renovation, week 4

Week 4: July 31-Aug 6

My dad, stepmother, and little brother came up for the weekend to kick off week 4!  We were going to work on tiling the bathroom, but the drywallers were still finishing, so instead Tim and my dad built a gate in the fence between our yard and the Roses backyard so we could walk easily back and forth.  Here is the fruit of their labors.

Someday, we might take the fence down and either leave both yards unfenced, or continue the picket fence around our yard too.  But for now, we are confining these lovable critters to one yard only.

We soon realized that we would need to start painting soon, and that meant MORE DECISIONS!  Josh and I went to Bloomington Paint and Wallpaper and picked a bajillion paint swatches and Tim and I spent many hours scrutinizing over the various shades.  Josh also discovered the Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer, which is kind of fun.  We chose lots of vibrant colors and are pleased with our colorful home!  Those with subtle tastes, be warned - it's like a rainbow exploded!

Sorry, I didn't snap any good photos during the painting phase!  Above is a picture of the kitchen and living room (plus some sweaty dudes) and our bedroom.  The photo quality isn't very good for viewing the colors, but at least you can get an idea.  Below are the names of the colors in case you want to try to imagine what they might look like...

Living Room: Pale Avacado
Kitchen: Million Dollar Red
Hallway: Prevence Creme
Bathroom & Spare room: Jamaican Aqua
Josh's Room: Cafe Royal
Tim & Carrie's Room: Passion Plum w/ Provence Creme accent wall

Lots of friends pitched in and helped us to prime the enter house, and apply 2 coats of paint on all the walls!  We couldn't have done it with out the extra hands!

Stay tuned for week 5, Tim's ikea hack, and the Moving Extravaganza....

renovation, week 3

Week 3: July 24-30

I forgot to mention an important part of week 2. After debating about flooring for a month, Tim and I drove to Lumber Liquidators to pick out floors once and for all.  We had narrowed it down to two options and we were very torn.

But we eventually decided!

We took a brief hiatus from working on the house to party down at Mike and Patty's wedding!

And luckily, the drywall guys were ready to come the next week!  Also, the new windows came in and Tim, Jared, and Charlie installed them all in one day!  Here are some pics post-drywall:

Hurray for drywall!

Stay tuned for weeks 4 and 5!

renovation, week 2

Week 2: July 17-23

Mom and Pop Felton came up to Bloomington to help us during our second weekend of renovation.  We had pulled up the carpet in the living room to discover cheap thin tile beneath.  We soon discovered that this tile was under the carpet in each of the bedrooms as well.  John and Maggie helped us pull up the tile in the living room and hallway, but Tim convinced me that it wasn't worth the time and effort to pull up the tile in the bedrooms since we could probably install our floor right over top of it.

The second day Tim's parents were here, Tim asked his dad to take down the wrap that goes around our bathtub.  We had originally planned on leaving it up and having the drywall guys hang drywall around it, but Tim said, let's take it down and have them drywall behind it.

 Boy was Tim's dad in for a treat when he removed that wrap.

So...I gave the wall a good bleach scrub down and Charlie replaced the rotting wood around the faucets.  The toiled was also broken, so we removed it, and since we found water damage behind the shower wrap, we pulled up the linoleum too.  I took a pic from outside the bathroom because it stunk so bad.

At our community dinner that week, Tim suggested that we write verses and prayers on the walls of our house to sort of dedicate the house to the community and to God.  We had heard of people doing this before in churches or Young Life buildings, but I had never done it before, and it was a really neat experience.  Buying and renovating this house had been a stressful and tiresome experience thus far, so it was good for us to remember that in the end, it will be more than just a house, it will be a home and an important part of our community here on Sunset Hill.

Stay tuned for updates on Weeks 3 and 4!

renovation, week 1

Hey guys, I have been procrastinating on writing this blog post, but here are some pics from the first week of working on our house.

Week 1: July 9-15

This is the view of our living room from standing at the front door. The original plan was to replace all the wood paneling with drywall.  So Tim, Will, Kevin, and Josh each picked a wall and started pulling it apart.

They quickly realized that the wood paneling was not only nailed to the studs, but glued and stapled as well.  It was extremely difficult to pull apart, and something just didn't seem right.  They consulted our friend, Charlie (who we have hired to help us out a little bit) and he confirmed their suspicions that all the walls in the entire house were prefabricated in a factory somewhere (Fort Wayne, to be exact).

Because of this, it was going to be a nightmare to pull down, so we decided just to hang the drywall on top of the paneling.  However, we still had to finish pulling the paneling off the walls they had started, and also take down all the trim, etc.  Colleen and I were really good at pulling out nails.

This is the BEFORE pic of the kitchen:

As you can see below, we knocked down a wall and built a new half-wall.  And when I say "we" I mean, Charlie.  We also took down the gross patterned paneling that the previous owner had lovingly chosen to cover the water damage above the side door.

 Well, that is all for week 1.  More pics to come!