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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Play Time





The Great Remodel: Hall Bathroom

As I mentioned in the previous post, the hall bathroom was DISGUSTING.  It had horrible, peachy-pink walls with butterfly and dragonfly decals all over.  The paint was chipping, revealing the ugly wallpaper underneath.  It was very dark in there, as the owner had installed a wooden cabinet over the toilet, covering the only window in the bathroom.  The vinyl floor tiles were peeling up.  The tub and shower walls were stained from the iron deposits in the water, prior to the filtration system being installed (imagine 20+ years of orange stains building up).  I was scared of this bathroom, to say the least.

However, much progress has been made!  The bathroom is almost unrecognizable now.  We found water damage in the walls and subfloor, so all of that was removed.  Basically, the entire room was gutted down to the studs, and even some of those had to be replaced.  New subfloor was laid, a new tub/shower combo is in, new sheetrock has been hung and taped and mudded, and a new vanity/sink is going in next week.   The bathroom is painted, and tile will be installed next.  Then, we will have some trim work to do.  Here's the progression:


 The bathroom as it was, minus the toilet.
 Josh removed the cabinet, and we finally had LIGHT!
 Josh and his uncle had to tear up the subfloor chunk by disgusting, rotten, soggy chunk.
 And we put in some new insulation while we were at it.
 We took out the old tub, and found all the damage in the sheetrock in the corners.

 Self-portrait in the mirror! (First of many you're bound to see.)
 Nick came out and helped Josh, and they used the old bathtub as a sawhorse of sorts.
 Looking into the bathroom from the door, void of any flooring or sheetrock.  Even THIS is an improvement from the original bathroom!

 Josh and Nick were in the dining room, working on adding some more floor joyces for stability.  (Yes, we had to gut that dining room too.  But that's a whole 'nother post.)


 Even though the remodeling wasn't fun at times, Josh kept an upbeat attitude!
 Josh and Nick admiring their work.
 Josh's uncle was a HUGE help throughout the process.  Here they are installing sheetrock.
 The new tub is in!

 And the shower walls!
Here I am, installing adhesive on the walls.

I still have more photos to post, but they're on a different computer.  That's all for now, folks!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Great Remodel

I've been a serious slacker when it comes to posting about our remodel project.  Its just that actually doing the remodeling gets in the way of blogging about the remodel.  But fear not - I have taken photos of every step of the way!

I'm going to be breaking down the project into several smaller parts, probably room by room.  Otherwise, it'd take the page 10 years to load all the photos, and your eyes would be bleeding from reading/viewing it all.  And you'd be bored to death, I'm sure.

Here are some before photos.  Most of these were taken the day we got the keys to the house.  Some of the stuff the previous owner left was still in there at the time of the photos.  I'm warning you - this house was is rough shape when we first bought it!!

 This is the laundry room.
 And the living room.
 The spare bedroom.
 The hall bathroom (just looking at this picture makes me want to hurl... the bathroom was SO BAD!)
 The master bedroom.
 The very messy kitchen (and of course, the piano).
The spare-bedroom-with-the-hole-in-the-wall-turned-future-dining-room.

Up next: the hall bathroom project!

Molly's First Camping Trip

While I was on vacation from work, we took Molly on her very first camping trip.  It was a blast!  Here is a photo recap:

The little princess had to be tied onto her orange rope while in the campsite, so she couldn't go exploring.  It was, however, long enough for her to wander around our entire campsite.  And, of course, long enough for her to get tangled in everything every 5 minutes.
Here she is, striking a pose.


You have to be careful around Molly, because is you leave your chair, she steals it!
Josh did some fishing, and Molly and I went to watch. 

Dad caught a stick fish!
 And then a real fish.
 And I of course made Josh take a picture with me.
Molly is starting to venture into the water more, but she is still very cautious.

Her and Dad are the best of friends.

And this is how they sleep.  Notice who is on the pillow and who is off?  Yes, she is spoiled.
Our last day there, we took Molly to the day park to try to coax her into the water.  Josh went in with her, and lured her out with treats.   She finally swam!  (It was only long enough for her to make it back to the shallow part where she could touch.)


And then she was one wet little girl!
 
 So her and Dad decided to nap on a rock in the sun, to dry off a little before the drive home. 

And yes, we do plan on taking this face camping many, many more times.