No Dead Bodies Here

When you remodel an old house, there is always anticipation of hidden treasures. Not ones of cash that some people find (though at the time of this post, that would be a WONDERFUL find to help pay for marble tile), but of vintage hardware found tucked away in the basement or an old metal cabinet that the previous owners used for paint storage.

On the flip side of this, our friend Larry refuses to help us with anything because "you guys have the kind of house that people find dead bodies in".

But we really have not found anything that great or morbid yet. Most of the house was gutted down and stripped of its original contents...or so we thought. Are you ready for this find?

Here we have LJ with one of the doors from upstairs. After thinking it was just a hollow core door, we threw it out into the back shed where my girls started using it as a roost. Upon further investigation, LJ decided that the paneling would come off...


And so he and his little pink ipod pried it off. The mask is purely for cosmetic purposes. Makes this look even more exciting.


And he pried...


And voila! Someone had just GLUED the old nasty paneling over the nice 5 panel door. These doors go for about $150-$250 a piece. There are five of them...all had fake paneling glued over them...all were about to go to Salvation Army.

Getting This Done!

You know how getting a friend to workout with you makes you go to the gym all the time? We have that...but they are our "house-remodeling-partners". Every Wednesday, our neighbors Jeff and Keri come over to our house and we work all day on a project. Saturdays, we end up at Jeff and Keri's rental helping them with a project. It is really awesome!

So far, our list of accomplishments include: a full roof of shingles cleaned up, a bathroom ceiling taken down (including insulation), all the old molding taken out of both houses, our front porch pried off, old nasty pink carpets hauled away, and last but not least our whole second floor has the carpet and sub floor removed and is almost ready for some remodeling! Ready for the pics? Remember the bathroom before?

And here is is now...taken down to the old flooring and siding.

Gone is the acoustic tile drop ceiling. We will raise the ceiling back to 9" and add a bathroom fan/vent. If you look closely, you can see some of the smoke damage from the fire that occurred in the 1940's.

Also gone is that faux wood wall paneling! I think I have every right to say that I HATE THAT STUFF.

The master bedroom! No more pink carpet!!! This room is going to be so cool after we refinish the floors. The sun pours through the windows during the winter months and the trees block the sun during the summer months. Now we just have to strip through the layers of wallpaper...no fun.

Our Big Backyard...

LJ and I have been telling all our friends that we were going to tear the two decks in our backyard out. We were met with mixed results of "are you crazy?" to "oh, uh, that will be nice."

We have a vision though...and we started on it today.

Dear God what were we thinking.

Here is our backyard before...this is upon moving in so please don't judge us by the random animal parts hanging around.Same deck sans the large amount of snow...

And here is the after...

Yep rotten to the core and a breeding ground for every bug in the neighborhood.
That is spiderwebs. Big nasty icky spiderwebs. And underneath it all..is the original staircase!
So you want to know the big plan? Well here it is!
Stay tuned for more inspiration and ideas that I will be looking at this week.

Inspiration Alert!

Design*Sponge just posted this "Sneak Peek" on designer Jessica Helgerson. I am digging her style! What do you guys think?

We already have the tub...just have to paint it.

And that is the look I was thinking of for the sconces!
Love, love, love the hardwood floor color.

I am going to warm LJ up to this by showing him this room...because we have a total of 2 guitars, 1 ukulele, one drum set and 2 amps.
Don't know about the scary woman thing in the middle of the room but I do like the plants and glass bottles. The fixture is pretty cool too.
Photos by Lincoln Barbour

This Is Our Dining Room. This Is Our Dining Room On K. Mack.

Before:

After:

Gone is the non-working gas stove and in its place is a hole in the wall...that now contains the wiring to the attic. The big thing up front is Wade, LJ's brother. Oh yes ladies, he is single and available with or without the sledgehammer.

The second floor of our house is now officially re-wired and ready for action all thanks to Kevin and his band of merry men. They spent all day working in the attic and crawling around in tiny holes like this one.

No really, how many Joseph's can you fit in this hole? None. But one K. Mack fills it up nicely...

Let There Be Light

We are finishing up on the bath tear-down tonight and the questions are already coming from the guys. How many lights do you want? Where do you want them? What color are you painting the walls? Where do you want the fan? Are you sure you want all white? Don't you think that will be somewhat "institutional"? What is for dinner?

Oh yes. The fun part begins and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. LJ offers no feedback in the decor department and often times hates what I plan on doing until he sees it all come together. Hmm what to do, what to do? I am going to turn it over to you guys for feedback. Let's start with my recent inspirations...

I like white. In the bathroom it makes it feel clean and fresh but on the same note, I plan on breaking up the all white theme with some stained wood, plants, and other odds and ends. I am going for a look that you won't see in a typical bathroom. Keep your fingers crossed!

