The First Demo(s)!
Last weekend my parents came down to MD so my dad could help us with some initial projects. What did we do?
Tore down the wall between the living room and dining room/kitchen (and in the process fixed some electrical)
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During:
Oh, hello wires that shouldn't be there!
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Wired up the living room for a ceiling fan/light
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John's dad lending many hands :)After:
A placeholder light bulb until we paint the ceiling.Laid some baseboards
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Patched up some holes under the eaves to keep out the bees/critters
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Weeded/cleaned up the side beds
Fixed the stairs from the kitchen (the top step came off, the stairs jiggled, and the railing wasn't doing so hot)
Moved the random cabinet from the back of the dining room to join with the kitchen cabinets
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Throughout this week, we have been doing random jobs and prepping the house for painting this weekend!
Monday
-Cleaned up all of the floors/dust from the weekend
-Took down all of the lighting fixtures to paint around them
Tuesday
-Giant Home Depot trip for ceiling paint, caulk, painting supplies
Wednesday
-Change the toilet seat (Best $5 investment ever!)
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After:
Yeah.. it's a different color, but we are re-doing the bathroomin 6 or so months and getting a new toilet then..
-Pull up the bathroom floor and start laying new (self-adhesive, yucky vinyl) tile (it was only $20 for the entire bathroom.. what can you do?)
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Tip: When you lay tile floors, always find the center of the room and start your tiling there. Move outward in order to avoid crooked tile lines due to crooked walls. -Caulk all of the trim, baseboards, windows, etc where it was pulling away from the wall, so we have a clean paint line
-Sand all of the walls and ceilings and then wipe them down in preparation for paint
Thursday
-Giant Home Depot trip for all the paint for the house (Yay for the Behr sale!), ceiling fans/lights
-Advance Autoparts for lawn mower battery
-John's parents house for big fans (for painting), drop cloths
-Lay out drop cloths/prep the house for painting
Tonight
-first (and hopefully second) coats of paint on the ceiling
-get cable/internet (supposedly)
-get the lawn mower fixed
Saturday/Tomorrow
-Paint
-HOKIE FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!
Sunday
-Paint some more (hopefully finish)
Monday
-Finish any painting/cleaning
Tuesday-Thursday
-Floors get refinished!!
-We pack
Saturday
-Move!
There.. now I think we are caught up. Big changes are coming!
You're one buys woman!!! It looks so great already!! :)
Those are some GREAT improvements already! I am totally impressed--despite my whole family being in construction, even the minor home improvement projects (such as laying laminate floors or hanging curtain rods) never quite seem to be completed in my house!
I've thought over and over about opening up our wall from our kitchen to our living room, but I'd lose almost all of our cabinets, and we don't have many to begin with. It sure would open things up...although it might be kind of an odd layout now that I think about it.
Meredith- If you really would like to look at removing the wall/opening up the kitchen & living room, you can send me some pictures & quick dimensions of the area and I can take a look at it and see if I can come up with a solution!
I love the BIG open room, now!
Wow that is amazing! I love that you opened up the kitchen. It is seriously amazing how drastic the change has been!
Wow, you've done so much already! All of your changes look great!