Remembering - Our Kitchen Renovation - Before & Demo

I truly regret not starting this blog when we purchased our home back in April 2010 but I was so busy with the renovation, I probably wouldn't have updated it anyway. So now that we're almost finished, I will 'remember' our renovation, one room at at time.

First is our kitchen. It was the most dramatic change and the most expensive, so it's the best place to start.

Here are the before pics, these were taken after we made the offer to buy but hadn't purchased yet. It was some time in March 2010.

As you look at the before pics you'll probably think, those cabinets look pretty good, why did they feel like they needed to change them? Well, if you had seen them in person, you'd understand, the sink cabinet was crumbling from a leak in the sink plumbing and the laminate was peeling off. They were bad. We did keep the ones in the laundry (for now).

The room beyond was the dining room, the refrigerator went right by the door where the outlet is on the wall.

Dishwasher went on the left of the sink, the previous owners took it with them. See the hole in the tile? Interior foundation work was just completed.

A close up of the hole - this wasn't the only one, there were about 8 of them throughout the house.

It was nice to have a lot of pantry space but how old is that oven?

The cooktop was on the peninsula that overlooked the den. There was a HUGE exhaust fan over the cooktop so you couldn't see anyone in the den even if you wanted to. The breakfast area is beyond the peninsula.

Here's the view from the den - see the monstrosity exhaust fan?

See how the floor of the cabinet under the sink is wet? Sink was leaking - for a long time - when we pulled out the cabinet, the floor and backside crumbled - yeah - it crumbled. Pics later in the post.

No dishwasher - who takes a dishwasher when they move out? Especially these people - they ran a - I'm going to misspell this because I don't want google to pick it up - pros = titu-shun ring - yeah, really, we found the news articles on the internet from when they got busted. More on that later.

Next I'll show you the work that led to the transformation. This is the demo phase ONE.

The contractor that we ended up firing took up the tile floor. Brent and I removed the upper cabinets one evening after work.

Next, Brent and I spent a Sunday removing everything else, including the wall between the kitchen and dining room. The hardest part of this was moving the oven microwave combo, it was too heavy for both Brent and I together (like I was a lot of help). He ended up taking the two units apart and using the dolly to get it out of the house. Putting it in the dumpster about killed me.

Not very clear, but that's some of the crumbled cabinet where the sink was leaking.

I won! I got the biggest piece off the wall without it breaking!

This isn't just the kitchen, it's the drywall from the living room and bathroom along with the old bathtub and all the tile that was removed.

Also most done with demo - still needed to remove the drywall from the outer walls so we could replace the insulation and redo the plumbing. If you look hard you can see the ice maker water pipe in the old wall, that had to be moved to the new location for the refrigerators.

Now demo phase TWO - this is where we took down the studs to the wall between the dining and kitchen and found damage. Brent and Zack reinforced two ceiling joists that ran across the top of the kitchen. Somewhere in there, we took down the drywall on the outer walls and had the electrician install recessed lighting.

It's hard to see but the joist was cracked horizontally.

Looking up into the attic you can see the top part of the chimney. It was painted white at some point in its life.

We had the 2x4 supporting the cracked joist. In the background you can see where we moved the opening to the new dining room (that used to be the formal living room). We had our new refrigerators and a borrowed microwave in there, that was where we kept some essential foods (like water!), but we ate out every meal.

As you can see, we had a huge hole in the ceiling and this was in the middle of the Houston summer. We put plastic over it until the drywallers could get it fixed.

I never got a pic with ceiling open and the studs on the front wall showing but this pic gives you a good idea of what the kitchen looked like for quite a while, probably longer than we should have let it go.

 

Sometime after this, the plumber came in and replumbed all the water lines on the west side of the house including the laundry room and moved the gas line so we could relocated the the cooktop.  

Now that I've got it torn down for you, sometime next week I'll post the building up phase where we drywalled, tiled, put in cabinets, countertops, and appliances. Whew! It seems so long ago, it's hard to believe we really did all that!

Till later,

Reba~

Old Times - Or Just Old?

