Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Craziness that is Home! :)

Greetings dear friends {old & new}! How are you all today? As promised, I thought I'd fill you in on some of our ongoing projects. After the initial stress of figuring out paint colors, brands, sheens, etc., we figured we definitely needed to tie up some miscellaneous loose ends around the house and start tackling some major projects!

{source}

I decided that due to the chaos, I'm just going to post all of my "before's" and "transitional states" in "black & white" so that when it's time for the entire reveal {whenever that may be}, it will be unveiled in all it's multicolored glory! :) Until then, black and white it is!


Here we have my hubby peeling, repairing & painting the return air grill slot. When you buy an older home, there's alot of this going on. Plaster = lots of cracks = filling, smoothing, sanding, and so on! Not to mention when layers of old paint makes closing of certain doors and windows rather difficult, uneven, and sometimes downright impossible! At first it didn't seem like a lot of work, but the whole process becomes easily tedious.


If this is the first time you're dropping in on my page, I have to tell you that 50% of our house came with tile. I wasn't too thrilled with the rustic colored tiles when we first moved in, but I suppose they have grown on me. :) I would have preferred new wooden floors {not in the budget right now}, so this is where Rachel Ashwell's book, Shabby Chic Home has really helped me: embracing your home and working with what you have. In other words, if it's not broken, why fix it {at least for the most part}??? The only draw back about these tiles is that they are uneven in some parts, so when my hubby and I put in new baseboards, there were obvious gaps between the board and tile...so that's where shoe molding comes in {extra strip you see between the tile and baseboard above}. This really helps close in the major gaps.


Now moving on to the "closet dilemma" that I have been stressed out about. When we moved into our home, ALL the bedrooms had textured ceilings {you know that popcorn like appearance}. After testing it for asbestos {negative}, we smoothed out the ceilings {had to have professionals come in to do this - and it was NOT cheap!}. When they did this we had to remove all the closet doors {we were going to replace them anyway} because the closet ceilings were also textured! Upon doing this, we found out that the wall that separates our bedroom and my son's bedroom is not really even a wall...more like a flimsy board?!?!


So we have decided to take down the thin wall and build a new one - albeit a more sturdier, thicker and insulated wall! In the picture above you see that the walls went "bye, bye!" So how do you build a new wall? Well that would be trips to Home Depot, measuring, cutting, and making darn sure you know where the ceiling studs are!!! :)



Ok remember a few weeks ago when I said that we finally had our "dining room" in place...well, I take that back. It has now become a storage depo of sorts! This is pretty much where we work on our projects because our garage is unfinished {no lights in there!!!}, so we don't even eat in our dining room anymore - we have to use the breakfast bar in the kitchen because it {the dining room} has become our new "dumping ground" once again.


This is what {half} our dining room looks like in its current state. Did I also mention that we were given some hefty hand me down furniture for free...but that's for another post because in all honesty, I'm not too sure of what to do with those pieces... now back to the closet issue:


Ok now since the ENTIRE house is undergoing DIY "closet reno," we still have the majority of our clothes, linens, shoes, etc. in BOXES scattered around our bedrooms. This is why we don't have beds. That's right, with the exception of our preschooler who sleeps in his toddler sized bed still, the rest of us sleep on the floor or rotate to the couch. Why don't we have beds? Well we got rid of them when we moved because they were old, flimsy and too small. But because of the scattered boxes, that does NOT leave us any room for new beds just yet, so until we get this closet issue fixed, 3/4 of us are on the floor/couch! Do you really want to see the craziness right now? Look below, but don't say I didn't warn you!!! :)

This is part of what our bedroom is like {above}...


And my little one has his room in chaos as well...and this is only the half of it!


And I won't even get into what my teenage son's room looks like... "Teenage son's room." Those words should be 'nuff said. And couple that with renovation...well, you can only imagine... But I have to keep telling myself, "one day at a time" and it's a "work in progress!"



So here you see the hubby making sure we know where the ceiling studs are so we can attach the initial plywood above to begin the framing of the new wall. We managed to get the first piece up, but had to call it a day when our last minute out of town guest arrived last Saturday evening. So we had to hide all that junk that was in the dining room into the garage temporarily...


