Work In Progress Wednesday - update on the past 3 weeks

Well, it's been 3 weeks since I last updated on the house. So many things have been done with the house but it feels like nothing has been done. We've been doing bits and pieces here and there in every single room so since no room is completely done it feels like nothing has been done. Seriously, I have to remind myself of all that has been done.

First, we moved into a house that has no working appliances... we finally have all of our appliances and feel like we finally have a functioning house. Most of the appliances were scratch and dent appliances so we got great deals on some of our dream appliances. We must admit though that even the new in box appliances were pretty good deals too. I must say that it feels so good to have my own washer and dryer that actually cleans the clothes. I am so excited to be cloth diapering Isaac again. I LOVE my fridge, it's huge and so much better than the old small one we had in our apartment. I also love finally having a gas range too. Last I updated I was hoping to have the kitchen cabinets done... well, that got put on the back burner because we ran into some bigger projects that needed to be done before we moved in.


We knew there was a crack in the foundation so we needed to open up the wall to see what was behind there... turns out we needed to open up more all through to the family room and then the previous homeowner's dog had made a mess of the drywall in the bedroom so we took down all the drywall in the bedroom only to find another crack that you can't see from the outside because the landscaping is too high against the house... Anyways, it's time to order a dumpster since this was becoming a bigger project than expected. YAY, we have a dumpster let's fill it up!
4th bedroom



Let me tell you about the family room... we're not sure what was going on in there... The fireplace was a mix of victorian and log cabin and there was wood paneling EVERYWHERE! Also, there was wallpaper that was painted hunter green and some of it was bubbling so it definitely needed to come down. Lastly, it had these beams going across the ceiling that served no purpose and were literally looking like they were going to fall anyways... Let's fill that dumpster! My parents came to help work on the house so my mom and I worked at getting the paneling down and the wallpaper down. I had to leave the paneling up on the fireplace since it was actually nailed to the mantal. We figured the 4 of us would take down the beams but that ended up being super easy and my dad and Mark were able to take them down and mom and I happily tossed them in the dumpster, getting several splinters in the process. I must say that it looks so much better with wallpaper paste on the walls and torn out drywall than it did before, lol.



Did I mention we had a dumpster... well the house smelled like smoke and dog and was obviously never cleaned. The carpet HAD to go... thankfully, it was only on the upstairs hallway and the stairs... the rest of the house is hardwood or laminate or vinyl tiles. We weren't sure what we'd find under the carpet but we ended up going to Home Depot and buying some unfinished hardwood and my dad installed it in the hallway. The stairs ended up being tougher than we thought so they are still a work in progress.



Oh, the dumpster... we also had a fence in back that served no purpose since the neighbors had privacy fences up so while we had the dumpster we took out the two sides of fence that had fences on the other sides.
Before (taken when we first saw the house)

After

Last update I told you I was having difficulties finding lighting to work with vaulted ceilings but I found some that work and some of them have been installed. I must say that it's so nice to have great lighting in the kitchen now and a nice chandelier in the dining room.
Before in kitchen

After in kitchen

After in dining room

Let's see while we torn out all the drywall in the family room and 4th bedroom we ended up tearing out the drywall in the bathroom down there too... and the toilet... and then Mark decided we're just going to need to gut the bathroom and start from scratch... there are pipes that lead to nowhere and the shower just has a hole in the bottom and no real drain... did I mention pipes that lead to nowhere? Looks like everyone will be using the upstairs bathroom for quite awhile and the lower level well, I only go down there to do the laundry.
downstairs bathroom


The living room has become our temporary family room until we can get the lower level in working order.

OK, last dumpster comment... the previous owner left tons and tons and tons of trash... so much that with everything we did we ended up filling our dumpster which we really didn't think we would... well other than someone throwing their personal trash in our dumpster... oh well, I guess I'm not surprised considering how much you have to pay for trash removal.


Painting... well, I was really hoping we could paint so that this place could look more like our home instead of the previous owner's choice of home decorating... well, time has flown and more important projects have come up and it's just been put on the backburner for quite awhile. I'm a bit bummed and I know that it's the reason I feel like nothing has been done on the place, but hopefully in a couple months things will have settled down a bit so we can start painting and making this place ours.

The upstairs bathroom... there was a huge hole in the wall so I covered it with a plate that matches our shower curtain and I installed a new towel bar. Since this is our only functioning bathroom, I needed something that would hold more than 2 towels. I'm in the process now of installing a new sink faucet too since the one we have is really hard for Moriah to use. I also changed the hardware on the doors and plan to do some major painting in there whenever we get to actually painting.
Before

Current


I installed a new thermostat! I'm so proud of myself for doing it but it was rather easy when you just follow the instructions... I also installed the new door bell... both of these things were broken and needed to be done. We couldn't even tell what the thermostat was set at but now it's so nice to see and it's great knowing that people aren't afraid to press the doorbell now, lol.


Unpacking... We've done a ton of it, although there are still a ton of boxes still to go through. Hopefully, by the end of the month we'll be all unpacked and things will be in a little bit in order.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton stuff that we've done in the past 3 weeks... we did meet some of our new neighbors and we are excited that there are so many young kids in the neighborhood.

Hopefully, the next updates won't be so long since I'll be updating every week. It's so good to be back online! I really missed having internet and communicating with friends for those 2 weeks I was without it.

Picture of the front of the house, which is also a before picture... if you look closely you can see the cedar boarded up and behind the bushes is a whole lot of rotted wood and stucco... getting estimates for siding and new windows also.