Oh Boy!! Two posts in ONE DAY! I guess I have to make up for the lack of posting over the past two months somehow... Well, just as the title implies, the kitchen ceiling is back up again! This is a huge milestone in the renovation process, mostly because it means that soon enough we will be able to install the kitchen cabinets, which means we'll be able to install the flooring, which means I'll be able to move in! Yippie! The biggest holdup in the ceiling installation was the replumbing of the master bath. Now that the shower pan has been installed and Tim-the-handyman has moved the plumbing for the toilet, shower, and two vanities, AND we checked for leaks - the ceiling down below could officially be installed. Hallelujah. Brian and I started off Saturday by prepping the walls and taking back some of the ceiling drywall that had come loose when we removed the kitchen wall (oh so long ago). While Brian was doing that, I went ahead and installed the insulation back up between the trusses. I'm hoping I got the right kind (R-13), but it wasn't the same color as the stuff I'm used to seeing (the yellow kind or the pink kind). I'm hoping the brown color just means it's "recycled" insulation. Come Sunday, we were ready to roll with the installation of the drywall. Terry came back to help us out a bit (definitely a 3-person job), and I am so grateful that he did. The space ended up only needing 3 full sheets of drywall, and then it will need just a little extra in the back. Brian would murder me if I left this post without giving credit to his awesome idea (that Terry and I both thought wouldn't work. It did.). My kitchen is going to have six lights, three of which are pot lights, and three of which are pendent. All of these lights require cuts to be made in the drywall, which means a lot of perfect measuring that must go on. Since we know how well the measuring has gone in this renovation process, Brian had the idea of using - wait for it - lipstick. Yes, my friends, we traveled to our nearest CVS to purchase the cheapest stick of Wet-N-Wild bright pink lipstick for this project - and I have to say it was a genius idea. Nice work, Brian! Notice the circular pink imprint on the drywall. By holding the drywall up against the ceiling where it needed to go, and then pressing the drywall into the light fixture, the lipstick left an imprint exactly where the light was, meaning we knew exactly where to cut the drywall (with no measuring whatsoever). Brilliant. I even put the camera down and helped cut a little bit. I want to say the entire process took about 2.5 hours, but then we started to mud and fixed up some other areas that also needed some drywall. Overall, I am pretty satisfied with our Sunday project!
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Just like everything else in this house, the design for the Master Bathroom has gone through some changes - basically everyday. I have ordered and reordered shower pans. I have laid out and then redesigned the layout about six times. Through it all, I have finally decided to stick with my final plan, which includes a double vanity with makeup station, a relocation of the toilet (next to the shower), and a 32" X 48" shower. See blurry picture below: To his credit, my dad really helped me design the bathroom (thanks dad!). The biggest hiccup, though, with this design is the amazing neverthoughtidbesolucky double vanity. One word: Expensive. Now, most people know I am a pretty frugal person, so when I started researching double vanities, I was blown away at home much they cost! Anywhere from $1500 to upwards of $3000 - for basically cabinets and a countertop! Yikes! It took me all of about five minutes to realize that I was going to have to build this one on my own. I actually feel like this is the better way of doing this particular vanity anyways, given the odd size of the space (87.5"). After Pinteresting and Googling and searching odd blogs, I found a vanity look that I really like. I even found some plans on Ana White's amazing building blog, as well as many inspirational pieces that helped me design my particular vanity. The picture below really set me on my journey that I could, in fact, do this. Remember - I am not a carpenter, nor have I really even built anything before (unless Ikea counts). I've honestly never been a huge fan of vessel sinks, mostly because I think they just get in the way and can collect dirt and dust around the edges of the sink, however I do love their look here, Bonus - the only holes I would have to drill for the sink are for the plumbing. So, after finding my inspiration, I started drawing. I do like the simplicity of one table, as with my inspiration picture, however after sending multiple plans to my family (and talking to my dad about resale), they all said to go with this one. Double vanities in general get potential homebuyers excited, but throw in a makeup station and they'll get even more giddy. I designed my vanity to be roughly 31" tall, however in reality it will be about 30.75". I know my mom is having a heart attack right now about the height (we are a very tall family), however to create a makeup station (i.e. a table that you sit at), the vanity had to be slightly shorter that the average tall person would prefer. To make up for the lacking inches (see what I did there...????), the vessel sinks I have researched range anywhere from 5-6" tall. This should make the total height roughly 36". So, after searching the "brag posts" on Ana White's website for the DIY Farmhouse Vanity, I stumbled upon Anthony's version