And here my little one insists that he helps daddy on this project, while he wears a bandanna as his makeshift "superhero cape!" :) Well, that's all for now. We will be resuming our projects this weekend. Hopefully a wall will be up sooner rather than later!!! :)

XO's,
Jessie

Sharing with: White Wednesday

12 comments:

Ann said...

Oh I want to see how it will look like when you finish doing some magic in there... I am excited to see it in color ♥

Anonymous said...

Oh Jessie, you poor thing! Never mind, one day it will all be a distant memory and you will have a beautiful home to admire and a serene space to relax in! God bless x

d e l i g h t said...

What an undertaking and project! When we took the "popcorn" off of our ceilings it was a mess, but we like it so much better without it. All this work and chaos will be worth it when you are finished! Looking forward to the color photographs!

Intentional Living Homestead said...

What an undertaking...reminds me of what we are still doing on our homestead...we've knocked out walls...painted every room in the house ripped out flooring...and we are still far from done.

Cannot wait to see your colours.

Connie

SLR said...

no beds!? jessie...come stay with me! i admire how you can live with all the renovations going on...we are having just our basement floor done and that is stressing me out, which i now see as a ridiculous, seeing what you are going through! you will someday have the house of your dreams though...
lucky for you too, that your hubby can do lots of the work...mine is so not handy, LOL!

Anonymous said...

Oh my sweet friend, i so feel for you!! I know what it's like living out of boxes, but having to re-do everything in the house must be so stressful!
But just know that one day soon, all of your hard work will be done and you will have the home of your dreams that you and your husband did all yourselves. It will be truly rewarding!!!
Take care and if you ever need any help, let me know!! Seriously!!
Sincerely,
Melinda

A Cozy Cottage in the City said...

Thank you all for the constant encouragement, it really helps to know that there is "a light at the end of the tunnel!" :)

@Stacey: I'm sure your hubby is just as handy! :) The hubs & I started out just knowing basic stuff, and together we had to learn as we go! Thank God for google & online tutorials!!! :)

Thank you again to Ann, Karen, Linda, Connie, Stacey & Melinda for stopping by and having such kind words! :)


Hugs,
Jessie

Blondie's Journal said...

You really have your work cut out for you. We have the textured ceilings at our lakehouse and I never even considered getting rid of them because of the mess!! I may look into that. I do feel for you, Jessie, because our kitchen is a total mess. Since ordering food every night is breaking us...you have to see me running from room to room trying to find a certain pot or dish or spoon. I was not organized about this at all!! Hopefully it will be over soon. You are doing a lot more work than I am...feel good about yourself.

Cute idea doing the before pictures in black and white!!

XO,
Janie

Fresh Vanilla For C said...

Love how you used the black and white for the before photos. Can't wait to see the after pics!!!
Hope you are having a great day!!
xo
~Cheryl

A Cozy Cottage in the City said...

Thanks Cheryl! :)

@Janie: Thank you so much for the kind words & encouragement. And I totally understand where you are coming from! When we repainted the entire interior of our home, we also did a lot of "eating out!" Not a fun thing to do, so I feel ya on that!!! As for the textured ceilings, you're right, it is quite a messy job to undertake {they were the "hard/petrified" acoustic ceilings vs. the soft ones}, so we had to hire professionals to handle it correctly - one of the investments we don't regret! :)

Donna Reyne' said...

I have decided we are truly kindred spirits! I love that I am not alone living a midst utter chaos while we renovate our home!
But I tell myself and now you too..."Just keep swimming"
having small children you probably know this movie line but it's true! Before you know it your nearly there
I am excited for you though it will be wonderful when it's done.
Hugs from here
Donna

A Cozy Cottage in the City said...

THANK YOU so much, Donna! It helps to know also that I'm not the only "crazy one" living amongst all the chaos that I call home! :) There are days when I just sigh...and yes, cry...but, I know our hard work will pay off soon! It may take longer than expected, but I welcome the journey! :) Thanks again for always knowing what to say! :)


Hugs right back atcha,
Jessie

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