This was the back side of our house last month. Lead paint peeling everywhere, ugh.
Before
Here is our house a couple weeks ago. Lead paint safely wrapped (and added insulation!) and the trim started.
During
And ta-da! Our house after we returned from vacation. Isn’t that nice, a house the actually improves while we’re away! ;)
After!
And the front side. What do you think? Now I need to make it…cute? Ideas? I thought shutters but now with the red trim, maybe that’s too much. Plants? Lights?
I like to call it our Grand Central Station. This one room has no less than SIX doors or doorways. Yikes! That is probably some sort of feng shui disaster but we’ll move on. 
This is taken from the kitchen doorway. Clockwise, you can see the front door, french doors (to the front room/office), furnace/kitty litter closet, and bathroom. There is also a doorway to the upstairs. The room has great light and we wanted to keep the french doors for that reason.
This supports the painful theory that things get worse before improving.
We replaced the bathroom and furnace closet doors with the pocket variety to help ease the flow of doors. Ryan also replaced this pet-stained carpet with a lovely bamboo floor. Other tasks included adding insulation, replacing some plaster with drywall, replacing one lead window and lead-painted trim… you know, the usual things for an old house.
Ta-da!
The front room is more of a work in progress so I think the next part of the tour will be to the kitchen.
When there is just one bathroom, you kind of hope it’s at least comfortable. You kind of hope it’s not… this. But I dreaded even looking into the claustrophobic bathroom. Seriously depressing. I mean, would you ever want to do anything but quickly do what you need to do to get out of this dungeon?!?
I shudder just remembering.
1. Remove chimney. And yes, it was rather depressing to be able to see into the living room.
2. Glass Block. We had this glass block made locally and then Ryan and Dan installed it. This was the first new item to be added and it really did give us hope to keep working.
3. Scrape old paint, add mold-inhibiting primer, and paint using blue and white
4. New (to us) pedestal sink and large mirror from the ReStore (I think they knew us by name at that point.)
5. When Ryan redid the stairs, he found that he was able to raise the part that encroaches by a good bit, that always helps.
6. Redo the ceiling and add a lot of lighting
7. Get water running and install a low-flow toilet
So here is what we have now:
But what’s that behind the shower curtain? After chimney removal, the disgusting (and probably expensive) custom size plastic tub surround was obsolete. Did we really want to pay for a new plastic surround? We haven’t done tile work and tile did not really seem to fit. So we mulled. And we looked in my mom’s magazines. And that is where we found this article about a guy redoing a small bathroom for $1,000. And while we laughed at the high (to us) price tag, I really liked the look. I would certainly not define our style (do we have one?) as country, but this works I think.
We bought corrugated sheet metal that Ryan cut and fit. As the magazine article described, we sprayed the sheets with Rust-Oleum Crystal Clear Enamel and used self-sealing roofing screws (to avoid rust and leakage). Finally, he used clear silicone caulk to finish the project. We have been super happy with it so far.
In order to save on space in the bathroom and soon-to-be-toured living room, we opted for a pocket door. Not exactly orthodox, but it sure saves a lot of space.
We found this kit, which allowed us to hang pocket doors without having an actual pocket. While the price tag was a little steep, the kit was well worth it and the quality is superb. The door was purchased (as usual) from the ReStore and just this week, we finally bought the little $3 pocket door handle cover, so there is no longer a peep hold where the handle was missing. Sometimes it’s the little things and sometimes even the little things take time.
From the glassblock and pocket door kit to the time-consuming chimney removal/stair raising, we did put some time and money investments into the bathroom. We also took some risks with the tub surround and lighting. We managed to save environmentally with a low-flow toilet and water saver shower head, plus a whole lotof elbow grease saved the existing tub. We also shaved off some cost by purchasing the mirror, sink, and door from Habitat’s ReStore. From dungeon to this much improved space, I hope you have enjoyed the bathroom update and I’ll be back soon with scenes from the living room…which I fondly refer to as Grand Central Station.
