A little painting...and some more demo

So we decided to get our hands a little dirty on this big ol' house project.  There are so many pieces to this puzzle, and many of them Brett could do himself (in theory), but with a full time job, a side project, and three kids, there is really no time for him to do much of the remodel.  He did decide to get the garage in ship shape before we moved in.  We never got our garage organized and cleaned up in our last house, so Brett was determined to get this one all set up BEFORE we dumped all our clutter in it!  So, he painted it and used one of the shades of white we are considering for the inside - a nice big test swatch!  It was A LOT of work as it turned out and made him feel even better about our decision to hire out the painting for the rest of the house. 

The kids got to help, too.  They love to paint and since it was "just a garage" Brett let them dive in and didn't have to worry too much about the mess.  They loved it and would have covered the entire garage (or at least the bottom 4 feet of it), but time was precious and Brett had to finish it up before the sun set, so they just helped for about an hour.  Next step is to hang the kitchen cabinets we took out and saved on the back wall for storage and get some bike storage set up.

 

 

(Sorry there is no "after" picture - it's just a white garage!)

As for me, I took on a much smaller painting project.  I decided to save this 1980's beauty of a brass chandelier from our dining room by spray painting it Rustoleum's "Antique Bronze." 

 

It cost $8 and took just a few minutes to spray each coat (I did about 3 coats).  A simple project for me and it will save us several hundred dollars by not having to buy another chandelier.  I think it will go in our breakfast nook, and we'll get a new one in the dining room.

And for the master bath... Before:

Now:

Notice the big hole in the back of the shower?  We didn't do that.  It was like that, if you can believe it.  The hot water heater was crammed in the back of the adjoining coat closet and it was too big for the space so the builder cut out the drywall so it would fit.  What a mess!  So, we decided to move the hot water heater (and get a new one) to the garage.  By moving it to the garage, we don't have to worry about the potential disaster of a leak (on our hardwoods) and we got to extend the relatively small master shower back almost 2 feet.  Win win.  Now we need to pick out and order some finishes for our master bath so it doesn't look like this when we move in!  (Actually, these pictures were taken yesterday.  I went by today, and the room is now completely down to the studs - no drywall left AT ALL.  The wallpaper was so thick (2-3 layers, it appears), that it was easier to just re-drywall it than try to salvage the existing walls.)

Progress

A lot has been accomplished this week at the new house.  Lots of demolition and mess-making for most of the week, but then at the end a little bit of reassembling.  It had to get really ugly before it started to get better, but I think (and hope) we are rounding that corner.  Evidence of the mess is here in our lovely dumpster:

I was in charge of this project alone this week as Brett was in NY for work.  Each time I went to the house to check in (I try to go twice a day) I had AT LEAST one child with me (in a construction zone).  It was very hard to take decent pictures while making sure Grant didn't tumble down the stairs or stick his hand down the exposed sewer pipe or play in the insulation or step on a nail... you get the picture.  Toddlers and construction zones don't mix!  So I do have a few pictures to share, but not as many as I'd like and most of them aren't that great (since I had only one eye on the camera and the other on Grant!).

A few updates:

1.  We decided to put hardwoods in the entire house.  It'll cost us about $2,500 more upfront than high quality carpet, but in the long run it will save a lot of money because they will never need to be replaced (we could never replace 1300 sf of space with even the worst carpet for $2,500).  Plus, we do prefer the look of hardwood and the cleanliness factor. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to write that check for such a large amount of money for basically a disposable product. Short term pain for long term gain here!  Plus with young kids, the inevitable potty accidents, throwing up, spitting up, spilling paint, dropping pens, and other incidents will not cause permanent damage!  Yay for that!

Here are some pictures of the hardwoods installed in the master and kitchen (unfinished).  They look great.  We are considering leaving them natural, but will try a few light stains on them as well and decided once we've seen our choices on the floors.

2. Once we saw (and mentally processed) what a MESS taking out tile creates, we decided to go ahead and start the remodel on our master bath also.  We were going to do it in 3-6 months, but the messy reality of demolition changed our minds.  Envisioning all that dust and noise and strange people in and out of our personal space for weeks while we lived there just became a very unappealing prospect.  We have an idea of what we want to do in there, but now we need to make some decisions and order some tile and fixtures.

