We knew we wanted a house to make our own...and so part of this project was to do just that. Being an older home, space in the house was not ideal nor was it our taste. What better position to be in than to have the wifes family in the design business for exactly the areas we wanted to renovate - mainly Kitchen and Bathroom (along with other things, but less important).
So to give you a run down of what we knew we were going to do, heres is a brief list of the major things we wanted to do:
(brief pause...at home and its about to be 2013!!!!)
Happy New Year!!!! Ok...back to it.
- Renovate and Enlarge Kitchen
- Renovate and Enlarge Bathroom
- Open Kitchen up to Dining Room
- Relocate Laundry Room
- Convert 1 Bedroom into a Closet
- Redo ALL electrical (both Phone, Power, Cable, Network, etc)
- New Plumbing
- Insulate Home
- Smooth Walls from the texture
- New Windows (everywhere except original front windows - they keep character and are ridiculous)
- New Water Heater and Relocate under the house from basement
- New Furnace and Relocate under the house from basement
- Restore and Stain Original Hardwood Floors
- ...and a ton of other things I will go over as we get through them all.
So with that in mind, this is where the real journey begins.
Here is the EXISTING layout (Red Boxes represent walls that will be coming down):
This is the PLANNED Final layout (Furniture Placement is just a rough draft):
So thats the scope.
Demolition started roughly in November and continued throughout December.
To start it off, Lil C'z had the very first sledge hammer hit to the bathroom walls and helped with the demolition of the entire bathroom. From there on out, it was up to me and RonDZ to complete the rest of the work. At first, it seemed like simple stuff....only to find out, this is actually some hard work when you get down to it.
Saving all the details and to speed through, Ill do some before and afters and will explain the some of the photos.
Left: This double door was a small linen closet Im assuming and was just useless to us based on a new bathroom that was being built. Directly behind it is a closet for one of the bedrooms that we will be converting to a large closet anyways. We decided to knock the walls down between the two and create our new laundry room in this area. Currently the laundry hookup is in the basement - not ideal and not a pretty place at the moment. Why not make a new room and keep the laundry close by. Worked for me...
Below: This is the backside of the closet. We will seal the door in this room and will keep the double door as the entrance to the New Laundry Room.
Below (Left): Poked the wall through, now have one big room for the laundry area.
Below (Right): Thought we were going to save the walls and work around it...negative. Walls coming down to allow for new electrical and plumbing. RonDZ at work tearing it down!
Here is a shot of a nice built in wall thing...nice...but it made the kitchen feel secluded. Away with the wall and opening it up to the kitchen to allow more light, space and for entertainment.
Cabinets Out...
Walls going...
GONE!!!!
Left: This is a closet in another bedroom closest to the Kitchen. We decided to extend the kitchen and rebuild a new closet for this particular room. The left side of the wall in the closet is the kitchen...time to open it up.
Lower Right: The wall in the far back leads to the closet pictured on the left side.
Bye bye wall...hello closet.
Heres a good shot of the kitchen layout as-is...not so great and very small. Well, we're fixing that. Away with it all and tearing all walls down here.
 |
(Left) Removed Existing Cabinets from this wall.
(Right) RonDZ removing dry walls down to studs.
Basically the Kitchen and the Bathroom areas, since a they will both be redesigned and brand new, are getting demo'd down to the studs. Floors removed too.
 |
| Kitchen Demo COMPLETED! |
This closet is part of what we will now call the Master Bedroom - not much of a closet, which is why we will be converting one of the bedrooms to a monster closet. This closet was useless, therefor we decided destroy it and make it a part of the bathroom space. Bathroom was tiny and just a poor design. Bathroom below is clearly tight, ugly and dark. We needed more space. Currently it was a tub with a shower and a massive dual sink setup with very little space. We will be converting this space to a single sink, separate shower with a separate tub and a built-in linen closet inside.
 |
| Bathroom Demo COMPLETED! |
So as you can see...we've been keeping pretty busy. Keep in mind, this house is old...so rather than sheet rock you would typically find in a new home or remodeled home, we had to deal with a ton of Lathe and Plaster - dirty, crumbly, messy, HEAVY....the works. Luckily, the bathroom and the kitchen both were remodeled at some point in time, so they were primarily sheet rock. On the other parts - plaster all day.
Some fun facts:
Plaster Removed - 32 Construction Grade Bags Full (insanely heavy stuff)
Wood Slats - 3/4 of a two car garage floor to about chest high FULL
Tiles Removed from Bathroom and Kitchen
Tons of wood from removing walls/studs
Loads of Sheet Rock (walls and ceilings)
Cabinets, Sinks, Toilet, etc...REMOVED
...along with all this, ones everything is off the walls...just when you think your done, you have to remove all the nails and screws. Total Count - maybe a billion in every damn shape and size.
Ton of Masks to protect ourselves
Tons of Goggles to sample - trying to find the best anti-fog type (didnt exist and didnt want to spend 100.00 on some stupid goggles. So we dealt with foggy goggles and some benefits of anti-fog solution - compliments of RonDZ and using it during our paintball times.
50,000 Calories Burned off
Two Massive Truck Loads of garbage hauled off (no one told me the price of these pickups...WOW!!!!) I wish I had a truck...though it would have probably been 10+ round trips to the dumps...so I guess it was worth it.
....lots and lots of beer.
Big thanks to my brother RonDZ for not complaining and being as motivated as I was to get this done. It was a fun learning experience and we both joked about buying tool belts. Though they would be useful, we both didnt feel like we held a title strong enough to sport one. So the joke remains...we need to be more important and have a real title to sport one of those. For now, no tool belts for us...maybe one day.
I have a ton more pictures - but these generic blog layouts become frustrating when trying to size and add text. I definitely wanted to show some of the work we were doing and again...to document this as I go through it to look back on things and see how it was.
As my mother inlaw told me...I need to put in some sweat equity. Well here is proof...ahhhh....as we would say, "DONZO!!!!!"
Next up...a lot of decision making. Contractor selection for Window Replacements, Framing, Plumbing, Electrical, Window Types, Finalizing Kitchen and Bathroom Material/Design, etc, etc. Its a long process...but we're getting there.
No comments:
Post a Comment