The Bedroom Nightmare

 One of my favorite projects so far was the bedroom. A quick and dirty job with high impact, not only visually but functionally, and cheap to boot. And desperately needed! The boarding conditions prior to this project were grim at best. This tiny little room was by far the most disgusting and depressing in the house. In its previous life, it appeared to have functioned as some sort of old lady’s living or bedroom (based on the color and wallpaper choices) and also a laundry room, with washer and drying hookups and stick-down vinyl tiles in one corner. It also, to our dismay, had apparently been used as an in-home dog kennel. It still makes me gag recalling the mats of dog hair I emptied from the barrel of our brand new shop vac after the maiden voyage on that floor. Adam also dug out a large swaft from the air vent and – if that wasn’t enough- there was even dog hair EMBEDDED in the paint on the walls. Like a lot. Even after a scrubbing, the room was sooooooooooo gross. The carpet was so disgusting, it was like we were playing a constant game of “the carpet is lava” from childhood. If a clean shirt dropped on the floor it was literally like…hm…that’s…. going back in the dirty pile. It all came to a front one night when a bat got in the house. Well, I should say the FIRST night a bat got in the house. Spoilers! Anyways, long story short, as we hit the deck with the blanket over our heads at three o’clock in the morning, we quickly realized the alternative horror of laying the bare carpet. It was literally worse than a flying hairy rat likely carrying a neurological disease! We started not only screaming at the bat but also howling out how utterly disgusting this was! As Adam took on his heroic role yielding broom and waving towels, I squatted in a low hover covered in the blanket, my fears of what was swooping above in a stand-off with what was lurking below. 

We crammed this project into our schedule during our highly anticipated staycation last August. We awoke bright and early Monday morning and wasted no time. When we got out of bed the bed came with us out the door. Once the room was cleared, we got busy ripping up that nasty carpet! Victory! It was a brilliant moment fit for any HGTV slot – revealing the beautifully preserved original hardwood floor underneath. The stick down tiles were a pain, but eventually those came up too. Next, a slap of primer and a few layers of paint. Easy. We were able to move back in by the end of the day, although we may have had some funky dreams from the paint fumes that night. Just a few more finishing items and our bedroom was a completely different place in a little over one day! Total relief! 

Of course this is just a temporary arrangement while we await our upstairs reno, so I was very thrifty on the furnishings. We borrowed ceiling tiles from some rooms upstairs just to tie up the unfinished drop ceiling. The baseboard was also salvaged from the upstairs bathroom. The rug and curtain were garage sale finds – thanks to my sister for the rug – and framed prairie prints were repurposed from the living room. The, ehem, “artwork” above the bed is homemade from a botched canvas I picked up at a garage sale for 25 cents and made use of some of the mini cans of paint samples I had from the kitchen. I did buy some bed risers to raise up the bed frame for storage underneath and the tiny closet could not fit both of our clothes so we had to make do.  It’s no designer space, but it will certainly get us through until we finish the upstairs. Until then, I can at least toss a pillow off the bed without fearing typhoid.

Ready. Set. Demo.

The dust has settled from the wedding and a fabulous honey moon in Key West is in the books. Time to get down to business. Adam has made quite a bit of progress on the demolition of the attic and second floor already. He started straight away the week after the wedding by pulling up the attic floor boards and vacuuming out the vermiculite insulation. Bag by bag he carried it down 2 flights of stairs and out the door. About 20 bags so far and more to go. In the process he found some treasures. First, an old ID card issued in the 1970’s. Neat to begin with, but to add to the mystery it was torn into 4 pieces and scattered about with a bunch of cigarette butts….hmm. A quick internet search of the name was inconclusive. Next was a Sauk City High School graduation invitation from 1917! It predates the house by over 15 years! Wasn’t expecting to find anything that old. Fun stuff.

More progress was made while I visited my parents for a long weekend. Cardboard boxes laid down to protect the hardwood floor, and another 15 or so feet of the chimney taken out and carried by the bucketful down the steps. Adam is getting his workout! The upstairs heater was service checked to make sure it still worked, and then disconnected and hauled out for use in the garage. And then we discovered exactly why it was so necessary to be installed up there. Tonight Adam started the satisfying (and messy) process of ripping out the plaster in one of the upstairs bedroom…and ALAS!...ZERO insulation. Nill. Nada. None. I guess heating your house was a lot cheaper back in the day! We also figured out which room served as the kitchen when this house was a duplex at some point in its past. And further demo revealed that the house is in fact balloon framed. 

 We are getting to the point where we definitely need a dumpster to keep getting things accomplished. A long 4^th of July weekend coming up should satisfy some much needed hard core demo time. The race is on to get some new insulation in by winter!

