall in our room and tear into the wall in the hallway in order to get to the wiring and see what was what (the light was just outside our bedroom window). We didn't want to tear into the walls during the winter, so in March after it started to warm up, we began.

We weren't planning to change our room any more than just to extend the closet. However, during the winter, we quickly realized we'd need to do something because, even though we put a heat vent in (there wasn't one), our room didn't get much warmer than 65 on a good day all winter (I think it got as cold as 51-52).

In the process, we decided that we would move the light switch because it was behind the door. We put in a wall that will be the side of the closet so that we had a place to put the light switch. We also added an outlet on that wall.

Taking off the paneling and window trim:

The insulation under the paneling (there was no drywall) was very old and thin:

We decided to go ahead and do the entire wall, not just the side where the light was:

Prepping the doorway wall for the new closet wall:

Installing the new closet wall:

Installing new, thicker insulation (warmer, toastier!) :

Starting the drywall:

Figuring out the new wiring:

The new light switch in the new location:

More insulation:

More Drywall:

I finally got the curtain valance done, as well as the white detail strip on the curtains:

Installing the plug in the doorknob hole to re-drill it properly:

Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do in our bedroom. We're also hoping to expand the bathroom a tad with the hope that we can put a slightly bigger shower, sink, and vanity in. This will correspond with extending the closet, which we hope to be able to afford to do/finish soon.

Hallway Work

2010-07-31T00:00:00.001-04:00

The project in the hall was one that we knew needed to be done, but weren't sure when. However, the replacement of the front door with the removal of the door trim helped us decide. Also, the fact that the front porch light mysteriously stopped working and we needed to dig into the wall to figure out the wiring for that helped us decide as well.

This project led to several others in the process. We had to dig into the front wall in our bedroom (I will post that later) as well as run wire for a new porch light, a matching light on the opposite side of the porch, and a porch ceiling light which was missing. While we had things torn up, we decided we probably should put in an electrical outlet at the base of the stairs, so that led to tearing out the hall wall under the stairs. (*whew!*)

We're still not done. The trim needs to be redone for the door (it is a bit taller than the old one) and the switch plate needs some shim work because the outlet box is sort of at a weird angle. We also need to do some touch up with the paint. But now, the walls are no longer sagging because the plaster was pulling away from the lath.

New Front Door

2010-07-30T00:00:00.001-04:00

We had been keeping our eyes open for bargain doors and found this one for a great price. It was cheaper than the door we thought we'd have to "settle" for, and it is so much nicer! On January 8th, 2010 my Dad helped us take out the old door, widen the opening a bit, and install the new door. It was a VERY cold venture, but one that needed to be done because the old door was losing heat very badly.

Jason painting the exterior of the door:

The old door. It had a key-hole directly to the outside for a skeleton type key (in the pictures it's covered with black tape). You can see light at the bottom of the door. There was about a 1½"-2" gap between the bottom of the door and the floor! The door was so old, there was no kind of insulation what-so-ever. On the contrast, the door that we got to replace it is Energy Star certified!

Taking off the trim:

Widening the door opening a bit:

Installing the new door:

Working on making the door nob latches fit:

Our new, much more efficient door:

More Kitchen stuff

2010-07-29T00:00:00.001-04:00

As a continuation of this post, here are some pictures of the kitchen after we got the cupboard above the sink painted and the doors put on. Also, pictures of the little "nub" of a cupboard that Jason was able to make for between the stove and refrigerator and also the cupboard and drawer next to the dishwasher.

Dining Room Curtains

2010-07-28T19:45:00.005-04:00

This doesn't seem like a huge project, but it was one I was glad to have accomplished. We haven't done anything in the dining room (other than the floor and curtains) because we need to completely re-do the walls. The walls in the dining room have the same problem the walls in the hallway and stairway have/had: the plaster is coming away from the lathe and the only thing keeping it up is the wallpaper. This makes the walls "wavy" and bumpy.
Other projects in the house have taken priority, so the dining room waits. In the mean time, I have taken down the blinds and put up curtains. These are the curtains I had at our old house, but I had to redo one set to fit the window better.

