How the House is Going

Every weekend goes by so quickly for me.  I basically have a second (unpaid) job at my house.  This weekend my mom, my step-dad, and my husband all helped get the floors finished.  We have hardwood floors through out, and we had to sand them, clean them, and polyurethane them.  I did most of the sanding upstairs, my mom did it all downstairs, and Andy helped with the edging.  Everyone helped with vacuuming, and I did most of the mineral spiriting.  Aaron finished it off with the two coats of polyurethane.  They look great, and now we are almost ready to move in!  We still have a ton of work to do in our bedroom, but everything is looking livable.  

Here is a before photo of the living room:

Now a couple of what it looked like today between polyurethane coats.  

The dining room before:

The dining room after:

The kitchen before:

The kitchen after:

The upstairs we did the floors, and cleaned, but we haven't painted.  The floors look fantastic though.  

sorry about the sun flare in this photo.

The floors and paint look great.  Moving in is within reach now, and I'm totally getting excited!  I hope we are able to get the downstairs bedroom done next weekend.  We plan on using that room as our bedroom, so we don't want to move in until that's done.  Well I'm super tired, and I have a week of training ahead of me.  Happy DIYing, chris!

Working At It Again.

Back at the workhorse again.  Aaron removed all the large trash from the house yesterday, so today I took some photos of how the house is looking.  First here is a reminder of how the living room originally looked.  Awesome carpet right?  

This is how it is currently looking.  We finished removing the carpet (the easy part), then we spent hours scraping at the padding that had became one with the floor beneath, and removing staples along with the tack strips.  I still have some scrapping to do in front of the bathroom.  Then it will be time to rent a floor sander.  I can't wait to see how these floors polish up.  

This is the downstairs bathroom.  Behind the green curtain on the left is a large standing shower.  You can also see just how grimy the walls are here.  Look on the doorframe to the left.  Everywhere in this house around hand height the paint has been worn down on the walls.   I'm willing to be the old lady who lived here previously spent very little time cleaning in her last decade of life.  

This is the downstairs bedroom.  I've been spending the most time working on this room so far.  It used to have wood paneling in it, but my stepdad helped take that down.  My mom helped me remove the drywall and insulation from the two exterior walls.  Today I spent the day vacuuming and scrubbing this room down.  The floor is still a bit wet in these photos from me mopping.  We want to flash and insulate the windows better, and the walls.  Hopefully we will be able to do a better job keeping moisture from getting in than the previous owner did.  

This is the dining room.  We were storing the trash in here, and now it's the tool storage area.  For now we are just going to give the room a light sanding.  Clean the heck out of it, then cover everything in paint.  I definitely need to think about doing something with that hanging light.  I'll try giving it a makeover, and see how that goes, but it might just get replaced.  Currently half the times Aaron walks through this room he runs his head smack into it.  We don't currently own a dining room table, so this room might not get used much.  Buying a dining table isn't really a priority,  right now.  Though we have been pricing some fun tables at the local used furniture joints.  Can you tell I'm excited to get to the decorating part.  

This is the kitchen.  It's a great size, just a bit awkward.  This is another room we will be scrubbing down, coating in paint, and then it will be good to go.  Someday we'll give this guy a complete makeover.  It will be super fun to make this our own style.  

Here are the stairs.  Don't they look awesome?  I was so pleased there was nothing wrong with them under that carpet.  I was totally expecting to spend hours scrubbing away.  

And on that happy note I'm going to go!  I'll share the upstairs tomorrow.  Oh by the way we are having another heat wave in my neck of the woods.  I was working in 100º heat with no A/C or fan on today!  We have A/C, but I didn't want to suck up all the nasty dust I was knocking about today.   I've been doing a good job keeping myself hydrated, and a couple times today I even thought, "a hundred degrees isn't so bad.  I can totally handle this".  I must be going crazy.  Hope you're keeping cool in all this heat, and happy DIYing, chris.  

House Update

I thought about bringing my camera to the house today.  I even got it into one of my parent's vehicles, but I never took it out of the car.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of taking the camera into the dirty house, there just isn't a good place to put it or the bag down right now.  My mom has an iPhone, so she snapped a few pics.  I'll share some to show what I've been working my butt off on.  Ha!  I hope it works off a little bit of my thighs.  :)  

I've spent the most time removing padding that stuck to the hardwood floor in the living room.  I still have a little bit to remove, and my step-dad is letting us borrow an awesome tool.  It's basically a battery operated handheld scrapper.  Way faster then doing it by hand.  Wish I knew about it sooner!  I was really worried the same padding that stuck to the living room floor would be under the carpet on the stairs.  I put off ripping it up, but I finally had to see what was under it.  We really lucked out that it was not that horrible green padding.  When I first saw it was yellow I got a second wind I was so excited.  

No after pictures yet, but the stairs look great.  I was so pleased when I tore off that carpeting.  It was more time consuming removing all the tact strips and staples then the carpet and padding on the stairs.  

We also decided that it would be a good idea to remove the paneling at least from the room we want to be our bedroom.  That way when we do get around to removing the paneling around the rest of the home we wont loose our bedroom.  My step-dad, Andy helped with that part while I was working on the stairs.  My mom was working on the floor, and Aaron was at work.  All so busy, busy, busy.  Since Aaron is working everyday I'm super thankful my parents are able and willing to help.  They've been fantastic.  I'm so lucky to have such awesome parents.  :)    

Sorry I don't have more photos.  I'm extra tired!  I have to go back to work tomorrow.  Not work on the house, but work work.  With a paycheck.  Which is good.  Money is helpful, but I sure would like to finish up the work on the house.  I'm excited to be able to get everything done, and be able to move in.  Soon enough.  All within due time, right?  

Happy DIYing, chris.