of the plans, posted on Wholesteading's blog. I can honestly say that without these detailed plans, I'm not sure if the build would have gone as well as it did! Anthony's vanity is below: I took Anthony's idea of a single vanity, resized it to fit my needs, and then created two. I started by going to Lowe's and searching for my lumber. Unfortunately, I had the same issue arise as Anthony, in that Lowe's did not carry 4X4 pine posts, only cedar. (Needless to say, my house was smelling great.) I had also intended to go to Lowe's and buy everything except for the countertop, something I assumed I would deal with later, however, on clearance for $33, I found a 20" X 8' piece of spruce, almost exactly the size countertop I would need! Yippie! In total, with my Lowe's 10% off moving coupon, purchase of my new Kreg Jig (complete with a free box of 500 count 1.25" pocket hole screws), and all the lumber I could possibly need, my grand total came out to just about $300. Much nicer than that original $1500 vanity! I started building around 4:00 pm and didn't finish for the night until around 10. Brian ventured over after work and helped a bit, too! I started back up again the next day and finished the project. The project, not including staining or polyurethane, took about 2 days, but if I had started earlier in the day on Saturday, I definitely could have completed both vanities in one day. Make sure to look at each post and determine which side you want facing the front. There are definitely good sides and bad sides to each piece of lumber, so be very careful to choose the best side! I even labeled each post on the bottom as "Right Front V1" (for Vanity 1) or "Left Back V2" (for vanity two). I made sure to pair my Right V1s, Left V1s, Right V2s, and Left V2s together so I attached the blocking at the correct spot! The vanity looks more like a workbench at this point, but it's getting there! (Remember, the top will not be attached until the vanities are installed - probably sometime in 2018). The start of Day 2 began with me adding braces to the outside of each vanity, were I will attach another 1X6 across the top of the makeup station (for unity of the piece and to attach the two vanities to each other). I then attached 1X4s to frame the lower shelf, and then attached 1X3s to the inside of those with a nail gun. The 1X3s will act as mini shelves for the 1X2 slats to sit on. Finally, I added lots of pocket holes to the top 1X6 so I have something to attach the countertop to. That was really the last piece of "building" I had to do (at least for now). Next, it was on to staining! Brian picked out the stain - Minwax English Chestnut. So beautiful! I stained the 1X2 slats while they were still one long 6' piece. I read in the comments section on Ana White's blog that it would go much faster this way - and I agree. I did not, however, apply the top coat while it was still one piece.... I was just too excited to see what the bottom shelf looked like and I had to cut it into little pieces! At this point, I still needed to buy one more 6' piece of 1X2s. Each vanity uses 2 - 6' pieces, but I originally only bought 3 instead of 4. Whoops! The vanities aren't actually attached (the middle 1X6 is just lodged in between them), and obviously the top isn't stained yet.... and the second vanity is still missing its bottom shelf, but I'm almost there! Where the measuring tape stops is exactly 82", or the actual length of my countertop! I've now taken the top back to Lowe's and had them cut it to size. From there, I stained the top..... but it did NOT come out how I expected it to. It. Was. Terrible. The top originally turned out very red. This is not how I imagined my "rustic-y" vanity. The picture below really doesn't do it justice. Since you can layer stain, I went ahead and added a second coat, which turned out dark red-brown. YUCK. Thank the lord I did not stain the underside, because my tabletop was looking like a disaster. I decided to flip it over and try again, and I am so happy I did. The end result is below. Much better! Now, I need to polyurethane the entire vanity, buy some vessel sinks, and maybe install a floor in the master and I'll be ready to actually use these things! Whew!
I've been Pinteresting a lot for this house (duh) and stumbled across a lot of DIY forums on building a board-and-batten entry. I loved the look, and honestly, my entry is a bit boring. Brian liked the idea as well, so I gave the project to him to tackle. The image above is what the entry basically looks like. Unfortunately, the wall you can't see (to the left) is the wall where the board and batten is going, but you can get the idea. It's a long space - almost 12 feet - that you can't do too much with, so adding some sort of POP right when you walk in the door will just be extra nice. Plus, you have to remember that my whole idea for the house is "beachy-rustic," so this is that beachy element. Below is Brian's "inspiration" picture. This blog also had a great DIY tutorial that helped guide Brian in his measuring decisions. I love the hooks and the fact that you can put pictures on the mantle, however I didn't like how skinny the middle pieces were, so I asked Brian to increase the middles to four inches instead of three. It took a few trips to the Home Depot, some executive decision on what "product" to use (pine or MDF), but in the end, ours turned out a little patchy but looking good. I'm getting a little ahead of myself (we still need to paint and caulk), but I was just too excited to wait on this! I think it's looking great!
