The Land of a Good Demo

That's where we are right now.  Demo, demo, demo.  Sing it like the song on the old Mario Brothers Nintendo game when you drop down into the underworld.

Demo, demo, demo.  It sort of feels like the underworld.

It's been 10 days since we closed on the house, and we keep telling ourselves that we have gotten a lot done.  I think we have?  We've never done anything like this before, and sometimes when friends come over who have remodeled houses, you can see the wild terror in their eyes as they pass through the underworld in-progress rooms.

A little clarification before we begin the slide show of the demolition.  You know you're on the edge of your seat.

1.  My parents actually bought this house.  Aaron is currently unemployed (well, he has a temp job), and I've been blogging that journey over at my other blog.  I can see how if you read both blogs, you might be confused as to why we bought a house during this uncertain season of our lives.

2.  We are fixing the house up and living in it.

3.  It seems like there was one more thing I needed to clarify, but I can't remember.  Let me use this number three spot to clarify, then, that the house has a lot of potential.  Yes.

The first day we started working, this happened.  The wallpaper peeled off in big strips.  It was so fun.  We ran around the house gleefully, pulling pieces off like wet band-aids.   We blessed the people who had hung that wallpaper with whatever glue that peels off like a wet band-aid.  We were all like, "Oh yeah, we rock at renovating."

The second day, this happened.  We discovered that someone - perhaps those blessed people who hung the wallpaper - had glued indoor/outdoor carpet to oak hardwood floors.  And there wasn't any carpet peeling off in big strips, let me tell you.  We were all like, "Oh man, renovating stinks.  Let's quit."

Aaron and my dad survey the damage...and then my dad went to the front porch and wept.  We think it brought back some PTSD renovating experiences of his past.

Somewhere around day four or five, this happened.  We discovered that in all the rooms but the kitchen, the carpet had been laid by a sane person who used tack strips and a pad.  We rolled it all up, and the floors beneath were beautiful.  They don't even need refinishing.  We were all like, "Isn't this house charming?"

We've kind of hopped around from thing to thing so far, but this week, we are going to start honing on in a few tasks.

I've already sanded the cabinet doors and bases, so my goal this week is to get them painted white.

Don't worry, one of the items on our to-do list actually reads, "Destroy crappy curved molding above sink."   (Sorry I said crappy, Mom. )

Aaron will begin the process of building the bathroom back.  He has some experienced help coming this weekend, and he's hoping to get the plumbing squared away.  We are running plumbing up from this bathroom to add a bathroom in the master bedroom.  That's where it gets a little complicated.  (And you are looking at the picture and thinking, "Um, isn't what he is sitting in the middle of a little complicated??)

This is the master bedroom!  Aaron has demo-ed a closet to the left (not in this picture) and the section of attic that was weirdly walled off (straight ahead in this picture).  The bathroom will be behind the vantage point of this picture, and we'll add a window on the far wall, where our bed will someday come to rest.

That brings us up to speed on what we've been doing lately.  Not to mention the painstaking process of moving all my perennials over to the new yard.  Aaron never ceases to be amazed by how much I love flowers.  I keep telling him I am saving us money in the long run.

I almost forgot to mention, we're taking sign-ups.  Get your spot at Renovation Camp - spaces fill quickly.

Beginning the House Adventure

My goodness, is it already June?  We've begun our crazy summer of remodeling, and I'm losing track of time.

This is our 1928 beauty that we are going to coax back to life.   She's a little rough on the inside, but can't you see her potential?



We closed last week and started ripping wallpaper and tile off walls the same day.   We have exactly two months to demo one bathroom, build another bathroom, pull up carpet, and renovate the kitchen.  If we can get that far before move in day, we'll be doing good.  (And we'll also probably need some serious back-rubs.)

Green and pink in the bathroom?  Why not?  

Yesterday, we made a huge Craigslist run into the city to pick up some appliances, a toilet, a sink, and a baby crib.  Thank you Craig for your list.  

I'll be back soon with some before pictures of the house, and we can all remember together, "it has to get worse before it can get better."