{ New Stairs }

Our stairs got a makeover. 

A partial makeover rather because once we get carpet on them then they will be finished but for now they are ready and waiting for that last layer.

You probably don't even really notice the difference because in the scheme of things it's a very tiny update but I am here to tell you that having new stair treads makes a huge difference when walking on them.

The old stairs looked nice but we knew we couldn't keep the old treads in the condition they were in. They felt extremely fragile and the creaking noises as you ascended were unavoidable. I tried. 

The third step eventually ended up snapping in two pieces one day (see photo below) and that made up our minds then and there. 

The new treads are sturdy and silent as you walk on them. My two year old used to be afraid of the old stairs and wouldn't go up or down without a hand to hold and now will go up and down freely as she pleases.  So much better!

We decided since we were carpeting the upstairs we would run the carpet down the stairs too. 

I thought for a hot minute about wanting to keep the old treads and maybe even doing a stair runner but with the broken tread and the creaky-ness (yup just made that word up), we would go with carpet. It's inevitable that one of our three children or myself may fall or partially fall down the stairs (hey, it happens) and we like to think that the carpet may soften the fall. The carpet has been ordered and hopefully will be down in the next two weeks or so! 

Here's a quick reminder of the stairwell changes over the past five months of home ownership

Not only can you see the stair changes (or maybe you cant since it's not that noticeable) but you can see the wall changes. First that retro wallpaper, then wallpaper removal, plaster fixing, and now freshly primed walls all ready for paint.

The painting saga continues upstairs. That is ONE BIG room with a whole lotta angles going on so it's taking time and a toll on the back but hey it's getting there and I'll be excited to show you that once its done.

Oh the things we home owners get excited about huh?!

{ Drywall is up }

The upstairs room is moving along nicely now. It took a long time to get to this point since everything needed to be replaced. 

Finally it's starting to actually look like a room. I am getting so excited to be able to decorate this space for the kids. Remember what it started out looking like? Dark. Lots of wood. Closed off. Gloomy. Muti-floor covered. The list goes on.

So here is a look at what the room is looking like now.

It's so fun to watch the upstairs progress. As you can see the drywall is all up but not finished yet. You can see the new window, the new outlets, the new can lights in the ceiling, the new sub floor...it's ALL new and looking so so so good! YAY hubby! 

Here is a quick run down of how it got from the first photo to now.

Gutted room.

Fixed the roof where the chimney used to be.

Moved the side walls out, lifted the ceiling, replaced bad electrical outlets, and removed and replaced all the insulation.

Created a new sub floor.

Replaced the windows.

Put up insulation on the walls and ceiling.

Built the wall surrounding the stairs and built the closets.

Hung new drywall.

Cleaned it all up and now we are ready for the drywall to be finished!

 I am probably the only person that squeals when I see these photos but it took a long time to get to this point and I keep envisioning what the room will look like for my two kiddos when this is done and I am jumping out of my skin to make it perfect for them.

I've already purchased a few things for up here that I am really excited about. I got two twin beds off craigslist that I plan on painting. We took a trip to Ikea and definitely spent some $ there on things for this space. I've also been busy visiting my fav shops on Etsy and making a bunch of purchases on there too. 

Stay tuned for the final results hopefully sooner rather than later! 

{ Ripping up the bathroom }

Remember the tiny bathroom? 

I might have said this before, but literally, you almost needed to know what your business was going to be before entering. For example...if using the shower, you would want to undress prior to entering, walk right in, take immediate left and get in...or if planning on using the toilet you might want to turn around before entering, back up into the room and then proceed to sit down. It is THAT small. When using the john your feet would have to be on the shower ledge. No Joke. Seriously. Who designs a house with this small of a bathroom? Not cool people. 

We are going to do our best to make as much room as possible. Remember my list for this room? Here it is to remind you. We can now cross off two things! Whoo-hoo!

Bathroom:

• open up the room a little by moving some walls
• replace stand-up shower with a tub
• replace the tiniest sink in the world with a vanity and sink top
• replace the flooring
• install ceiling light
• paint

So we started with removing the mirror, sink, and shower. The shower is only two years old (When we removed it, we saw a little note on the stud saying shower install 2011, thats the only reason I know that factoid). It wasn't that bad of a shower but with only having one bathroom in the whole house and three little kids who need baths a tub is a must have. The shower that was in there was also extra large for handicap accessibility so replacing with a standard tub will gain us some space too. 

No more sink! We (and by we I mean Mark...so... whenever I say we you can read it as Mark, I'm just the one saying what to do lol) started removing the paneling too.

We had a crazy night when taking the sink out because Mark ended up hitting the water line pipe when he was removing the paneling. Typically it wouldn't have been a big deal to bump a pipe but it is a big deal to hit a very rusty old pipe, because they break. Water started spraying out all over. Mark had me put my hand over it but it was spraying so hard that it was still coming out all over the bathroom and all over me. He ran downstairs to shut the water off (which seemed like it took forever). Finally the water stopped flowing. Leaving me, the bathroom and the wood floor just outside the bathroom soaked. We had to laugh though because it was kinda funny! The mess wasn't funny just the whole craziness of the moment was funny. 

Here's a shot of the floor after we got it all cleaned up. You can still see the wood was a little wet. 

We ended it for that night. Enough craziness for one night. The next night's agenda was removing the shower. He first removed the side panels, the corner shelf panels and then the tub base. 