This is the dining room when we looked at the house 7-13-09. It had dirty lace valances and clunky blinds:

Here is what it looks like now (ignore the sheen off of the plastic we put on the window) :

Benjamin's Room

2010-07-28T16:26:00.010-04:00

Just after Christmas 2009 we started working in the boys' rooms. I already posted about the work we did in Peter's room. Here is what we did in Benjamin's room.

(This is actually Peter's room, but I forgot to include it in his post.)

We're not done with his room. We still need to cover up the hole where the fan was (we moved it because it wasn't centered in his room). I'll probably paint a few windows here and there on the city.

We brought the plywood city from our old house because we were in the process of making his room there into the "Spiderman room" and didn't want to leave all that effort behind. As a result, we ended up with seams and outlet holes where there weren't before. So, we have some other pieces of city to cut out and paint a darker shade of grey as well as some police cars to cover up some of the seams.

Also, I have a piece of plywood that I've drawn the outline of Spiderman on (pretty close to life-sized, if not bigger) that Jason needs to cut out so I can paint it and then we'll put it up next to his window. I plan to put a rope coming from Spiderman's hand like he's shooting a web across Benjamin's room. It will be pretty cool when it's finished. :)

One year ago...

2010-07-13T12:53:00.008-04:00

Last year on this date we were looking at this house for the very first time. There had been a pending offer on it previously, so we thought we didn't have a chance. We asked our realtor to let us know if the house went back on the market. She called us the same day and told us it was back on the market, the deal had fallen through because of lack of financing. So, we arranged to come see it on July 13th, 2009. I remember the more I saw of the house the more I wanted it for us. It suits us so well and I could visualize all the things we could (would) do to fix it up into "ours" if we were able to get it. Here we are a year later and it has been ours for several months! God is SO GOOD! :)

I thought it might be fun to post some pictures that I had taken on the first day we saw this house along with how the same room/space looks today. The majority of the rooms are "works in progress", so you'll still see unfinished projects or things that haven't gotten done yet in the "now" pictures. I didn't post pictures of every room, but this will give you a good idea:

Deck Then:

Deck Now:

Hall and Front Door Then:

Hall and Front Door Now:

Hall Then:

Hall Now:

Kitchen Then:

Kitchen Now:

Living Room Then:

Living Room Now:

Ben's Room Then:

Ben's Room Now:

Peter's Room Then:

Peter's Room Now:

Anna's Room Then:

Anna's Room Now:

Teaser

2010-06-08T23:17:00.001-04:00

I know I still need to post about working in Benjamin's room, but I just got a great start to something in Anna's room and couldn't wait to share it. Here's a little teaser:

Trying to play catch-up...Peter's Room

2010-05-26T23:26:00.008-04:00

After Christmas 2009 while Jason was still off from work for the Christmas and New Year holidays we started working on finishing up the boys' rooms. I desperately wanted to get Peter out of our room & into his own room. Christmas time was my goal and we were able to accomplish it!

We had previously painted in Peter's room, we just needed to touch up the trim (which we decided to keep the original color, so we had to color match a pint to touch up areas of it) and do something to the floor.

We were thinking we'd have to paint the floor until we could afford to do something more permanent. But, we knew the first step was to remove the old beat up "tile" that was there.

We were pleasantly surprised to find a nice looking wood floor underneath! It will require some sanding and refinishing later, but it looks MUCH better than the beat up fake tile that was there!

Peter checking out his "new" floor.

Hangin' out in his room while we worked.

It looks like the room used to have a closet and they just put some untreated wood in the spot that the closet wall was. Long ago, the boys' rooms must have been one room. Someone decided to tear out the end closet and put a divider in to create two rooms.

The dividing wall between the boys' rooms, and the nice flooring we found under the beat up old tile.

