Well, it's been almost a year since I last blogged and with my paragraph long Facebook updates I thought it'd be better to just blog about our home improvement projects.We bought a house in Sandy a few weeks ago and we've been working on it ever since. The home buying process itself was bad enough, but it was all worth it. No more annoying/crazy tenants, no more sharing walls, paying someone else's mortgage payment and no more cramped living spaces.
A little (or maybe a lot) about the house: The house is over 50 years old, plenty of character, great views, and an amazing backyard. We're centrally located to shopping, the freeways, and plenty of space between our house and the neighbors. We've got 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, formal living room, dining room, mudroom/den, 1 car attached garage, and family room( or Man Cave as Derek calls it) with a fireplace. It's just under 2,000 sq feet in just living space with a huge backyard that wraps around all sides of the house and the large front yard sets our front door far off the street. It's all on one level, so no worrying about Parker falling down a flight of stairs. The master bedroom has a GINORMOUS walk in closet that you could probably fit a bed in and is one of Parker's favorite hiding places. The other 2 bedrooms are a good size with big closets as well. One is of course Parker's room and the other will either be an office, guest bedroom, or workout room(still not totally sure), but while we're making repairs it's our bedroom.
When we first moved in the major to do's were to rip out the carpets (since we knew there were hardwood floors in the bedrooms), tear out the TONS of wallpaper that were in literally every inch of the house and paint. All these things at first didn't seem like they would take too long, its taken us a while but we're almost done!
Master bedroom: The wall paper was everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE! In the master one wall was pretty easy to take out, but the other 2 were a pain and we discovered some water damage that led to an entire wall being ripped out and some flooring that needed to be replaced. The wall in the master bedroom, we found out was not insulated so there was a benefit to removing the damaged wall, now we'll be warm and cozy in the winter. We finally got the floors refinished, painted the room "Grass Cloth Green" and mounted a new ceiling fan.
Parker's room: It had 3 layers of wall paper at the bottom half of the walls, which my siblings quickly named Hitler's Teddy Bears. My family helped us remove almost all of the wallpaper in Parker's room and my younger siblings soon realizing the teddy bear wallpaper would become a pain to remove and gave them the nickname Hitler's Teddy Bears. Parker's room ended up being painted "Buzz Blaster Blue" and the floors are refinished.
Spare bedroom: This was the only room without wallpaper which allowed us to move into that one first. The floors were the only thing that needed to be done in this bedroom and that projects been completed. It's a plain white color for now, we're still trying to decide what color we'll end up painting it. Right now we're using the closets for storage and making it an office/library for now.
Full bathroom: I thought the bathroom was just painted green with some wallpaper trim, but boy was I wrong. As I started peeling the wallpaper trim I realized the green was coming off too, yep it was painted over wallpaper. It was even in the shower, GROSS! The bathroom is now a lovely grey (pictures will be posted when we are 100% done). The half bath was also painted this color, so those 2 rooms are completed!
What we found under the carpets in the bedrooms: After we removed all of the carpets, we found not only a ton of staples but also a fair amount of paint stains on the floors. I guess when they were originally painting the walls they used a spray gun and had only taped around the edges but had not put a drop cloth down over the entire floor, so the paint vapors settled on the floor as the walls dried. Needless to say, a drum sander had to be rented and the floors sanded(thanks mom & dad!), stained and polyurethaned. All the rooms are now sanded and look a million times better than a few days ago.
Kitchen: In the kitchen, we installed a new stainless steel dishwasher, that blows our old dishwasher out of the park! I learned that dishwashers do not come with plugs, but need to be hardwired to the power supply(thanks dad!). There is still some wallpaper trim left in the kitchen, that's our next project and to put in laminate flooring in the dining room/mudroom and maybe even eventually down to Derek's man cave. The kitchen, will be remodeled a few years down the road, but for now it's useable. No major complaints in this department.
Heating: The thermostat was ANCIENT, and rummaging through the garage we found a brand new thermostat, which my dad also installed.
Formal Living Room: As of right now, it's our storage room. Everything from the apartment ended up either here, the dining room, or garage. So it's a mess! But after the living room is cleared out we're going to have to buy furniture for this room since we have no furniture for a formal living room. In here there is a sliding glass door that leads out to the covered patio and backyard. We found out that the previous owner had a little herb garden. We've got mint, parsley, cilantro, and probably a few other things growing so some major weeding needs to be done and some fencing to keep the the dogs out of the garden. There are rose bushes everywhere, lilacs, and onions.
Dining Room/Mudroom/Den: There was carpet in the dining room and den, which we also removed, and we found the same linoleum tiles that are in the 1/2 bath and hall down to the man cave. There is still some wall paper trim in the dining room, but the red mudroom which I thought was just paint....yep, more painted over wallpaper. It's almost all gone now, yay!
Heading down the hall from the den:We pass the 1/2 bath, the pantry, and into the man cave. This room also needs some work, but in it's current condition its livable. It's got ugly greenish-white tile that reminds me of an elementary school cafeteria, and white ceiling tiles which eventually will be coming out. The man cave also has a glass sliding door that leads out to the same covered patio and back yard. It's got a nice fireplace which we're going to mount our flat screen over and eventually put in nice laminate floors.
So if you can imagine a big sideways L, that's the layout of our house. With the front door halfway down the long arm of the "L", the other half of the long arm running through the kitchen, dining room, and den and the short arm passing the 1/2 bath, pantry and man cave.
We love our house, we've got room to grow and plenty of projects down the road. Once it's all done, we're hoping to have friends and family over for a housewarming party...until then, back to DIY home improvements :)
