We have been busy!
Dusty and I have both been so busy that we haven’t had any time to update.
The Living Room
The living room is (almost) complete! It doesn’t even look like the same room. There are still a few finishing touches, such as a new TV stand, and mounting the speakers.
The Office
The office is also complete. I have moved most of my stuff in, but we haven’t moved any of Dusty’s.
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The Break
We got so much done over Christmas break I don’t even know where to begin. If you are really curious, check out the pictures. I divided them into sets by room. Check it out!
Living room– Dusty finished tearing off the paneling. Aside from the hideous black Xs on the wall, we also discovered that one of the windows was once larger. This meant Dusty had to patch the lovely large gaps without plaster above and below the window (which he did beautifully). There was also a much larger hole where a door had once been (which he also beautifully fixed). Then he put like three coats of drywall compound on the walls. This alone completely changed the appearance of the room. It visually doubled in size and is way brighter.
The ceiling also needed some help. Dave and Dusty knocked down the low spots and patched them with drywall. Then they gave it some texture. (Dusty told me what this process was called a hundred times, but I don’t remember what it is.) It looks great!
Bathroom– The bathroom was gutted on the first day of our break. Then we learned that our tub was going to take two to three weeks to arrive. Enough on that.
Office– We planned on the office being the first room ready to start moving into. Although we made a lot of progress, there were still things I hoped to get done during the break that we just couldn’t do. The painted the walls and ceiling, which completely changed the room. Next we pulled up the carpet. Oh what a process this was. After pulling up the carpet with some help from Lauren Kisner, Debbie and I popped up all the tack strips and pulled all the staples from the floor. I learned not to scoot around on the wood floor before it has been swept during the process as you may get a splinter where you really don’t want one. Yikes! We still need to add something (term I don’t remember) to the base board to cover the gap where the carpet was tucked in. We also need to finish the wood floors.
Kitchen– Cleaned. My mom and grandma so kindly scrubbed my kitchen for me. I replaced the hardware on the cabinets. I thought this would be a simple task that I could easily complete one morning. Wrong. It was going so well, then I found that the screws that came with the hardware weren’t long enough for the drawers, but they worked fine for the cabinets. I am still waiting on Dusty to find some different screws for me so I can mark this task off my list. Then I moved on to completing the chore my mom began… lining the cabinets. Ahhhh!!!! Worst task EVER! Some parts would go so smoothly and others… well… not smooth at all. The contact paper would stick to anything but the cabinet, but it is done now and I never want to do it again.
Then we removed the island that was bolted to the wall. I just made the room so small and Debbie is giving us one on wheels that we can move into the dining room when we don’t need it.
Finally, we painted. We painted it orange and we love it. The room is still far from finished, but it is much closer.
The house is looking great.
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Progress
This has been a very productive week. On Monday we ordered all of the bathroom materials. Unfortunately, it is going to take three weeks for the tub to get here and we can’t do much until we get the tub. So the bathroom has been put on hold. In the mean time we tore off all of the paneling in the livingroom and worked on the office.
All of the black adhesive behind the paneling had to be scraped off… so we called in backup on Tuesday. Sara came over to help. Then my grandma came over to help clean the kitchen. She so kindly cleaned out all of the cabinets and got them ready for new liner. Debbie stopped by to check out the progress and ran to get some dish detergent for my grandma. Later my mom came over to join in on the fun. Eventually mom took Sara home and grandma left. Next, Lauren visited for a bit to give me an awesome gift. 🙂 She also helped us wash some wall and move the icky carpet out of the office.
We took a break today to hang out with friends, but tomorrow we will be back at it.
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The Bathroom
The house was one of those offers you can’t refuse. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it is perfect for us. Of course the first thing you do is go through and make the list of things that need immediate attention upon purchasing the house. Simple things always seem to turn into much larger projects.
