We Changed Our Minds

When I worked with Tastefully Simple I heard tons and tons of inspirational quotes - and I loved them.  One of the many that has stuck with me came from the CEO of Tastefully Simple, Jill Strayhan:

I reserve the right to get smarter.

It's a good one, right?  We don't always make the right or best decisions but we can always learn from our mistakes and do better the next time.

So when Cory and I started this house renovation we decided to leave a couple areas of the house untouched for now and update them in the future.  The basement, large "master" bath and closet, and upstairs kids' bathroom were on that list.

However, as we got further into demolition and tweaked our plans we realized that it would be far less of a headache and FAR less messy to just do the bathrooms now instead of later.  Plus, doing the girls' bathroom now would allow us to reconfigure another weird space.

Remember this?

That is the lovely toilet that was IN the master bedroom.  Yes, IN the bedroom, not in the master bathroom.  

Yuck.

But on the other side of that wall is the girls' bathroom.  So if we took that toilet out, removed the walls of that little nook, and then closed the wall of the bedroom we could add that nook space to the girls' bathroom and make it a bit more spacious.

Here is the girls' bathroom before:

You can just see the current toilet on the bottom left.  Behind it is the toilet in the bedroom.

And beside the current toilet is the other vanity.

This bathroom really isn't terrible.  It is a bit outdated, but it's functional, has two vanities, and the shower is fairly new and clean.  But by taking that bedroom toilet nook space we will be able to push the bathroom toilet back and gain some open floor space.  Plus, the toilet will no longer be the first thing you see when you climb the front stairs.

My super hard-working stud of a husband spent a few days with a sledgehammer and a crowbar in here and this is what happened.

 First, the vanities and toilet came out.

The toilet nook walls were removed as well as the bedroom toilet.  And once the walls were removed we found that a huge cast iron vent ran right up the space between the toilets.  Oh joy.  This meant a hit to the budget as all that cast iron would have to be redirected somewhere else.

I took the above photo while standing in what is now Dixon's bedroom.  The bedroom toilet was where the front hole in the floor is, then there is the cast iron vent, and then there is the bathroom toilet hole.  The new bathroom toilet will move back to where the bedroom toilet once was, but of course it will face INTO the bathroom. *smile*

And this is a view from the doorway of the bathroom looking towards the bedroom.  The vent has been rerouted in the floor and new plumbing has been placed for both of the vanities.

Looking at this mess, I sure am glad we chose to be smart and redo this bathroom now.

And I sure am glad my hubby likes to vacuum.

At least with a shop vac, that is.

Kitchen Destruction

At first glance, the kitchen of our house wasn't all that terrible.  In fact, when we looked at it from a bit of a distance or even in photos it didn't seem all that bad.  A bit outdated, but not horrible.

The quirky island with opposing sinks and the refrigerator that was actually in the family room were certainly odd, as was the high counter under the windows.

But overall, it looked fairly clean, the appliances were mostly new, and if you didn't open any of the cabinets it really didn't look too bad.

However, upon closer examination . . .

things were certainly amiss.  Most of the cabinets were almost unusable, and several of them weren't even finished on the inside.  Check out the ancient mini-fridge hiding under the tall counters.  There were all kinds of strange configurations of makeshift shelving and weird spaces.  Plus, because some of the cabinets were unfinished inside, there was tons of mouse poop in them.  G.R.O.S.S.

So we knew the kitchen was going to be a total gut job right away.

Gutting this kitchen took many days, a number of people, and lots and lots of sweat.  It was a big job.  Thankfully, Cory's dad helped us remove all the cabinets, counters, and most of the appliances and flooring.

It was tricky getting the dishwasher out because it was literally built into the cabinetry.  Once it was gone the rest of the island came out with relative ease.  That is until it came time to remove the plywood around the sink plumbing.

Cory had to use a Sawzall to carefully cut around the pipes.  Let's just say he "missed" on one cut and we ended up with a literal waterfall in our kitchen.  Oops!  He hightailed it to the basement to shut off all the water to the house but not before the kitchen and family room and even the ceiling were quite wet.  We had to keep a Tupperware container under the pipe for over a week before the pipe was properly sealed off.

Slowly but surely we got all the stuff out of the kitchen.

In the photo above you can see the wall at the front of the house - it has the three windows.  That wall will be bumped out four feet so we gain a good amount of square footage in the kitchen.  It will be a huge help because I have big plans for this space!

In the next photo you can see the four - yes, FOUR - doors that were on the side wall of the kitchen.  The first one on the left goes to the garage.  It will be closed up and cabinetry / refrigeration will be in its place.  The second door in the middle was a closet.  It too will be gone.  The third door is actually behind the open front door.  It concealed the back staircase.  It will also be gone.  The open kitchen door will remain in that place but since that wall will be bumped out it will also be four feet further up.  That will also allow the door from the garage to the outside (it's just to the right of this photo) to become the new door from the garage into the kitchen.  So. Many. Doors.

Back to the destruction.

Once all the stuff was out of the kitchen, the guys started working on the floors.  And of course, it was layers of linoleum.  The top layer came off easily.  Then there was glue, a thin layer of sub-floor, and then the dreaded "asbestos suspect" material.  They tried to get that bottom layer off but it stuck so tightly in the center of the room that they had to just admit defeat and let it stay put.  It shouldn't matter since there will be new wood there eventually.

Next, the plaster had to removed from all of the walls.  Yep, more plaster.  My mom and sister helped us with this one afternoon and Cory and I did more plaster removal later.  It took quite some time to get it all off and cleaned up.  If you ever decide to do something like this, be prepared for a house that looks like this:

Pretty, isn't it?  Clean-up was made even MORE fun because of course there was heavy blown insulation in the outside walls.  I think I spent an entire day doing nothing but shovel insulation and plaster into buckets and dump it into the dumpster.  My arms and back were screaming in agony.

This is the view of the kitchen from the family room.  Wow.

And this is what it currently looks like from inside the kitchen looking into the family room.  It's all cleaned up and the carpenters have installed a new header to make the kitchen totally open to the family room.  It's taking shape!

The closet and back stairs are already torn out (thanks to my brother-in-law Barry for doing that task for us) and most of that wall of doors is open to the garage until the new wall is built.

The next step is excavating the porch in front of the kitchen and building the new outside wall.  Then the current wall with the windows will be removed and we will have the final defined space for the new kitchen.

I've always wanted a "Dream Kitchen" and it feels like it is actually within reach!  It's SO exciting!  I can hardly wait to cook meals for my family here, do activities around the new island, and entertain friends and family in the finished space.  It makes me a bit giddy just thinking about it.

I like feeling giddy.