The Friday we closed on the house also happened to be the 1st day of spring break! The timing was perfect because Kyle had the week off, my Dad and Debra came down to help us (they were a huge help) and Mema took the kids to the farm for the week (also a huge help).. It was a perfect situation to get some major housework done!
On Friday afternoon we walked into a perfectly livable house, albeit quite dirty. And by Sunday we had completely destroyed it (walls torn down, all the flooring removed, no kitchen, etc.).
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| Breaking in the new house |
Every house has something that makes you go hmmm…a shelf over the door in the garage. Okay.
During spring break we removed the kitchen, fixed some plumbing, removed the laminate flooring, removed the carpeting, removed the popcorn ceiling in the bedrooms, the contractor took care of the mold issue in the bathroom, a brick layer fixed the brick work, we patched a million holes in the walls, painted ceilings, painted built-ins and laid hardwood floors.
The first night we had the house the demolition began. We started in the kitchen…tearing out cabinets, tile and drywall. We even found an OLD trash compactor hidden behind the cabinetry. I guess when it stopped working instead of removing it or putting in a new one they just covered it up.
After some major demolition, clean up and plumbing work the drywall started going back up.
The entryway featured some very retro green granite tile. I politely asked Kyle to remove it…that became more of an issue than we anticipated. First of all the tile was legit…like an inch thick. It took some major effort to remove and then we learned our little entryway/walkway was built up on bricks.
So we had two options 1) remove the bricks and make a level floor, but that would require us to remove the outside step and change the level of 3 doors 2) Add a thin layer of concrete on top of the bricks (that was what they did originally, but it had deteriorated when removing the granite tile) to give us a smooth, solid surface to lay the hardwoods on. We chose the 2nd option. The guys did not enjoy laying the concrete, but the result was great…pictures of that later.
The family room after the floors were removed
Master bedroom after the popcorn ceiling and carpet was removed. We also filled in the multitude of holes in the walls.
This is a gross picture of the mold issue in the master bathroom. We knew about the mold issue, but once the house was in our possession we learned it was a broken pipe that had been leaking for a LONG time. At one spot in the mold you could literally see outside. Thankfully we had a contractor and brick layer there 2 days after we got the keys to fix the problem.
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| my DIY game is strong as I use the paint sprayer to paint the ceilings after we destroyed the popcorn |
During our last few days of the spring break renovation marathon Kyle laid the hardwood floors in the living room, dining room, family room, entryway, hallway and part of the kitchen. The house was very much still in a state of destruction/construction, but with spring ball about to begin it was his last big chunk of time to devote to the floors. While it may have been a bit out of order it was good to start putting things back together.
When we're not working on the house we're hunting for things for the house...
The kids even get into the action. They really loved this slab of granite ;)
And Nora immediately declared this as her bedroom carpet. More rational minds prevailed ;)
I've spent the last few weekends patching holes and painting the kitchen and kids bedrooms.
As of today the carpet has been installed and the kitchen cabinets have been delivered. Also, all appliances have been purchased. It's coming together, next up is installing the kitchen cabinets!