Last weekend I was talking to my super handy and very sweet son-in-law, Zack, about the Dick Clark New Year's Eve ball drop in New York. We had both watched it the weekend before. He asked who Dick Clark is, what was he famous for...I said really? You don't know? You've never heard of American Bandstand? He shook his head.

He'd never heard of American Bandstand...really? Wow...was it that long ago?

Today I was surfing the net and ran across a Janis Joplin classic - Mercedes Benz. When I listened, it brought tears to my eyes remembering when I was a kid. I was born in 1959 and my mother always played music when I was young, so I'm very familiar with all the classic sixties music, including Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Rolling Stones, and so much more.

I spent the morning singing throughout the house - Oh, Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz, My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends...

Here's the clip, how many of you have really NEVER heard this? How many have?




Now it's time for me to start sanding my new sewing desk...

Till later,

Reba ~

My New Project - A Table For My Sewing Machine

Remember when I told you about the third bedroom and showed you those awful pictures when it was full of boxes and stuff? You can see it here if you missed that post.

Well, the room is all cleared out now and for the last two weeks we've been using it as a painting station for the hallway doors (hall post here). And now we're working on the LAST door! We're almost finished! It was really a big job, Brent (dear hubby) and Zack (super handy and sweet son-in-law) did all the work, they really are the greatest.

We may still need the room as a painting station for another week because the linen pantry doors aren't painted and they really look dingy next to the beautiful new doors. When we get the last door done (it's a french door for our office so it takes longer to paint and no one wanted to do it), I'll post a pic of the hall. Here's a post of the french door with just primer - but see how yellow the pantry on the right looks now? Compare it to the door jamb that's right next to it. It needs to be painted and we'll also need to replace the hinges and knobs.

But back to the subject of my post - the third bedroom is going to be a guest room with a full size bed and I'm also going to use it as my sewing room. So I needed to buy a table for my sewing machine. After searching Craigslist for several days I finally found this sweet little desk that will be PERFECT!

 

Sweet huh? It will have a sewing machine on it most of the time, but when we have guests, I can put the machine away and it will be a nice writing desk for our guests. I'm going to paint it creamy white with dark brown glaze. I'm also going to paint the headboard to match. 

So tomorrow I have a ton of sanding to do before the rain comes in the afternoon. Desk, headboard, and pantry doors. I'm also going to put the second coat of paint on that french door!

I'll post "after" pics when the room is all done.

Till later

Reba ~

More Pink and Black for Brittany

You might think having the pink and black tile in her bathroom would be enough but not for my young'un, nope, she's decorating her bedroom in the same colors. Below are the before and after pics for a mid-century headboard she found at the furniture consignment shop. She and I painted it these hot colors and I think it looks pretty cool, especially for a young 20 something. It's still in my garage, so it's not set-up yet, but once she takes it home I'll post a pic with the bed set-up. Second thoughts, it might be a while, she still hasn't purchased a box springs. Anyway, when (and if) it ever gets set-up, I'll give you a pic.

Keep scrolling after for the pics taken during the process.

Here's the BEFORE, well, we forgot to take the pic before we started sanding, so almost BEFORE...

 

And a close-up of the circles BEFORE...

Here's the AFTER...

 

We painted this with spray paint - Rustoleum Satin Finish Black. Doing the black was pretty easy, it took three coats, the problems started with the pink.

First we had to cover the black which meant we had to cover the black that was between the circles. My dear hubby was the smart one that started poking the corners of paper between the circles, Brittany and I finished.

 

Then we covered the rest.

 

It took a couple hours and a LOT of tape to cover it properly. Some pink still got through but I'll tell you how I fixed it later.

Next Brittany spray painted the circles. It was hard to find a paint that was "hot" pink, so she bought a florescent paint that is used for marking the ground. Needless to say, it didn't work. It was fairly translucent, so to cover the black it took a lot of coats. After about four coats it started to crackle and the color wasn't really pink, it was more orange. Not cool.

At that point I took over and sanded off all the florescent paint and purchased the hottest pink spray paint I could find. It was Valspar hot pink gloss. It wasn't as hot as she wanted but it looks a LOT better than the other color. It took three coats to cover.