Well, I'm back! After a long vacation from the blogging world (I've had to move out of my apartment, take a final for one of my summer Master's courses, drive to Michigan, and maybe take a breath for a second, drive back to North Carolina, oh and still renovate a house), I am finally back with a few updates. First, I bought some fixtures and learned how to install a light! Brian took the liberty to show me how to connect the electrical, and then went on to install my new ceiling fan. You can purchase my hallway lights and ceiling fans from the Home Depot. The painting is almost complete for the five areas that can actually be painted at the moment (downstairs bedroom and bath, upstairs bedroom and bath, and the hallway). The trim still needs to be done, so just overlook that for now. Also, the Thursday before I left for Michigan, my house was really feeling like an actual job site. My students volunteered themselves to destroy my master bathroom (they finished removing the cement board from the walls, sawed out the bathtub, and chopped down more of the closet), Terry-the-painter spackled his heart out, and the plumber, electrician, and handyman all came by to work on miscellaneous stuff. And, a little sneak-peak of my first floor bathroom and the tile I just installed (yes, all me!!).
Well, just go ahead and throw away whatever I said yesterday about leaving the master as it is. I had the plumber come in today and take a look at the pipe in my kitchen wall (which, btw, is great news as he says it will take him all of one hour to get it done), and since he was there, I had him meander upstairs and take a look at the master bath. The first thing he said was "Wow," which was followed by "This would make a great closet." Sold. This man knows exactly what I was originally thinking. Let me just get this off my chest. By updating the master bath, I am going to spend a lot more money than I would like. There. I said it. And if you know anything about me, you know I hate spending money. But at the end of the day, I want to be able to sell this place, and I'm afraid with the layout of the master bedroom (which has a closet protruding out where the bed should face the fireplace), and with the giant tub, buyers would be scared away. By demoing the bath, yes - I will be making the master bath much smaller (roughly half its current size), however I will be giving the master bedroom a more functional layout while giving the bathroom a much needed update. Which all leads me to today. So, like I said previously, the plumber pointed out exactly what I had originally thought all along. He also said exactly what I already knew - making changes to the master bath now will be cheaper than eventually making those changes later. With no ceiling in the kitchen, he can manipulate the pipes as much as he wants without anything in his way (i.e. money saved). This was pretty much all I needed to hear in order for me to reverse the decision I made yesterday and go to town on the tile in the master bath today. And boy did I (and maybe the tile went to town on me too). Our lovely and beautiful valedictorian Marianne came over today and helped me tear down the tile as well. She and I beasted through the tile in no time, and then ventured on to that master closet I hate so much. Not only is it small, it is in the way of my beautiful vision of a master bedroom. First, we took down the molding, and then Marianne busted through the drywall (and maybe threw in a Karate chop/kick) until the closet was down to the studs. Whew! I can see a better version already!
This week was the first week where I have questioned my sanity and the reasons why I bought this house (and if I am really up to the challenge). Crap is everywhere... literally EVERYWHERE throughout the house and it feels like nothing is being accomplished. Yes, I know deep down that things are getting done (which is why there is crap everywhere), but it is cluttered and messy and driving me batty. It seems that as soon as we clean one thing up, we knock something else down and the space is again filled with... crap. I really think my biggest stressor is the fact that my landlord found someone to take over my lease and I have to be moved out of my apartment in... T-minus 9 days. NINE. DAYS. Ugh. And there is crap everywhere. Anyways... This weekend, Brian and I took down another layer of cabinets (and ceiling drywall, and the grossdisgustingmakesmewanttovomit stove) in preparation for the electrician to come and do his thing. So exciting! It took Matthew-the-Awesome all of three hours to "demo" the kitchen and tie up all the wires, remove the wall sconces, and dismantle all of the light switches and sockets that used to be on the wall that I am removing. I now have no electrical in the main room (living/dining/kitchen) at all, so the faster we can start rebuilding the space the better. While I have been stressing, having Matthew-the-Awesome come in was a huge relief. It is nice to see some progress throughout the mess, however I am still worried about leaving for Michigan (oh, for those of you who didn't know - I'm coming home for 10 days!). That is ten whole days where I can accomplish nothing in the space. I still have to pick out flooring, paint colors, tile the bathrooms, get carpet installed upstairs, install the flooring I have yet to pick out.... etc. However, Brian did offer some advice that I am going to take him up on. While in the mitten, I am going to have Terry-the-Painter come in and paint. I wasn't originally going to pay anyone to paint (hello students!), but I cannot justify leaving for ten days without anything getting accomplished. I'm bitting the bullet on this one and paying up. I know Terry-the-Painter won't be able to get everything done, but even just having the majority of the space painted will give me the feeling that SOMETHING has at least been completed. Again, huge relief. As soon as Matthew-the-Awesome was ready to leave, he instead asked me "so you're taking down these posts?" in which I replied, "Yes." He then grabbed one, twisted it, and then ripped it out - just liked that. Hence, the "awesome." I tried to do the same thing but failed epically. Needless to say, Matthew-the-Awesome removed the other three posts that did not have plumbing in them in two minutes. Now that's what I call excellent customer service.