Touching up the darker green on the trim.

Putting the bi-fold doors back in.

There was no ceiling fixture in Peter's room, so we got my brother Dean's help to put in new electrical for a ceiling light and fan.

The hole for the light switch.

Putting in the fan.

The curtain I made for Peter's room

Japanese Quince!

2010-04-29T16:23:00.004-04:00

When we first moved into our house, it was the beginning of the fall season. It didn't take long to realize that a rather sizeable bush at the corner of our house was a fruit bearing bush/tree of some sort. We puzzled over what it was. To me, it looked like a cross between a pear and an apple. The bush's branches had thorns with small leaves, and the fruit was yellowish with a pit in the center.

We were pleasantly delighted to find out that in the spring this bush flowers into a beautiful display of bright pinkish red flowers that look very much like apple blossoms, only red. Here is one of the pictures I took:

My sister also took a picture of the tree while it was blooming to see if anyone could tell us what the bush was. At last, someone shed some light on this for us! It is a Japanese Quince! It's not very common in the US anymore, but I did an online search and apparently it makes wonderful jams and jellies. I even found some baked dessert recipes for quince that I'll have to try in the fall.

Busy!

2010-04-19T11:27:00.003-04:00

I've been so busy sewing, trying to get my list of commissions worked through, that I haven't had much time to download & post the upgrades we've been doing to our house since December. Here's a new picture of the front of the house, showing the new porch lights that Jason just put in. There is one on each side of the porch now (there didn't used to be one on the right). We plan to put the screen door to the porch on the right side and make a sort of sidewalk from the city sidewalk up to the door, to make it easier for people to come to the front of the house. I hope to have updates up soon, with pictures of all we've been up to lately!

Living Room

2009-12-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

We stopped the kitchen work for a little while because I wanted to have the living room painted before I put up the Christmas decorations. So, while Jason was off work during the Thanksgiving holiday, we primed & painted the living room.

First, we took down the clunky wooden "valances":

I washed the windows, see the black grime left on the paper towels? ICK!

Priming:

The first coat of primer:

Taping the windows and trim:

Beginning to paint:

Covering up the last bit of bare primer:

The finished room (I still need to make curtains) all decorated for Christmas:

Range Hood

2009-12-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

We got, and installed, a [ductless] range hood since there wasn't one. I like having the fan & a light above my stove. There will be a little shelf for my spices next to the microwave cupboard, above the hood, in the little part that "sticks out". In these pictures, you can also see the microwave in its spot:

Kitchen Countertop

2009-12-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

We had originally thought we would just re-use the counter top that was in the kitchen, piecing it where needed. However, we realized that piecing it would cut down on the amount of cupboard space under the counter because we would need more supports to hold all the ends. We decided that we would shop around and see what we could find. We found some solid black counter top at Discount Home Improvement so we bought it. It counterbalances the white of the walls and cupboards beautifully (my kitchen has a black & white cow theme). We also got a new faucet, since we didn't really like the style that was there, and it leaked.

Taking out the sink to remove the old counter top:

The sink is out, ready to remove the old counter top:

The new counter top:

The new faucet:

More Kitchen Work

2009-12-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

The beginning of November we were finally able to make the cupboards for above the kitchen sink and get them installed. Jason even made an attached book shelf for my cookbooks.

The walls before the cupboards were installed:

Making the cupboards:

Installing the cupboards:

Making the corner unit:

Installing the corner unit:

Cupboards up:

Installing the bookshelf:

Bookshelf up:

The cupboards with trim:

Trim on the corner unit clamped and drying:

Priming & Painting in the Kitchen

2009-12-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

We decided it would be wise to prime and paint the kitchen wall before putting the cupboards up.

Still More Kitchen Progress...

2009-12-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

We decided to put cupboards above the sink, so Jason needed to make those cupboards also. Because the plaster had loosened from the lath causing one of the walls to be wavy, it made it impossible to put up cupboards without re-doing the wall.