Anyone need a shower? We've got pieces that we would love to sell. We were able to salvage the base and the two corner wall panels. The normal wall panels didn't make it off the walls in one piece but if you are interested contact me. 

After the shower was completely out we started tearing out that cabinet just to the left of walking in the door. It was a pretty deep cabinet which is nice to have in a bathroom but with it gone we would gain a lot of room and really open up the room so it had to go. The photo below is of the cabinet almost removed. I am standing in the bathroom where the toilet previously sat, to give you some perspective. 

It's a pretty big mess right now, I didn't clean it all up before I took photos this time. 

Those were the ones before the wall came out and these are the ones after. Makes a huge difference huh?!

I am so excited to see changes in this room because the sheer size or lack there of in the bathroom was starting to make me feel claustrophobic. for real. 

We have a ways to go yet until it's functional but when walls start coming down it gets exciting! It's still going to be a small bathroom but this will help a lot. 

oh and here's a shot of the ceiling lights and new fart fan! 

All of the plumbing and electrical has to be replaced in here so thats up next on the to do list. That isn't exactly picture worthy so I will update you as soon as noticeable changes start happening again in here. 

Sorry the projects are all over the place. I wish I could show you from start to finish a whole room, but we're just not there yet. So for now, we are working on whatever we have time for. We have to save big projects for the weekends, so during the week we can only accomplish small projects.

The upstairs is almost ready for drywall so I am really hoping to show you some updates on that soon. The kitchen has had some progress and I will share that soon as well. Stay tuned...lots of changes are happening. Sometimes not as quickly as we wish they would, but things are changing and I am eager to share!

{ Bye Bye Wallpaper }

The house has wallpaper on both stairwells. Both are actually pretty retro and would still work for the right person with that kind of decorating style. 

Here's the yellow and green flowers on the basement stairwell.

Here's a bigger version of yellow and green flowers on the stairwell going upstairs.

Neither are my decorating style so it's been decided that they have to go. Sorry retro styled peeps, I really did feel bad removing them since they were in great shape, it's just not my thing. 

I've only actually completed the upstairs walls. The downstairs walls are on the to-do list next. I was a wallpaper removing virgin so I really had no clue how to go about it or if it would be an easy or hard task. I read up on a couple ways to remove wallpaper so I figured I would give it a go. 

First, I tested a small corner to see how difficult it was to pull off. If it was hard I was going to use the spray bottle technique. If it was easy I was going to just start hacking away. I got LUCKY! It peeled off so easily. I didn't hardly have to work at it at all. 

I just kept peeling and peeling. It came off in huge sheets at times. I felt like a wallpaper removing pro!

It only took me about a half hour to peel all of the paper off both sides of the stairs. One project I totally didn't mind doing! It only took off the top layer of drywall in a few small spots so fixing the wall will take very little effort and then it will be paint ready. Here's what we are looking at now.

Exciting huh?! I pretty much get excited when ANY project gets accomplished, so I am sure you will hear me say that a lot! But who wouldn't get excited, right? When you've got a ridiculous about of projects screaming at you at all moments it's fun to cross something off the list! 

Next up...basement wallpaper. Watch, I wont be so lucky and this stuff will be stuck like white on rice! Crossing fingers that I will be lucky again otherwise I will have to revisit those wallpaper techniques. 

{ Big Changes }

This is what we started with upstairs...

I was planning on just painting all the wood paneling but Mark had other ideas. At first I was not excited about tearing apart the whole upstairs because I knew it was going to extend our move in date much further out but after seeing how it looks now, I am glad we decided to make some big changes up there. The kids are going to love it when its done and its going to be a great space for them to sleep and play!

This was our first big project on the house.  We Mark removed all the paneling and the middle wall divider. We ran into an issue when taking the middle wall out. We realized there was a chimney that went through the middle of that wall and out the roof. It was a chimney for venting out an old furnace so it was no longer being used. As you can see in the picture below it was right in the middle of the room.

You can also see all the paneling has been removed and the flooring had been ripped up. The progress was exciting! I really wanted that chimney removed which meant the roof would need some repairs afterwards but my amazing hubby did it. It's now one big open room. Check it out, isn't it so different already!

Mark also moved the ceiling up higher and the side walls were extended to maximize the size of the room. 

The can lights have been installed into the ceiling and the new electrical outlets are in around the room. This has been a long process for the upstairs. It took Mark about a day to remove all the paneling and only a couple hours to take out that old chimney but removing the nasty old insulation took a long time. We also adding a lot of main floor lighting so while the flooring is removed in the upstairs it was a good time to add all of those ceiling lights downstairs so that added time. It is now ready for the sub floor, drywall and new windows. See here's the new windows...just waiting to be put into place.

The old windows were in extremely bad shape. Most of the house will need new windows eventually but these two were the worst so we will be happy to see them go and it will be much more efficient to have these new windows installed. Check out those rotted boards around the window. I couldn't get a great shot of the window panes due to the lighting but they are bad. 

I am so excited to see this room coming together. Mark has put in a lot of time and energy so far with the help of a lot of friends and family too. We are so grateful for everyone who is helping on our home! I know drywall will make the room seem a lot more finished so I will update you as soon as we get that in! 

Here is a before and in progress pic for you to check out again. Looks good huh?!

Before

 Progress