I have been searching for lighting that would go with what I am trying to do and I think I found some interesting options. Here are some that I like but don't know if I will use...

Bathroom Lighting Ideas - by mowe34 on Polyvore.com

I love the look of the Pottery Barn sconces (they match the dining room pendant lamps) but I am not sure if they are meant to be used in the bathroom. What do you guys think?

No the Clampetts Don't Live There...

But K. Mack was here again this weekend. This is now our front lawn.
Do you remember to which room this lovely contraption goes to? I will give you a hint...we hit our heads on it ALL THE TIME.

If you guessed the kitchen then you are 100% right...if you said bathroom then you must have been looking at the half of toilet next to the magneficent hood. We will get to that later. The hood looked like this in the kitchen...
And now...

Hmm one step closer to a bright and sunny kitchen!

I am also trying to figure out what to do with the dining room. LJ came home to a very large paint sample that I got carried away with...I didn't like it at first but I am warming up to the "atrium white" color that I used. It is much warmer in person.
I thought about using a beige on the top half of the wainscoting with the white on the bottom but we will eventually pull it all out. I really do like the white in here...stops it from being so cave-like. What do you guys think about a full wall of white?

K. Mack Attacks!

A friend of our family's (affectionately now know as K. Mack) showed up early Saturday morning to help us tear out our bathroom. In previous conversations, we found out that he lists working on old Victorian mansions as his "hobby". Our kinda guy! While our house is hardly a mansion, he did get really excited when he saw our place and now shares our enthusiasm with the potential of it.

Plus, the man is a crazy work horse.

Our plan (strike that MY plan) was to start in the bathroom upstairs, gut it, see what was where, and draw up plans. Then I was planning on going to Home Depot the next day to place a tile order and get the ball rolling.

We didn't quite get that far. Instead, we worked on this:
I can hear my father cringing at the sight of this electrical box...wait Pop...how about this..
Just so you all don't think we are complete piggly-wigglies, I remembered to start taking pics AFTER we started tearing in to the ceiling and walls. The exposed wire you see hanging down at the top of the left side of the picture is a hot wire. Thank god K. Mack is a licensed electician with really cool toys that tell you when wires are HOT! I, of course, ran around testing everything with the pointy tester thing (or a induction tester as LJ just informed me) .

By the end of the afternoon, he had the box squared away and we were left with open spots on our breaker panel, the cardboard ceiling taken down, the weird little boarded up room torn apart, and a potentially dangerous non-vented-celullose-heaped basement bathroom fan gone.
Whew-hoo! On to the bath...when we last left it it looked like this...

Now it looks like this...I just noticed that the curtains are still up. Go figure.
We got the tub out...which we found was only painted "lemon meringue" on one side...
...and the paint-puckered vanity is now gone...
...and this lovely wiring job is now what is left standing from behind the mirror. We stopped right about there due to the fact that it was 7 pm. Time flies when you are having fun! Stay tuned for more!

What We Have Been Up To...

I have been on task trying to spruce up our house after taking out the lovely wall-to-wall magenta carpet. Here is a before pic of our entryway (please excuse the boxes):
Stairs leading up to the second floor...which is also covered in glorious magenta!


And here is after!
I just ordered that great wool rug from Pottery Barn last week and realized after I got it that this entryway is really BIG. There are also four holes next to the door where the old radiators were located. Luckily, someone nailed down lids from old cans to cover two of the holes. I am sorry, I don't think I laid the sarcasm on thick enough with that "lucky"part. We will eventually repair the holes and redo the floors but that is WAY in the future. Also, we propped an old door up to block off the stairway because we are not using upstairs right now.

Anyways, I had two old bamboo mats from our last house that I threw down to cover all the holes and lids and I have to say that I kind of like the look of it. I don't know if I am crazy and just reaching here so I need to know what you all think. Too much?

(Holes in the floor a.k.a. Jack's new piggy bank. )

On to the second line of duty, I am in desperate need of a new light for the entryway. I really, really, really dislike this one. Not only is it ugly, but it hangs down almost a foot and a half from the ceiling and I constant smack my head on it. It needs to go so I am on the prowl for something new. I have no idea if I am supposed to tie it in with the dining room lighting or what...HELP!

And last but not least, I found more dining room chairs! Yes they need to be worked over a bit BUT I got six of the for $100. The thing is, they almost match the two that I found from the Salvation Army to a T. That makes the grand total $105.90 for 8 really sturdy chairs. Nice. Now I have to figure out how I am going to re-finish them (and no it won't be to match the pretty calico indoor/outdoor carpet seen here).

2008: The Highlights

A new baby and a new house?! What were we thinking...here are some of my favorite pictures from 2008.


Before





After







Gaybeard the Pirate made an appearance...
Before
Magenta carpet removal day. Thank god.
After













This is painful for me to look at.