Here is the wall before Jason tore it out:

The process of tearing out the wall:

(In the process of tearing out the plaster & lath, Jason discovered some sort of old abandoned nest in the wall!)

The new drywall in place!

Putting on corner trim:

The new wall prior to priming and painting:

More Kitchen Progress...

2009-12-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

Since we had to tear out the cupboards above the refrigerator in order for it to fit, Jason had to make different cupboards.

Making the cupboards for above the refrigerator:

Putting the cupboards up:

Making the cupboard for above the stove (for holding the microwave):

Putting the cupboard up:

Painting the cupboards:

"New" Fan In The Hall

2009-12-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

Jason absolutely hated the fan that was in the hall (it was pretty ugly!), so we took one of the fans from the old house and put in its place. We had to get a new globe for the fan though, because the globe that came with it didn't fit the energy efficient florescent bulbs we use.

Taking down the old fan:

The old fan (minus the globe):

Putting up the "new" fan:

The "new" fan and new globe installed:

Kitchen

2009-12-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

We've been working on the kitchen for quite some time now, and I've been so super busy I haven't taken the time to post anything about our progress. I'll post several posts about the kitchen, starting from the beginning...

First, some pictures of the kitchen before we did anything to it:

Getting the refrigerator in it's spot:

The wall above the refrigerator & stove before cupboards:

The hole for the dishwasher:

Yay! The dishwasher finally installed and working!!

More to come...

(To see my first post about the kitchen, click HERE.)

Curtain Tiebacks

2009-11-24T11:43:00.000-05:00

The 2nd of October, I finally got tiebacks made for our curtains in the master bedroom. I still want to add some muslin "trim" to the bottom trim of the curtains and I haven't finished the valances yet, but at least the curtains are functional!

Anna's Room

2009-11-23T23:29:00.000-05:00

Long time, no post! I've been so busy, I haven't wanted to take the time to download all the pictures we've taken. Here are pictures of the progress of Anna's room.

First, the "before" pictures, taken the day we saw the house for the first time:

Next, the painting process. The first 5 pictures were of the progress taken on September 24th, 2009. The rest were taken of the painting progress September 29th, 2009. I still need to paint the trim a dark pink (it looks a lot like the curtain color) and later, I will paint Cinderella on the wall Anna's bed is on and flowers cascading down the other walls in places.

Little Stuff?

2009-10-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

We've been so busy, I haven't had time to download pictures lately. I've been doing a lot, but I feel like it's only making a little difference. We've had to keep going back to the old house to load our things and bring them back...it's unbelievable how much JUNK we have! Now, I'm faced with the hard task: finding new homes for everything! Slowly, I've been tackling it. We've also gotten a good start to kitchen cupboards, I have Anna's room painted minus trim paint and decorative painting (I'm going to paint flowers cascading down some of the walls and Cinderella on one of the walls).

In all of this, I still have to do things like load/unload the dishwasher, feed & change Peter, make lunch & dinner, laundry, keep the older two kids in line (that can be a full-time job in itself!) etc...on top of getting ready for Halloween. We're going to do a "Men In Black" theme. Peter is going to be Frank the pug, wearing a "I [heart] NY" shirt. :)

Master Bedroom Door

2009-09-24T15:54:00.000-04:00

The door that was on the master bedroom was a pocket door. We wanted a regular door so that it could be locked and also so it could be opened & closed without making a lot of noise like the pocket door did.

Yesterday, Wednesday the 23rd of September, Jason worked on putting in the new door. This door was also a bargain corner find from Menard's for $20 (it's a $100 door). We found out why it was in the bargain corner while trying to put the doorknob in...the hole that is drilled for the doorknob is off-center. Jason will have to cut a plug for it and re-cut the hole, so this project remains unfinished until he can do that. Still, it's very nice to have a door I can open & close quietly so I don't wake the kids up when they are sleeping.