Here is the tile removing mess I am referring to (serious noise and serious dust, people):

3.  Although last week I was thrilled to see the demo and the cleared out space in our kitchen, I must admit that I did have a brief but powerful moment of panic this week in the face of all the mess.  I was walking in the house with Pierce and Grant.  Pierce had to go potty (bad!).  We tried the half bath - no toilet.  Tried the master bath - people in there doing demo work.  Tried to go upstairs to the kids bath - no stairs!  Moment of panic.  I thought, "What have I done?  I have a house with no accessible toilets, no stairs, and a bunch of people I don't know inside.  Agh!!!"  Then Pierce reminded me to try the back stairs and go through the attic space connecting the two separate upstairs spaces.  So we did.  And we arrived a one functioning toilet.  I think I am over my panic.  It caught me off guard.  But it has passed and I hope it won't come back.

4. We did decide to open up the closet in the playroom to create more usable space.  And it is awesome.  I am so glad we did it.  The pictures don't do the space justice (according to Brett who was not impressed with the pictures I texted him this week in NY, but when he saw it in person was also thrilled).  The kids agreed to model for us to give a little bit of perspective on size.

Before:

A wall with a closet behind it.  Hi, Sydney!  Hi, Pierce!

After:

A serious addition to our formerly SMALL playroom.

Ignore the pipe running down the middle of the space - an unfortunate discovery that will be rerouted.  And the hanging wires and missing drywall will be remedied also.

That's all for now.  Next time I'll show you our totally trashed master bath!  Agh!!!  Will anything be put back together???

Demolition!

A LOT of demolition has occurred during the one week we have owned this home.  Wow.  I cannot believe how much was accomplished and I also cannot believe how excited I am to see it all in action.  I was a little bit concerned that I might freak out when I saw things being torn out and walls being exposed and moved.  But I was NOT!  Yay for that!  I was actually thrilled to see the house this way.  Seeing it without dated colors and fixtures and old carpet allowed me to really envision the plan we have for it.  Our contractor has been excellent, so we are lucky in that respect.  I think it is at its worst today, so I will share some demo pictures! 

The kitchen one week ago on closing day:

And today:

We are slightly altering the floor plan.  We removed the utility sink from the laundry room in order to gain 2 more feet of space in the kitchen for better flow and more cabinetry.  The pantry was taken out and moved down two feet and reframed.  We are going with a pocket door for the new smaller laundry room to save space.  The opening to the dining room was enlarged so the counter-depth freezer can fully open without the door hitting the doorway to the dining room (no picture of this angle - oops).

Here's the demo'd version of the future playroom:

I am thinking of opening up that large walk-in closet you see on the left in this picture to enlarge the playroom and create another little play space.  Later on, it would make a great area for built-in desks for a homework station.  We don't really need the storage in this room, and I personally think open spaces are always better.  The opening would go about as far down on that left wall as you can see in this picture (in both directions).  This is the fun of demolition - you get to the bare bones and you can see the possibilities.  Once you've had your contractor move one wall (in the kitchen) and realized its not very expensive to do, it's a bit addicting!  What do you all think??  Should we open it up?  (I'm on board, my mom thinks it sounds great, Brett likes the idea, but I could tell by the tone in my contractor's voice that he's siding with the painter and I am crazy.)

On Wednesday new hardwoods will be laid downstairs, and as soon as we can muster up the courage to pay the gargantuan bill for our carpet we have selected (who knew carpet was so expensive!), we will schedule that to be installed.  Any carpeting advice out there?  Is it worth getting the better quality product to avoid having to replace it in less than 10 years?  I know the horrible builder grade carpet at our house in Cary was nearing the end of its useful life after only 6 years of shoeless petless use.  So, we have selected a nice wool carpet (all natural) for the upstairs. It's not much more expensive than standard carpet, but when you multiply it out by square feet and add padding and installation and taxes...OUCH!

More photos next week, hopefully it will be in a better state then.

Thanks for everyone's facebook input on the "white" saga.  I feel even better about my "crazy" choice.  Although I still have not settled on my white.  I'll let you know what I choose!

White, right?