Once again, we begin with the before:
This shows the upstairs bedroom, which is entered through the girls’ area.
Structurally, there was nothing needed in this room but we added paint, new windows, a ceiling fan, and carpet. We should probably add curtains too! Here we are, painting the closet:
And the finished product!
Since there wasn’t too much exciting in the work done for this room, I want to talk about paint for just a moment. After some research, visiting many paint stores, and talking to people, we decided to use Benjamin Moore’s low and no-voc lines (Aura, Natura, and the more affordable Ecospec.) We knew that this could put a dent in the budget rather quickly, but we strive for options that will leave our living space and world in better breathable shape. And then we were let on to a secret: the bone pile! I don’t know if all paint shops do this, but the local chain of Seven’s paints has a “bone pile” which is an area (usually in the back so you have to ask) where they resell paint that has been returned. IF you’re not too picky on colors, you can purchase a gallon of top quality paint for a mere eight dollars!
While working on the rest of our house, we made many trips to various bone piles around the area and continued to look until we had gathered the majority of our paint in the low/no-voc lines. Both the green in here and the light purple used in the girls’ room were bone pile material. That way, when we bought the darker purple to coordinate with the other two colors, we were still under budget on paint and knew that we had purchased top quality material.
We stretched this idea downstairs as well. For the kitchen and addition, we bought three similar tan gallons of paint and then carefully mixed all three together. We could have gotten away with just two gallons, but this was we have plenty for touch-ups and it still cost less than a single gallon at full price. The paint was easy to work with and did not have the typical off-gassing odor. We decided it did have the smell of banana runts or something, but it was mild enough that we felt okay having the kids around to help a bit in the process.
PS: If you look back at that “before” picture, you’ll note a curious shelf near the ceiling. Any ideas what we could put up there? We thought about plants but there is not much light. Best idea wins dinner at our place. :)
Ten months ago, we closed on our house and seven months ago, we moved in. I had grand plans of taking pictures of completed rooms and explaining the process but instead we were unpacking boxes, building shelves, hanging hooks…then we were actually living in the house and work slowed down for winter. We are back in action and while we all know that a house is never fully completed, I think it’s time I posted some updates. As one dear friend told me, I owe it after those months spent in deep description of paint choices.
Today we begin with the upstairs. This consists of one small den area at the top of the steps and one large room. The den area had a low ceiling and a strange closet space.
In order to get into the 10 square feet of space, I had to push in sideways. This was due to the chimney being concealed in the closet wall.
When we learned that the only thing going down the chimney was a satellite dish wire, we knew the chimney had to go.
I can say it was a dirty job but that understates the process. Both Ryan and my brother (Dan the handyman) used serious breathing masks, but I doubt my brother’s hair will ever be the same!
And here we have the space after wards! This is after days and days spent hanging drywall, patching, painting, etc. We also replaced all of the flooring and carpet due to the pet urine stains.
The girls may opt to sleep here someday, but for now our futon is ready for visitors! Oh and the ceiling is indeed higher. When the chimney was removed, Ryan realized they could go higher, and so they did. And yes, we know there are a lot of over-sized stuffed animals. Thank the grandparents. :)
The railing area is all new too obviously. We debated what to do for a long time, but this set up is perfect for us. The suitcases below hold toys “on vacation,” so we rotate between a kitchen set, blocks, trucks, and tools. The cubbies (which we picked up from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore) are perfect for anything from a kitchen to a small village.
Throughout the rooms, you will find other space-saving choices that we made. Our house is about 1300 972 (just looked back at the papers but I haven’t, you know, measured for myself.) square feet total. Compared to houses in Philly, this would be considered average, but here it is considered small. We are committed to living in smaller houses and so we try to get creative with storage and placement of items.
Whew! Just looking at all that made me tired. I will stop there for today, but know that our tour will continue soon…
