Monday, March 28, 2016

Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.

Project clean-up the attic is underway. It is scary, but I spent several hours up there and nothing happened and I'm still alive so I think it might be okay up there. I found lots of walnuts but no squirrels yet. I really hope they moved out. 

The demo is just about complete also. Here is basically what is left to do 



You might notice the claw foot tub is gone.  We ended up throwing it out the window last weekend. It was broken and unfortunately probably not salvageable. It didn't even shatter when it went out the second story window!

So far I haven't really found anything that is worth millions in the attic but I did find this really neat lamp! I want to keep it but I did find out it might be worth a hundred or two. 


I don't know if it works or anything. I didn't bring it down from the attic. I did start bringing some stuff down and quickly filled up a bedroom. 


I also found a whole bunch of old checks and cards from the original couple that owned the house. A lot of the cards are hand-made. It was neat to find those things and wonder what it was like way back when they lived in the home. 


I was able to successfully clear a very small path in the attic and hope that next time I go I can make an even bigger path and some day the place will be empty. 


Here's to hoping the demo gets completely finished this week and Damien does not break his back doing it! 






Thursday, March 24, 2016

"I may not be the strongest, I may not be the fastest, but I'll be damned if I'm not trying my hardest."

I am thrilled to say that demo is just about completed on the house.  It is looking great! We only have to demo the rest of the kitchen (the ceiling has been removed) and finish up a wall in the bathroom and then clean up the all the plaster in what will eventually be our bedroom.  I am so excited! We are hoping to be completely done by the middle of next week. Then, we will start the electric. That means I am one step closer to being able to start looking at paints!  My heart is going to explode when I can finally start picking things out like that.

You can see in the photos we are saving the trim as we go. It will definitely need cleaned up but looks like we can re-use it which is great.


In these photos you can see that mirror in the corner. I found that in the house and it's really sturdy. I'm going to hold on to it and spray paint it. It's hard to see it but it looks really neat and I think if I paint it white or some fun color it will be a cool piece to hang in the house. 



LOOK HOW CLEAN IT IS!!! 






They had good taste in music! 




Here is the hallway and our room. It is a gigantic mess but should be done in a couple days!





While the demo gets finished up I'm going to start tackling the attic. I don't think I've showed the attic yet. Yikes. 



^^ that's an old Polaroid right there on the top. 



I'm scared. 








Saturday, March 19, 2016

"All roads that lead to success have to pass through Hard Work Boulevard at some point."

It dawned on me after sharing my previous post and talking about how much I liked the doors we have at our house now that I haven't shared any photos of the doors.  So this past week I took a few photos to show the doors that are there now. I really like them but they really are beyond repair at this point. I wish I was a master carpenter so I could re-build them.




The demo continues at the house. We are getting closer. The living room, dining room, and 3 bedrooms are done. Damien is working on getting the bathroom and hallway done and then on to the kitchen. We did have someone working for us but then he decided he wanted a lot more money than we had agreed on so unfortunately we ended up letting him go (after we paid him and he didn't finish work)   It's amazing how hard it is to get people to do work for you, even when they are unemployed. 

We are hoping to have the demo done very soon, but it seems like everything is one step forward, two steps back.  We are on our second dumpster and there is easily still another full dumpster's worth of debris in the house. I keep trying to set very small goals to keep me motivated. Last week I set a goal of getting the steps cleaned off and exposing the heating grate in the dining room that was covered in plaster. Both of those things happened and that got me through the day. It is back-breaking work and without tiny goals it becomes overwhelming and discouraging pretty quickly. 

Damien knocked down the wall between the bathroom and bedroom and discovered there wasn't any studs. Ok...? We were going to make the bathroom a little bigger anyways, so ... whatever!









Monday, March 7, 2016

It is the thing we work hardest for that will reward us the most.

It was a tiring, yet quite productive weekend at our house. It feels good to start Monday off feeling like none of the weekend was wasted. Damien spent a good part of Friday and all day Saturday at the house and then we went together (thanks to my parents for watching our kids) on Sunday for several hours.

Right now we have someone working there to demo. They showed up again on Saturday despite us thinking they wouldn't so that was exciting. Two of the three bedrooms upstairs are cleared out now. Unfortunately we filled up the dumpster already so demo has come to a temporary halt until we get an empty dumpster there again.


The room pictured above is the room facing the street that will be our room. I forgot to take another photo of it but I cleaned it all out yesterday to get ready for the demo. 




The dining room is also almost complete. I knocked down the ceiling on Sunday. There is just a little bit more that needs done but we had a guy come look at our windows so I wasn't able to finish up yesterday. 




I hope that after we finish the demo that I never have to see another piece of lath again in my entire life. I hate it. 

Another thing we worked on was cleaning up the outside. We got a hefty fine because of the side porch so we completely tore it out and also cleaned up everything. Next weekend we need to clean up the last of some trash out there and get some plywood over the stairway to the basement. We are not rebuilding the porch because that is going to be enclosed and become a small half bath. 





Below is what it looks like now. If you check out the post The other house you can see how it used to look when we bought the house and then how it looked when we originally tore out the porch (which wasn't good enough for the borough) 




My arms, back, legs, and everything else is really sore today, but things are getting done and that is really exciting. As sore as we are today, Damien and I both wished this morning we could go back and do some more today.  I'm happy that the days are getting longer and warmer because that means  he will be able to go there after work during the week instead of just on the weekends. 


I've been daydreaming about the day that I can design the kitchen. Isn't this one so pretty? 


I found that one on Cabinets to Go. They have some really great kitchens and supposedly a lot of shows use them...like Kitchen Crashers. I need to order a sample of their cabinets to get an idea of the quality. 













Saturday, March 5, 2016

Keep Calm and Pick up your trash.

We have a dumpster! I never, ever thought I could be so excited about a dumpster, but I am! Having a dumpster means the entire house can finally be cleaned out which is HUGE! That means that we can start on new electric. Which,  by the way, it's harder than you think to figure out where to put outlets.


Another new thing is that we hired 2 people to demo the upstairs. They got what will eventually be Abigail's bedroom done yesterday. It is hard work and we are crossing our fingers that they show up again today.  Damien is spending today cleaning up the yard from all the trash that has been thrown out windows. 





The room next to Abigail's will be Amelia's room. I can't stop dreaming of when I can finally decorate them! I am obsessed with Target's new line of kid's stuff - Pillowfort. If you haven't seen it yet check it out:  http://www.target.com/c/pillowfort-brand-shop/-/N-4vp6f

It is absolutely adorable stuff and I want to use it for both the kid's room but right now I just need to focus on the hard work ahead and all the choices that come between now and then.. like two new doors. I never thought it could be such a tough decision to pick out a front door but I'll tell ya - it really is! 

 I really like something like this one


You think picking a door is going to be no big thing but it is.  We need two - one for the front and one for the side and I think they should compliment each other,.. but I can't seem to find two that I like. Or I find one I really like and it costs one million dollars. So there's that. 

Doors and windows are pretty high up on the list right now to keep everything inside safe so that is what we are shopping for at this point. I really like the front door that is there but we won't be able to repair it.











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