The Kitchen Demo

To be 100% honest, the kitchen was not that bad... There were a few things that could have been changed to make it a decent kitchen and give it a face lift (ex. counter tops, sink, cabinet hardware, maybe paint the cabinets...) But we got to thinking about it, and while the cabinets look nice in the picture, they are just from a big box store and actually weren't constructed that well, and did not utilize the space at all.

We knew the tile had to go, and in order to get all of that out, we had to take out the bottom cabinets, which is really the half way point on the whole demo...

 

Since we were not in love with the kitchen, and rather than trying to live in the house through a complete kitchen gut, we decided to go ahead and go back down to a blank slate now!

 So we started gutting the kitchen and getting the tile up and out. We found some interesting things along the way... The kitchen was an addition in the late 1970's adding another 285 sq feet to the house, and making a wonderful large kitchen in the process!  However, when the tile was put in at some point, someone put down particle board on top of the plywood subfloor, then put down Hardi Backer then the tile... There is also french patio doors out to the deck and there was water damage at the sill...

So as you can imagine, the particle board a good 3 feet into the room around the door was just trashed from the water, and was popping the tiles up as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had quite a few friends and family members help us out with this demo, it was quite the labor intensive endeavor.  So thank you to everyone who worked VERY hard to get all of this mess out of the house, it looks so much better now! Then we pulled out the old cabinets, and we are actually able to use most of them elsewhere in the house. There is a whole corner section and the the uppers to match out in the garage for storage and Dan's work area. Then we have a few that will go into the laundry room for my craft storage area! 

 

We had decided we wanted the hardwood floors to extend into the kitchen and flow through the entire house. Alex, our flooring guy did an amazing job matching up the new wood to the the original hardwood floors. 

 

Now, if you have ever done home renovations then you know there comes a point where you stare at your calendar and think, 'how on earth is this all going to fit together nicely, and what has to come first?'  We have found our selves in this conundrum a few times by now.  The hardwood floors are not ready to be sanded and finished because the walls and ceiling need to be fixed first...

The kitchen can't go in until the floors are sanded and finished, and they are done now... We can't paint till the walls and ceilings are done, but want to be done before the floors get sanded, but then the dust gets everywhere...

Ahh! Its a logistic nightmare. But we came up with a solution!

 

 

Alex came in and sanded and put down 1 layer of stain on the kitchen floors. This seals and protects the floors enough so that the cabinet guys can come in and install our kitchen. And boy do they look beautiful!  What Alex will do when we have him back for the rest of the house is buff these up for the 2nd and 3rd coats so they flow into the rest of the house refinishing.  Stay tuned for the Kitchen Install update!!
 

The Bathroom Project...

When we bought the house, it had just 1 full bathroom upstairs. The linen closet was an odd configuration, the floor tile was the cheapest big tiles that Home Depot had on special buy when they were installed, the shower tile did not match at all, the toilet we decided was rated for midget use only, and the vanities were a kick away from falling over.  With a room that is 10' x 11' we decided that we could make this into 2 bathrooms!
 

 

 

 

So I started to demo work and tackled the ridiculous linen closet. Boy was that thing built to last! It was wood construction covered in sheet rock with enough drywall screws to fill the sink! I also started tackling the tile flooring and discovered beautiful hex tile underneath! Unfortunately it was not in great condition, but we did try to salvage it.

 

 

 

Realizing that in 1 day I only removed the top layer of tile, and part of the linen closet, I decided quickly I needed to call in the big guns....

Mom and Dad came down to visit for the weekend, and went straight to work! Basically what I did in 1 day, Dad and Dan did the rest in about 2 hours!  We discovered that the hex tile was missing in a lot of areas, and uncovered some structural issues, and then decided to take the room back to the floor joists.

We have no idea what the original layout of the house was for this bathroom. As you can see in the picture above, there was a window where the shower was. At one point it was a small one, then a larger one was put in, and now the window is further down the wall! And in case you were wondering, there was one on the back wall as well that we found when we went to put in the shower for the master bath!

The next step was to build the great divide. Dan and Garrison, one of our Navy friends, worked on putting in the structure when they weren't flying one day.  We left the floor exposed so that our plumber, Chris, could come in and have easy access since we were doubling what we had before!

Now these pictures might be a bit dark, I apologize, but they are of the rough finish on the bathrooms!  The first two photos are the hall bathroom, there is a tub in here. Then the master bathroom will have a walk in shower.

Now this is just the rough finish on the bathrooms. We found an amazing tile guy who is a master mason from Bosnia, Berzad, and he started this week working on getting my beautiful tile in!  Stay tuned for updates on the tile, here is a little sneakpeak of what we selected: 

Let the rehabilitation begin…

Since our house was a rental property for a few years, there were quite a few corners cut to achieve “quick fixes,” so much so that we are shocked the house isn’t a circle! So we started brainstorming over a glass of wine, and came up with a list of projects we wanted to do, and it looked something like this:

· Strip all of the painted trim back down to the wood

· Rip out the carpet upstairs

· Get rid of the tile on both fireplaces

· Strip wallpaper upstairs & downstairs

· Get rid of ugly textured ceilings

· Take the paint off the walls back down to plaster

· Repair plaster in all rooms

· Demo current linen closet in Bathroom

· Take out ugly tile in Bathroom

· Look into making 1 bathroom into 2 bathrooms

· Demo TERRIBLE tile in Kitchen

· Gut entire Kitchen & put in new cabinets and counter tops

· Repair termite damaged hardwood floors

· Put new hardwood in Kitchen

· Refinish all hardwood floors in house

· Demo laundry room floor & put in tile

· Repair foundation issues

· Replace structural beams w/ termite damage

· Put new insulation in Attic

· Add ceiling fans to bedrooms & family room

· Fix ALL electrical problems (knob & tube in attic)

· Repair all windows & restore window sashes

And the list kept growing! Little do we know that once we started projects they would not only become bigger, but also would spin off into other little projects. We set out initial move in date for October 31^st, 2012 and got straight to work ripping stuff out the Saturday after we closed!

Original Listing Photos

Below are the photos from the original listing.  As you can see, the house looks great and is quite charming! But lets keep in mind that these were taken in early 2011... The house was not in this condition when we took over, and the termite damage is not evident in these pictures.