The room that needed the most help was the bathroom. There was no shower. We stupidly thought “Well, no problem, we will simply do some plumbing and add a shower head.” However, there is a window in the shower and no surround. As a matter of fact the walls and ceiling are made of a material that would basically disintegrate over time if there were a shower. All the walls and ceiling need torn out and drywall needs hung. There also needs to be an exhaust fan. Now what to do with the window? Do we cover it up and put in a surround or tile around it? At first covering it seems the most appealing since we found extra siding in the basement. However, we soon changed our minds and really liked the tile look. Then there was the toilet, certainly not water efficient. It also needed replaced. As for flooring, there was indoor/ outdoor carpet. This is to be replaced by the same tile going in the shower. The vanity top looks like toothpaste, white with blue swirls. It is also a 31” by 24” vanity in a 7’ by 7’ room. Just a little bit larger than it needs to be for a room that size. Basically what I am saying is that the whole bathroom needs torn out, which is exactly what we are doing. Dusty is at the house as I type, beginning the project.
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- Before
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- Before
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- Before
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- During
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- During
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- During
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- Dusty tearin’ it up
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- Amy tearin’ it up
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Paneling
Paneling, paneling, paneling. What were people thinking?! There are two rooms in the house that don’t have paneling. The great paneling debate was the first of the disagreements Dusty and I had about the house and that was only because we really didn’t know what we were going to do about it. Should we tear it down or paint over it? The determining question was what is behind the paneling? Dusty’s dad checked it out for us and the two of them determined that is was simply studded behind the paneling. This was perfect! Then, upon farther examination, my dad discovered that that was only the case in that section of the paneling as there used to be a door there. The question continued to plague us until one night after church Dusty just decided to rip a sheet of it off the wall. With Debbie, Renee, and Michelle watching, he brutally removed the sheet from the wall, while I stood in shock. Plaster. We found plaster walls behind the paneling. This would have been great if it weren’t for the hideous black adhesive they used to attach the paneling in the shape of a giant X. Why, people? Why? Dusty has his work cut out for him on this project. Any advice?
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- This is some of the paneling.
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- This is some of the paneling.
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Lights
The previous owner of the house did not like light. All the windows have blinds and only two rooms in the house have a light on a switch, the kitchen and bathroom. The rest are lamp lit with ugly ceiling fans. The house has central heating and air and Dusty and I found fans to be a bit redundant (and expensive to replace!). Therefore, we went to Home Depot and purchased A LOT of light fixtures. We installed all but one of them in one day. This was the first project at the house we had done other than cleaning it out. What a project it turned out to be.
The kitchen light went up with minimal problems. However, Dusty had a stepladder and I kneeled on a barstool. A barstool that swiveled. Dusty asked me to hold the light up for him and I started out fine. Then the stool slowly started to turn. The next thing I knew, I was facing the other direction and still holding the light. I wish this incident could have been caught on camera.
Then there was the dining room. This was our favorite light that we had purchased. It wasn’t going in without a fight. It took the longest, and was the most difficult to put up. He was almost finished when I had an epiphany. There was no light switch. The fan was turned on and off by a pull string. We were frustrated, but it was too funny to be too angry about. The only way to turn the light on and off is to flip the breaker. We are still working on how to fix this as we want to keep the light and don’t want a pull string.
The next room was the spare bedroom, which will be our office. This room was a easy. However, when we took the fan down we found two layers of old paint. Gold and pink. The gold was flaking off and went in Dusty’s mouth. He proceeded to quickly spit out the most likely lead-based paint. Teehee
The third room was the living room. This room was also an easy fix. However, as we were working the TV mysteriously came on which caused some dismay on my part.
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The (Almost) Newlyweds
Although we aren’t married yet, I feel that we are moving into the realm of being a married couple and some of these things should be documented. For example, we recently bought a house. It is small, old, and needs a good bit of renovations, but it is perfect for us. I am going to post lots of pictures of the house as it transforms over the next few months.
It is funny the things you will argue about once you have purchased a house. Things I never thought I would care about, I do, and things I never thought Dusty would care about, he does. However, above the quarrels about what to do with the hideous paneling throughout the house, it has been a great experience for us. This is a new and exciting chapter of our relationship.
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Mr. and Mrs. Merrill 