Ok, so the all white thing is not so simple as it seems.  Do you have any idea how many “white” color swatches there are at all the different paint stores?  Hundreds.  Seriously.  Hundreds of swatches that look white or at least white-ish and have “white” in their names.  “Decorators white,” “Ultra white,” “Simply white,” “super white,” and then the more creative ones, “popcorn,” “polar bear,” and my current favorite, “du jour.”  It’s a crazy white world out there.  And speaking of crazy, I must be crazy.  I talked to the painter we have hired to paint the entire house (white!).  After walking him through the house and talking about what we needed done, I mentioned it would all be one color, so a relatively simple job in that sense.  I told him it would all be white.  “White?”  he asked.  “All of it?”  “Really?”  “Pure white?”  “Not cream?”  Ha!  You should have seen the perplexed look on his face.  I think he would have been less shocked if I had said, “Black.  All of it.”  Or even, “Hot pink.  All of it.”  After an awkward moment of silence (well, he was silently pondering my decision and I was actually laughing out loud), he said, “I’ve never painted anyone’s house all white.”  “Well, wait a minute, I take that back.  I did paint one lady’s house all white one time.  But she was crazy.  Really crazy.” 

So, there you have it.  I am crazy.  We are going to try the white, because I just can’t help but be drawn to rooms like this:

And this:

Even kids rooms in white are fun and refreshing.  The toys, books, fabrics add all the color you need

 

 

 

When you come to visit, I think I will have a tally going on the chalk board wall I plan to paint in the kitchen (Aha!  There will be one small wall that is NOT white - it will be BLACK!).  And you can vote for or against me once you've seen the house.  Check "Crazy" or "Genius" when you come. Thanks!

Ideas

After six months of searching, we finally bought a home in Wilmington!  It is a charming home with good bones and the right floor plan for our family.  With three kids and Brett working from home, finding the right floor plan proved to be a real challenge.  We needed 11 rooms, and not many homes had that, but this one did.  And all in the right places.  Kids needed to be upstairs, office needed to be far away from the (loud) living, playing and cooking spaces.  Kitchen needed to be at the back of the house with a view of the back yard.  Backyard needed to be large and well-positioned.  Lots of things we wanted to get right!  And we did!  And under budget!  This house was actually the least expensive house we looked at – and we probably saw 25 homes over a six month period.  And we bought the cheapest one!  And liked it better than some homes priced $200,000 MORE.  That’s a lesson for you home buyers out there – look high and LOW when you are shopping.  You never know.  So, keeping our home purchase way under our budget means that we can remodel it and get it pretty much exactly the way we want it (in theory, at least).  The fun begins tomorrow.

I have so many ideas for this place that I don’t even know where to start.  Ok, yes I do.  The kitchen.  The most important room in the house needs to be done right and from day one.  I have no desire to live through a kitchen remodel, so we are hanging out with my parents for another month (thanks, mom!) while the kitchen is redone.  We are bribing my parents as best we can to allow us to continue to dismantle their once quiet, clean and peaceful home.

On the to-do list for this month are: 

1.       Complete kitchen renovation.

2.      Painting all the walls white.  Yes, white.  Yes, all of them.  I get lots of strange looks when I tell people we are painting the whole house white.  Maybe that’s because our last house was like a box of Crayolas?  We’re trying something new.  I’m inspired by European homes, Swedish design, coastal cottages, all embracing white walls. Not cream, white.  And, no, I am strangely not worried about it looking like a hospital.  We’ll see!

3.       New carpet.

4.       New hardwoods.

5.       Countless other basic updates like installing fire alarms to meet modern code, reworking closets, installing lights, new water heater, replacing a few doors, etc.

Right now the kitchen looks like this:

A well-built kitchen in 1989, but ready for an update. Good size, nice bay window.

 

And I envision something a little more like this:

White shaker cabinets? Check! Farmhouse sink? Check! Marble countertops? Check! $6,000 Viking Range...nope!  Sorry, couldn't swing that one!

 

Or like this:

http://www.houzz.com/photos/1354881/Classical-Kitchen-traditional-rendering-new-york

(Notice the nice bench under the bay window?  We'll be copying that!)

While we don’t have unlimited funds like the person creating my inspiration kitchens probably did, we are going to emulate it on a budget, friends!  We have already ordered the cabinets and appliances and countertops and barstools, so we are on the way.  We are changing the layout and moving some walls, the end result in my mind will be a completely transformed space.  I hope I am right. 

Demo starts tomorrow.  We are having a large dumpster delivered in our front yard.  I’m sure the neighbors will be thrilled about that!  Nothing like making a great first impression with a nasty dumpster!  Good thing we have no HOA to hassle us.

I’ll update soon.  The house will be in a seriously different state in a few days and I hope not to freak out when walls start coming down.