The Basement

2009-09-24T15:24:00.000-04:00

Finally, we've been able to work in the basement! There was a weird work bench type of thing, old cold air return duct work that wasn't attached to anything, and a tarp partially attached to the ceiling/floor joists that all needed to go before we could put in our own shelving. Jason also tore out some cobbled up shelves and an unnecessary door at the bottom of the basement steps.

Here are pictures. The first two are from the second time we saw the house (our offer had been accepted but were still awaiting the closing) as "before" pictures. The rest are the process of us making it our own, tearing out what we didn't want and building shelves to hold our things (a good portion of this is now storage for my sewing/costuming things). We started by tearing out things on Saturday the 19th of September and I finished by putting things on the completed shelves Monday the 21st of September.

Kitchen Progress

2009-09-15T17:42:00.000-04:00

Another reason why I can't put some of the things away is the fact that we are going to be rearranging the kitchen. The stove was next to the sink and the dishwasher was across from the sink next to the refrigerator's spot.

We prefer to have the dishwasher next to the sink, so we decided to do some rearranging of the layout. Also, the spot for the refrigerator was too short, so we had to take the cupboards above it out before we can put the refrigerator in its spot.

Sunday night the 13th of September we got a start to the project:

A Mess!

2009-09-15T17:35:00.000-04:00

Jason will be making shelves for the basement so we can store our things up off the floor just in case the sewer ever backs up again. He will also be making an area in the basement for me to store my sewing/costume making things.

There are so many projects that need doing, the shelves have taken a "back seat". So, our things are sitting around the main level until I can put them away. It is driving me nuts, because I like to have everything in its place!

Curtains!

2009-09-15T17:06:00.000-04:00

After the plumbers came, I cleaned the upstairs tub (it wasn't draining so we had the plumbers fix that too) and hung up the shower curtains we had gotten.

Here's the "before":

Here's the progress:

(I had to take the picture in the mirror,
or I couldn't get the shower all in one picture)

With the exception of the kitchen and stairway, every window in the house had blinds. I prefer curtains because they are softer and more personal, whereas blinds feel more institutional. Curtains cut down on echo as well.

I had taken the blinds down in Anna's room so we could paint, which still hasn't gotten finished. So, on Friday (Patriot Day) September 11th, 2009 I started on Anna's curtains. I finished them and got them hung on Monday the 14th. I will be adding a swag of sheer pink fabric, with metallic silver swirls, held in place by 3 wooden crowns (which we have yet to make). I haven't bothered to make the swag yet, because I don't want to put it up until the painting is done. I still need to work on tie backs as well.

Here's the "before":

Here's the progress:

While I wait for shelves for the basement so I can put things away out of my way, I am working on curtains. The vertical blinds that were in the master bedroom clunked together in the breeze of the ceiling fan, which is pretty annoying at night. That and we sometimes bumped the blinds in the night, which then make a loud clattery noise. So, I decided that our room would be the next to receive curtains. I have the majority finished and hung up, though I will be adding a muslin "stripe" to them. I am also going to be making a valance, as well as tie backs.

Here's the "before":

Here's the progress:

Misc. Projects

2009-09-15T15:51:00.000-04:00

Shortly before our move on Labor Day (9-7-09) we discovered that the sewer drain in the basement was backing up (YUCK!!). So on the 9th plumbers came out to clean it. There was still a mess in the basement that needed cleaning, so my parents (bless their hearts!!) cleaned it up for us. They came back on the 10th to help us with various projects. My Mom finished cleaning the basement...

...and my Dad helped Jason put in a new [people] door on the garage since the one that was there was falling apart and couldn't be locked. It wasn't a simple job because the old door was smaller than the new one, so they had to open the wall a bit to get the new door to fit.

The "before":

The "during":

The "after":

(We got this door -complete with frame, thresh-hold, and holes for the deadbolt & knob, at Menard's in their bargain corner for $50! It's about a $200+ door!!)