When we pulled off the tape and paper it looked pretty good, however, some of the pink had bled under the tape and the black needed to be touched up. I purchased a small .99 cent paint brush and sprayed some black paint into a plastic cup. I have a steady hand and was able to clean up the leaks really well but lucky it wasn't a big job, by the time I finished, the paint had eaten through the bottom of the cup. The bottom hadn't fallen off yet, thank goodness, and I was finished, so all was good.

Here's the AFTER pic again...

 

Until later ~

Reba

Before & After - The Bathroom in Brittany's 1927 House

A while back I told you I'd show you a before/after pic of the bathroom in the 1927 house where my daughter, Brittany, lives. Well, I finally got the sink skirt finished and she finally got it hung with the help of her big sis, Steph.

Here's the BEFORE pic - check out that pink and black tile!

Here's the after - it helps the look of the room but nothing will make up for the pink. It's better though.

 

What do you think?

Until later ~

Reba

Door Painting Weekend

Not too long ago my hallway looked like this - new doors with no paint and concrete foundation floors - in fact, it was like that for a long time, probably more than a month. Don't even ask how long it was before the doors went in and all that time, no floor. It was the best of times (yeah right!), it was dusty times!

Then we finally put in the wood floor but still no paint for the doors and we've had our floors since some time in October, so a couple months have past. Oh and this pic shows no baseboards (those were done shortly after the floor thanks to Zack, my very handy son-in-law):

Also need to show you the creative way we handled the corner in the hallway - the installer had never done this before because there were some edges that had no tongue and grove, but I really wanted it done that way so he agreed to do it. He said it would be okay since we were gluing to the foundation. He was excited with the outcome and took several pics.

 

Now it's time to paint the doors. This is a dreaded job. We're using oil based paint on all the trim and this is a lot of painting. There are seven doors in the hallway plus the linen cupboard - then there's one other door to the laundry room that needs to be done. And did I mention that the door to our office is a french door? We're talking some painting.

We got a bid for a painter to do the job and along with repainting the walls and ceiling the bid came in at $1000. My dear sweet hubby just couldn't give away $1000 for doing something that he and Zack, my very handy son-in-law, could do themselves. So, Zack came over two days this week after work and primed the doors. Now tomorrow and Sunday he and DH are going to knock it out. I'm so happy, this is the last really big job before the renovation is completely done.

Here's a pic of the hallway this morning - doors primed, contractor paper down (see the baseboards?). Zack said the contractor paper probably made me feel like I was at home again! He's not far off, we've been living in renovation hell for so long I don't remember what it's like to have a house that's done.

Till later ~

Reba

Office is Almost Done

Well, I feel we finally have a nice place to work. I'm still going to put a console table on the wall behind the desk on the right and we're going to hang family photos over it, but other than that, the office is done.

Remember where it was a couple of weeks ago on the day the glass desktops were delivered.

Now here's what the desks look like - it looks a little cluttered but it's a workspace and really looks much better in person. Also, the walls look yellow - only the desktops are yellow, the walls are a dark mushroom color. You might notice that there is lighting on the desktops, we did this because the lighting in the room is just too dark. We are going to put four recessed lights in each of the corners of the room, just not now. So, for an interim measure, we bought the tabletop lighting. I love it, it really sets a relaxing mood in the room unlike overhead lighting can do. Because it's so nice we may decide to not do the recessed lighting, maybe just an overhead task light of some kind.

 

And then remember the bookcase/wall unit I showed you yesterday. It's on the wall that's to the left of the desk area, kind of behind the left desk.

 

I'll post some close-up pics tomorrow if the sun is out - it's overcast today and the lighting isn't very good. The pics aren't as good as they could be if the lighting was better.

The little footstool I covered with the Izzy Birds fabric is going to stay right in front of the filing cabinet. I found it's a really nice place to put my feet up! Here's a close-up of how it turned out, I still need to press the skirt, I forgot to do so before I stapled it on to the base.

 

Now I need to tackle the third bedroom, haven't been in there in a couple of days.

Till later ~

Reba