Three Years! Befores & Afters

This month marks three years since we bought our dirty, smokey, run-down little house! I had this idea that I would track our progress on this blog and post updates to Facebook so that interested parties could follow along, but then 1) I thought twice about having everyone seeing pictures of my kids playing with power tools at a construction site wearing their grubbiest clothes, and 2) I never updated the blog.

But in honor of this anniversary, and because we're aaaaaalmost finished with house projects (haha! just kidding...house projects never end. But visitors no longer see things like holes in the wall), here are some befores and afters.

In spite of the filth, looking at the "befores" reminds me that this house had me from hello: perfect size for our abilities, perfect layout, best kid neighborhood. I'm glad we saw the potential! It has been a happy place for us.

Entryway:

This picture makes my wallpaper-perforator hand ache. The paper was brittle and had to be removed square-inch by square-inch, and under it was...plaster (??!)  

I really like little rooms that are painted with either intense colors or patterns. I started out trying to cut a stencil to imitate Albert Hadley's Fireworks wallpaper (look it up...it's so cool and I wish it had worked. It ALMOST worked). But the dots were much easier and still fun.

"Mmmmm...your entryway floor is so delicious!" -the former termite inhabitants of our house

Holy smokes! The inside view (the entryway wallpaper was a textured light yellow. But check out how it coordinates with the nice cigarette smoke patina on the living room walls!)

Master Bath:

What I remember about this is that the floor tile adhesive claimed the life of our iron.

Boys' Room:

The airflow pattern above that vent makes me very happy that we had the whole HFAC system cleaned out. 

I'm not a diy blogger so I didn't have to "style" the boys lego shelves before taking this picture, which is a good thing because they would have been sad about that. And for the record, the big brown couch in there wasn't my idea. It's my second son's comfort object (upside: he can't carry it with him).

Main Bath:

There's something about carpet in bathrooms. Something horrifying. And a wall patch! 

And then there was what was UNDER the carpet! Jonathan cleared it out with a shovel.

Living Room:

I genuinely always loved this room. But I like it better now....

Can you find Juju in this high-quality phone pic? Hint: her socks provide a pop of pink...

If anyone ever tears out Jonathan's awesome living room floor, they will find this sweet message. It was way better than having him carve it on a tree :-)

Our Room:

Grid wall paper! But the real trial of this room is that the wall you can't see had a thick cork-board covering circa 1968. We worked SO HARD to scrape it off, only to have to cut out the drywall and replace it.  

Dining Area:

It started out carpeted but under the carpet was this terrible tile underlayment that took soooooo long to remove.

Kitchen

Maybe for the forth anniversary I'll get around to posting some outside pictures, which are almost as dramatic.

Vanities

One of the biggest pains of the renovation so far has been BATHROOM VANITIES. The vanity we tore out of the hall bathroom was a 60", but we wanted something smaller to make the room feel bigger.

Man! Vanities are bafflingly expensive, even dumb ones! I finally settled on this one from Home Depot because it was the least expensive one that still looked OK. 

They delivered it, and we opened the box only to find out that the whole back part of the vanity was coming off, so we returned it. The second one they sent looked OK so Jonathan installed it. It bothered us, though, because the drawers already had chipping paint and they hit each other every time we closed them. For a $900 purchase, you expect more!! 

When I called to arrange to return the 2nd vanity, they offered 10% off of any vanity and I decided to just be crazy and order the one that I really wanted. When it arrived we were blown away. It was GORGEOUS. It also weighed, like, 800 lbs because it was solid hardwood. The marble top was soooo pretty. The finish was kind of pearlized and absolutely beautiful. Jonathan installed the day before we left for Silver Bay/the family reunion. The only possible issue was that it was so much fancier than any other fixture in the house. 

                                      

On our way back from Silver Bay, we detoured through Pittsburgh so that we could pick up a bunch of house things from IKEA, including a little 24" hemnes vanity for the boys bathroom. While we were standing in the bathroom show area, we saw the 40" hemnes vanity. It was $300. "Honey," I said, "This vanity is exactly our speed." SO we bought the hemnes vanity and took advantage of Home Depot's amazing 90 day return policy.

We are SO HAPPY with it. It is exactly what we want. I am filled with joy and relieve every single time I brush my teeth. Thanks, IKEA. 

Microwave & Cabinet Pulls

We cook a lot, but we have never lived in a place with a functioning range hood. Yeah, sometimes we leave the house smelling like sautéed peppers, but it hasn't seemed like a huge deal so far.

The range hood vs. over-range microwave question was something that we put off until after we moved in. It soon became obvious that we needed the microwave off the counter. It made the kitchen feel cramped and made everyone feel grumpy, see?: 

The other thing that made everyone feel grumpy was the unsightly hole above the range (this was taken before the countertops were in, but the hole remained for our first month or so in the house. Blech.