First off, I have never used a sawzall before, but I quickly discovered that this tool has become my new favorite toy. IT GOES THROUGH EVERYTHING, AND IS AWESOME. Brian always told me how much he loved this little gadget, and now I'm a believer. I started my project by tackling the soffit. I grabbed my handy sawzall and started drilling through the soffit supports one section at a time (sorry - no pictures. I was having too much fun). I would then take my hammer and pull apart each section until it dropped onto the kitchen counter. The process was relatively simple and quick - I think the entire soffit removal took about 45 minutes to an hour to complete. BTW, the kitchen feels so much bigger and taller now that the soffit is gone. Yay! I'd like to officially name yesterday "Terrific Tuesday!" I scheduled my electrician to come by today (Yippie!), I took a quick nap, babysat my favorite dog Briggs, and of course demolished the kitchen some more. I should note that Brian was recovering from a 24 hour bug (101.7 temp), so he was MIA during demo. The plumber that came by the other day gave me all good news, tips on doing some of the bathroom plumbing myself (without having to move the pipes for my new, taller, and off-center sink/vanity), how easy it would be for him to move the washer and dryer, but then was a little stumped about the pipe in the kitchen. He's 90% sure it's just a vent pipe, however he asked me to remove more of the drywall and the soffit so he could have a better view of where the pipe goes. Ask, and you shall receive. To top off the night, I ripped down the rest of the drywall in the kitchen (tile was attached to it) and brought it down to countertop level. I took my handy razor blade and scored the drywall on the living room side as well, and pulled it off in small sections (trying not to go too far so I could reuse the drywall below). The room is really starting to look big, which I never thought could happen in this tiny space! Woot Woot! Next, since I had more time on my hands, I decided to remove the crown molding around the soffit in the living room and in the kitchen. Easy enough, but I did end up splitting one end of an 11 foot piece of molding. Oh well. Such is life. By this point, since I was feeling so good about myself, I continued by removing the molding around the kitchen door, which then exposed to door frame. No one wants to see an ugly door frame by itself - so that went away too. Okay, so now I really need some input and advice on the kitchen design. All of the cabinets are being replaced with new, shaker style cabinets. Currently, the cabinets are a brown color, but I'm going to paint them white for a more open feel. The uppers, however, are not going to exist. The current plan is to have open shelving using pipes and wood (see below). This is not me trying to be cheap (as I think this will actually cost me more than buying uppers), this is me trying to add some sort of rustic design to the kitchen. The issue that I am running into is what to do about storage. Right now, I have a pantry in the kitchen - which I could reinstall with the new cabinets, I'm just not sure how it will look with the open shelving. The other idea is to move the pantry "outside" the kitchen, by placing it on the other side of the wall where it is now (to the right of the current kitchen doorway). Would it be weird to have the pantry here? Thoughts please!