Painting Peter's Room

2009-09-15T15:40:00.000-04:00

Saturday, September 5th, 2009 we focused on the boys' rooms, specifically Peter's room. We decided that we would paint the boys' rooms before Anna's since Anna's room has a finished floor, while the boys' floors are not finished. Our original idea was to paint the rooms, and then lay the floor (we're going to re-use the "wood" laminate flooring that was in the dinning and living rooms) before we moved in (that didn't happen). We got Peter's room painted, though we were hoping to have more done.

Here are pictures:

Peter's room before painting

Benjamin's room before painting:

Peter's room after painting:

Week Two Continued...The Floors

2009-09-15T15:07:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, August 29th, 2009 we stained and put 3 coats of urethane on the the wood floors. We had to vacuum the floors and wipe them down with damp rags before we could begin staining. We started in the dinning room with Jason applying the stain with a special applicator then I would wipe the extra off with a T-shirt rag. When we got to the living room, we switched roles, but I ended up helping Jason with the rag wiping. In our room, we adopted a new technique since we started running out of T-shirt rags: I would wipe up the worst of the extra stain with the same rag I've been using while Jason followed to fine tune with a cleaner rag. We used this technique in Anna's room as well. The staining process went much better with the new technique.

Once the stain dried (3 hours from when we finished the dinning room) we started with the urethane, using the same applicator with a different pad. We took turns applying urethane so no one had to do all the work. With 2 hours between when we finished the dinning room to when we could apply a new coat, we were there until midnight (or after) applying 3 coats of urethane. But, we got it finished! Our goal was to finish Saturday because we knew we wouldn't be able to work on it at all the following week. This would allow the urethane plenty of time to cure before we walked on it next. We chose water-based stain and urethane specifically because it dries quicker than the oil-based, the fact that it cleans up with water is an extra bonus!

Here are several pictures of our process, from the sanded floors prior to staining, the staining process, the urethane process, and the finished floors:

Our 2nd Week of Fixing Up: The Wood Floors

2009-08-28T19:22:00.000-04:00

Our second week of work was sort of a change of plans. We had planned to paint in the kids' rooms, but decided to take a different route.

We knew the carpet would come out of the living room and we eventually wanted to put new carpet back in, but won't be able to afford it right away. After we removed the carpet, the floors in the hallway and dinning room ended up being about a half inch (or more) higher than the living room. Apparently, somewhere along the line, plywood had been put down and then a fake wood veneer floor over it. After the carpet was removed, the fake wood floor looked even faker. I wanted to take the fake stuff and plywood off to see what was underneath, but was unsure if we should even try, because it would be a lot of work and the floor under the plywood might not be worth much.

However, a big deciding factor to go ahead and do it was a terrible happening for our niece, Emily. My sister and her family came over to see how we were doing and, in her excitement, Emily tripped on the lip of the hallway flooring that stuck up above the living room floor and hit her head on the steps, cutting a deep gash in her cheek. You can read the story on my sister's blog.

So, Monday the 24th (after Peter's 2-month well-child check-up) we tore up the dinning room floor.

Tuesday the 25th, we spent tearing up the hallway (we had several set-backs, including a broken tool that Jason used to pull up the zillions of nails holding the plywood to the hardwood flooring).

Wednesday the 26th, we continued to prep the hardwood floors for sanding by filling in holes, replacing some termite damaged boards in the dinning room, putting in a new landing to replace the pet-urine damaged original, and creating a better cover for an old cold air return hole in the hallway.

Thursday, the 27th, we were finally able to sand.

Today, Friday the 28th, we were unable to do any work on the house because Jason had to be at work today.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 29th, we hope to stain and urethane the floors. We won't be able to do anymore work on it after tomorrow until the following weekend, Labor Day weekend (Sept. 5-7).

(I also got a bit of miscellaneous work done by cleaning in the kitchen and getting a start to putting contact paper on the cupboard shelves.)