Kitchen

So, it turns out when you are remodeling a house you don't have much time to blog. Now that the fall months are upon us I will finally catch up on the progress we have made over the summer. Our first big project was the kitchen. Oh....the kitchen. The previous owners obviously had some type of vision for this kitchen, but to us it was the most ugly depressing room imaginable (besides our bedroom, but that's a future post). The ceiling was gold? copper? something shiny, dark and weird. A wall paper border lined the top of the wall which I dare say was SUPER ugly and the walls were an awkward green. The cupboards were a whole other story.....just take a look at the pictures.....oh and don't forget the plastic "copper" back splash...and the whole thing was cast over with a dark green hue from the light fixture.

I had plenty of time to decide on the paint colors. I looked at probably thousands of pictures while we waited endlessly for the closure process. I knew I wanted something light a bright to wash away the dark sad colors that were there, but I could never find the combination I wanted online. Yellow walls with blue-grey cabinets. I searched and searched but it seemed no one was doing it. So I went for it! My lovely mom, sister, niece and my friend Liz came to help and we transformed it on a hot and humid weekend at the end of June.

We made finishing touches with some curtains my mom had made me for a previous apartment which matched perfectly, some old spice containers from my grandma's kitchen and of course a hand crafted island table and bar by Adam. We picked up some used appliances from a local dealer and put up a shelf to hold my cookbook collection. Not bad for our "small remodel". It will definitely hold us over until we put in our dream kitchen in a few years!

Week 1: The Money Pit

Sooooo the drama is finally over! I lost count of how many closing dates were set and passed. On more than one occasion it became almost certain we were losing the house. Our landlord got confused or forgot that she agreed to allow us to lease month to month until we closed, and we were homeless! Holding on by a thread we moved in with my cousin Amy and her husband Nate for just over a month (THANK YOU!). Drama ensued, the banks were crazy, and our realtor and mortgage broker were at each other’s necks! The whole thing was so up in the air that the day before closing we were still handing in applications for apartments, just in case. But a little over a week ago, on May 30^th, we turned the key!!!

It’s been almost comical since then. I was fully away that we would basically be “camping” for the first week, but I had no idea how literal that would be. Without a fridge or stove, we had a cooler and a grill. No problem. Then we realized there was no hot water. Then we realized only two electrical outlets worked on the entire first floor! Haha, it certainly is a fixer upper!

After a week of cold showers a plumber came to fix the hot water heater (thanks Pete Baker!). Thank the Lord! And the same day our fridge and oven were delivered (thanks Vern’s appliance, Lodi, WI!). Unfortunately, the plumber was being careful not to over tighten a plastic fitting, but ended up not getting it quite tight enough and I came home to literally an inch of water in the kitchen floor! It took some time to clean up but does not appear to have done any damage (contained to the linoleum) except perhaps to the plumber’s ego. He came back and fixed it right away though. No worries! We will for sure hire him again.

Then the stove would not heat up…. we discovered the electric was worse than we thought. Only about 100 amps going to the 220 amp outlet so not enough power for a stove. Good thing its summer and we love to grill!

After how hard we fought to get this house, all the troubles we have encountered so far have not even fazed us. We are so happy and excited to make this place our own! We even have already had someone come to our door and ask if we wanted to sell! In less than a week! We obviously have a good thing going here.

Roof get’s torn of tomorrow! Let the demo begin!

Emily

First Post

Hello internet,

I have never had a blog before, I always thought they were pretty dorky and a little narcissistic (do you really think the whole world cares?). I still kind of feel this way, so I'm slightly embarrassed to be writing this, but I also thought this would be a fun way to keep track of the progress on our first home and share the experience with family and friends (and the whole world!?!)

We put in an offer on the house in early January. It was the first and only house we ever looked at. Not very typical in this housing market I'd have to say! After a few days of back and forth and a few other offers pending, our offer was accepted! Ah! What did we just do? It's a giant four-square house that needs to basically be gutted and completely remodeled top to bottom. And it's a foreclosure, so what we see is what we get. But with Adam's carpentry skills and my fantasy of living out an episode of anything on HGTV, we are ready for the challenge.

 Since then it has been nothing but missed deadlines and a waiting game with the stupid foreclosing bank. Our closing date is now set to a week and a half from today. We've been sketching and brainstorming and dreaming up plans for the remodel. I told Adam we definitely needed to buy some books on electrical and plumbing work, and joked that maybe we should get a book on how to make a relationship survive through your first big remodeling project. He joked back that we'd be writing the book on that. I sure hope so!

Okay I better start packing,

Emily