One of the things I actually liked about the house initially was the first floor "death" bedroom (look at the floor and you'll understand the name). This bedroom was the only room in the house that had actual COLOR on the walls. Unfortunately, the color was a textured bamboo wallpaper that I'm pretty positive my cats would either a) try to eat and then throw up or b) attempt to climb. This (and the fact that I'm pretty sure there was blood spatter on the walls) made my decision relatively simple - the bamboo had to go. I spent the better part of Memorial Day weekend ripping down the wallpaper using Piranha Wallpaper Remover that I snagged at the Southside Bargain Center for $8 (usually around $15 at the depot). This stuff did the trick, however I really think in this particular room, just getting the walls wet would have worked as well. I initially started by scoring the wallpaper, but soon realized that it would rip off in sheets easily enough. When I took down the sheets of bamboo, the glue would be left behind (which is where I brought in the spray). My only real hiccup in this room was what to do with the wallpaper around the molding. Apparently when the house was built, the wallpaper went up first and the crown molding followed, creating an issue when I tried to remove said wallpaper. Superdad told me to just cut along the perimeter with a sharp razor (which ended up working perfectly), but not to press too hard that I cut into the drywall. I think I made it work. I also took down the chair rail that went around the entire room. I'm not really sure why I did this, as I actually liked the chair rail. Maybe I just wanted to destroy some stuff and the wallpaper wasn't doing it for me. Who knows. Regardless, the chair rail is destroyed and will not be returning. I guess this leaves me with more options for the walls!
The first floor bathroom is gross. Plain and simple. The subfloor is partially rotted, the vanity comes up to my mid-thigh (and is melamine), and the light above the mirror has charred the ceiling. My goal for this bathroom is to have it gutted and refinished within the next two weeks. So far, Brian has removed the toilet, fixed the subfloor, and knocked out the vanity (with the help of Stuart). We are on a roll! The toilet was pretty disgusting, and it needed to go away. Being the first time I have ever removed a toilet, it was a pretty leaky process. (See what I did there?) We drained the toilet and Brian unhooked the plumbing, but little did we know there was still a little bit of water in the top of the tank - which then ended up all over my floor. Whoops. Once the toilet was removed, we trashed it and filled the sewer line with an old towel. The vanity was much more fun to remove. Stuart came over for the first time to check out the place, and we handed him a hammer and told him to get to work. He and Brian tried very hard to take it apart in one piece, but decided quickly to just demo it. They first removed the top (which is being donated to ReStore), removed the mirror, and then went to town on the vanity. I am still unsure of exactly what I want this bathroom to look like, but at least have my vanity picked out. I found my vanity on Craig's List for $150 and bought the exact same one at the Home Depot on clearance for $300 (going in the guest bath upstairs). I am most hung up on the floor tile. I have brought home so many different types of tile and honestly have no idea what kind I should use. As for the wall color, I am thinking some sort of light green (I want it to feel light and beach-y). Thoughts?
Backstory: A little old man lived in my big, not-so-old house, and slept in the little first floor bedroom and bathed in the little first floor bath. Did I mention that this little old man had carpet in his little first floor bath? Having lived with three brothers my entire childhood (and shared a bath with one of them), I can tell you that men have a hard time hitting their target (the toilet) I'd say about 50% of the time. Mix that with flooring that sucks up moisture and a leaky toilet, you get a very gross little first floor bath and a rotten subfloor (mostly due to the leaky toilet). New Story: Brian and I spent the weekend trying to replace the rotted subfloor surrounding the toilet in preparation to lay tile in my little first floor bath. And by Brian and I, I really mean just Brian. Moving on. I should preface this post with the fact that we really had no idea what we are doing and just kind of winged it. In the end, happy dances went on! Our first plan of action was to remove the entire sheet of plywood were the rot was, however after realizing that the tongue and groove plywood was much more difficult to remove as a whole sheet, we scrapped that idea and cut a section about 16 inches by 4 feet. This section was located around the toilet flange. As we learned this weekend, the toilet flange is not removable (it is glued into the plumbing below the toilet), and it sits on top of the plywood subfloor. This is what made the project relatively difficult. We debated for a while to cut the flange off and then attach a new one once the new subfloor was laid, but ultimately Brian cut the plywood out from around the flange, leaving it in tact. We made a trip to Lowe's to stock up on materials, and ended up finding a scrap piece of 3/4" plywood for $8, as well as a few tile samples for the floor. This is where I started going to work - measuring. See, you really can use math in real life! I measured out the center of the flange, and then used the rotted piece of plywood Brian saved from around the flange to draw a circle (for the flange to fit through) in the plywood. Brian then cut the 4 ft plywood in half through the center of the circle, and I cut the space for the flange to fit! We surrounded the flange with the now two pieces of plywood, and then nailed them down. Voila! It fit! HAPPY DANCE! |
about meHi! I'm Lauren! I'm a twenty-something teacher and homeowner in North Carolina. I love math, decorating, and getting down and dirty learning new things about home renovation and repair. Categories
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