Here are pictures of the nearly week-long process:

The Danish Festival!

2009-08-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

This has nothing to do with fixing up our house, but I thought I'd include it because we celebrated our new town's annual "Danish Festival" on Saturday by attending the "Grand Dansk Parade".

My side of the family has made a sort of tradition of going to this parade starting with my oldest sister, who was in the parade as part of the marching band, followed by me when I was in band. Now that we are all older, we've begun to go to the parade as a sort of annual tradition/mini-family reunion for those who can attend.

Our 1st Week of Fixing Up: Misc. and Painting

2009-08-28T19:06:00.000-04:00

We didn't do anything really significant to the house on August 20th due to a previously scheduled, minor, outpatient surgery for Jason. The third day of fixing, August 21st, we did a lot of miscellaneous jobs. Most notably, Jason re-wired some electrical, fixed some light fixtures (having to replace the one in the upstairs hallway because the bulb had broken off below the socket and we couldn't remove it), I sanded in Anna's room, and various other tasks that I didn't bother to get pictures of. The fourth day of fixing, August 21st, we also did misc. things and Jason got started on painting Anna's room.

Our 1st Week of Fixing Up: Wallpaper

2009-08-28T18:58:00.000-04:00

The second day of our house fix-up, August 19th, we tore out the wallpaper in Anna's & Peter's rooms. This was a bigger and more time consuming job than I had thought it'd be.

Anna's Room:

Peter's Room:

Our 1st Week of Fixing Up: The Carpet

2009-08-23T22:20:00.000-04:00

Our first day of cleaning and fixing was August 18, 2009. All day, we tore out carpet, took up tack strip, and removed carpet staples. It made the house smell a lot better. Not 100%, but much better than it had been.

Here are some "before" and "during" pictures. The before pictures were taken the day we looked at the house for the first time on July 13th, 2009.

First, the "Before" pictures...

Stairway:

In the hall, looking into the boys' rooms:

Peter's Room:

Ben's Room:

Anna's Room (it has two closets, the one without shelves I'll be using to store holiday decorations):

Living Room:

Progress pictures from the first day...

Grandpa, tearing out carpet in Peter's room:

Grandma, sweeping after the carpet was torn out of Ben's room:

Anna's room after the carpet was torn out, but before the carpet tack and staples were out:

Grandpa and Jason tearing out carpet on the stairs:

The carpet is out!

Living room with the carpet up, sitting there:

Living room without any carpet:

The landing of the stairs without carpet, the landing had the worst of the pet urine:

It's ours!!

2009-08-17T15:27:00.001-04:00

Today we signed on the house and it became officially ours! We got the one key it had and went in for a little while. We couldn't stay long because, unfortunately, Jason has to supervise at work today, so he couldn't use a vacation day for today. So, we will begin our cleaning and fixing-up spree tomorrow.

We brought a big box of cleaning supplies with that we will be utilizing tomorrow. We also brought a mailbox to put out. As it so happened, we met our mail lady and she gave us some ideas as to where to put it. (She also gave me my first piece of mail! I was expecting it to take about 6 weeks to arrive, so I used the new address not thinking it would only take about a week to arrive. It's my free chocolate coupon from Mars/M&M's.) The house has an existing mail slot, but it is strangely placed near the floor in the back corner of the mudroom closet. We prefer a mailbox, so we put ours out. It is only temporary, since we didn't have the time needed to permanently place it. But for now, it's our first "claim of our territory" sort of thing.

We can't wait to start working on our house and begin to make it ours. :) The first step will be to tear out the old carpet which had been saturated with cat urine and makes the entire house smell pretty awful. I brought boxes of baking powder and some air fresheners today and placed in just about every room of the house to help make it smell a bit better.

I don't expect I'll be able to post a lot during the next few weeks or so, since we'll be busy with cleaning, fixing, and moving. Stay tuned for more updates...whenever I get a moment to post them.