If you ever want to feel like everyone thinks you are dumb, decide to get an over-range microwave and then read online forums about which is better, a hood or an OTR microwave. Obviously, only a neanderthal would get an OTR microwave and a hood is absolutely essential if you ever cook at all. Happily, since we have gone almost a decade with no hood and there was no other option for getting the microwave off of the counter, we went for the OTR microwave.

The microwave does have a hood-function and since the ductwork already existed (mostly), Jonathan vented it through the upper cabinet, through the soffit, through the attic, and outside. I think it actually works pretty well. At least, better than anything we've had (not had) before!

While he was doing all of that (Labor Day, I think?) I installed all of the cabinet hardware. Life is so much easier now. Oh! And we bought a new stove/oven. We like it a lot.

Miraculous Occurrences During Move-In Week Way Back When

Yeah, that last post is correct…complete burnout during move-in week!

We moved in on a Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, lo and behold, the cabinet installers came!!! We had been prepared to live a bathtub-dishwashing week of squalor, so this was a major blessing. The thing is, when they called that Monday and said that they only come down south from Chicago every Wednesday and this Wednesday was full, rather than just accept it, I told them our situation and they changed for us! Feels good to be pro-active.

It's a carrera-marble-look formica countertop. The countertop was the first thing our friend mentioned when he said, "Don't over-improve this house!" I was wistful, but I seriously could not be more happy with our countertops. It's always nice when you can save 3-5K and still like the appearance/function. And I'm SO relieved that we didn't try my crazy idea from This Old House of DIY soapstone. What a nightmare.

A few days before we moved in it looked like this...


And then it looked like this:



Remember how we didn't have interior doors for our first few days in the house? Amazingly, Jonathan's dad had decided to use his single day of vacation + his frequent flier miles to fly out here and fix a $1000 car issue that we had. He arrived at 3AM on July 4th and left at 3AM on July 6th. The miraculous part is that he had the car fixed in 30 minutes flat. We had been prepared for two straight days of work, so this was remarkable. That left a whole two days for…hanging doors!!!  Somehow it made me feel good to see that even for a guy who knows everything about homebuilding, door slabs are a huge pain. He also put a back on our kitchen peninsula.

Burnout!

We're moving into our house on Tuesday (postponed from Saturday because the countertop guys are still not ready to install…in fact, I think we'll be living there for a few days with no countertop, and worse, no kitchen sink. (I just remembered that a huge percentage of the world's population doesn't have access to clean water and I'm complaining about a few days of washing dishes on the deck. Sorry.)

We are burned out! Every project feels impossible so we keep delaying. Latest thing: we don't have interior doors on most of the rooms yet because we didn't realize how dumb it is to buy door slabs instead of pre hung. Mortising hinges?! What the heck?! Hopefully later this week.

Here are some things that did happen.

The rest of the floors are in!

Carpet installed in the bedrooms!

Bathrooms grouted and sealed! Toilets purchased!

Somehow, we're going to make it.

Tile Hero

Originally, we had planned to do white hex tiles on the bathroom floor, inspired by, of all places, our grad school apartment bathroom. It was all-white (hex on the floor, square gloss tiles in the shower) and we loved it!  My wise father-in-law, however, advised against doing mosaic tiles since 1) it's our first-ever tiling job, and 2) we don't have 5 years to grout (right, Kar? :-)

Then I wanted a shiny carrara marble-like floor, but a stranger in Home Depot took his earbuds out to strike up a conversation about how slick my bathroom would be if I bought that tile. Right.

Finally, we chose avila gris tiles (from Spain! Viva Espana!) They got perfect reviews, and while they're darker than I wanted, I love them.

Our friend Aaron, who used to be a professional tile layer, generously came over and spent ALL DAY tiling our bathrooms. We are so, so indebted to all of the people who have helped us on our house. 

Aaron in action. He did an amazing job. Unfortunately, Peter stepped into the bathroom, so a tile or two got pushed down a tiny bit.  This is a bummer, but considering that all of the tiles would have been that way if we had done it ourselves, we're going with it. 

Floors, Continued

This week was spent almost entirely on installing the laminate floor, and there is still a little ways to go (we did a few side projects--paint touch-ups, installing a couple of new door frames, and a whole day of tiling bathroom. Mostly just laminate floors, though!) 

We couldn't believe how slow-going it was. If it had been just one big square room, that would have been fine, but the flooring goes in and out of lots of little closets, winds around the bedroom hall, and goes under the fridge, dishwasher, and range. Jonathan has done about a hundred cuts of various kinds and has a few more to go. 

Several kind friends have come by to put in hours on the floor, a few who have lots of experience. It was heartening for Jonathan to find that they didn't go any faster than he did. 

The other night Jonathan was staring at how the bottom of his cup fit against the side of the scalloped plate that he was eating from and he said, "If I cut that just a little bit more, it will fit…" Poor guy. This is what he dreams of at night:

But it's nice to remember that this

Became this

Became this!  We're not super into the swirly-ness of this wood, but the color is warm and nice and it's not as swirly in person. Also, it will have a lot of stuff on it at this time next week!