My wife and I bought our first house about 2 years ago and have been slowly remodeling it over the same time period. It’s a multi-level house built in the early 60s. We wanted a fixer-upper and this definitely has fit the bill. I’ve been meaning to document this for a while now. I really enjoyed the Dubi’s remodel thread and hope y’all like mine as well.

Part 1: What we’re dealing with

Here are some photos of what the house looked like before we moved in.


Front hall/entry (standing with back to the front door). At the bottom right you can see part of the entry into the living room.


Living Room (we loved those gold ceilings!)


This is the other side of the LR and you can see into the DR as well


The company that did the estate sale left the full wall height and width curtains there. We had never seen something so dusty/dirty in a house before! Also, the DR light fixture looked like it was made from fishing line and it was full of dust as well. You can see the opening into the kitchen on the left side.


Another DR shot. Note the discoloration on the wall from where a hutch had been located for a LONG time.


Standing the kitchen with my back to the DR. We learned quickly that the wall oven worked, but the temperature dial was all messed up and the oven itself didn’t hold a steady temp at all. The door on the left leads down to the basement.


Only 2 of the 4 cooktop burners worked and the dishwasher was broken. Since we knew we were going to re-do the kitchen, we didn’t mind when the inspector told us.


Kitchen


I don’t know when they stopped making this style DW, but these appliances were definitely original to the house.


Nothing a little Mighty Putty can’t fix!






3 shots of the basement. The 1st owner was apparently an electrician for the city and definitely installed colored light bulbs and speakers above the drop ceiling and also inside the built in benches. I need to take some photos of them and post those too.




This is the laundry/utility room, complete with the standard toilet in the basement for this area. The top half of the right side of this photo shows the backside of the kitchen. The bottom half of that wall is the backside of the garage.




BR #1




BR #2




BR #3


The bathroom is the only place in the house that appears to have been updated at some point (maybe 80s or early 90s?).



[This message has been edited by Lavender Gooms (edited 9/17/2013 8:58a).]

Part 2: Carpet Removal

When we looked at this house we assumed there was hardwood flooring underneath the blood-red carpet, but wanted to see if we could determine their condition. However, that carpet didn’t have a single spot we could find that let us do that. Nonetheless, that carpet had to go.


Just to give an idea of what the color originally was compared to the color the majority of the carpet had turned into.


DR carpet gone, hadn’t gotten the pad up yet


LR carpet gone


Master bedroom carpet – thankfully in this room the carpet wasn't installed with a tack strip. It was just a full size carpet. Utility knife and duct tape made quick work of it.


We were not so lucky on this bedroom.


Stairs


Someone went a little overboard stapling down the pad. This was definitely the worst part of the process – pulling each and every one of the staples and nails used in installation.


Here’s our trash pile from the 1st week we lived in the house. It mostly was the carpet and curtains.

As I’ll show in later photos, the flooring is in awesome shape. There aren’t any major scratches or stains anywhere. We really lucked out in that regard.

Next up, painting…..



[This message has been edited by Lavender Gooms (edited 9/17/2013 9:10a).]

I enjoy these types of threads. I'm not sure I'm ambitious enough to actually do one but as soon as we sell our current home we will be in a similar boat with an all original house that was built in 1982.

We are excited and nervous all at the same time.

Looks like a ton of work! You going to keep the hardwood floors that were underneath that awesome red carpet?

Watchlisted.

I don't understand why you don't want red carpet (that is my favorite color) and pink walls? And a kitchen that looks as modern and sleek as the ones on TV!

Looks like a challenge and I would think it would be fun to do. Good luck! Keep with the photos.


PS - Try to not take a photo of a window with the camera on auto setting. All we see is a black mass and a lit window.

~egon

I love remodel threads. Look forward to this one.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you paint prior to pulling up the carpet?

[This message has been edited by AggieDan04 (edited 9/17/2013 1:34p).]

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You going to keep the hardwood floors that were underneath that awesome red carpet?

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Yes, we don't plan on touching them or covering them up anytime soon. A good cleaning with Bona and they were good to go.

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Out of curiosity, why didn't you paint prior to pulling up the carpet?

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Rookie mistake (one of many). We should have done the painting before carpet removal. I'll show in some pictures later, but we also ended up replacing the baseboards with taller ones, so all the time spent on cut work at the original baseboards height was wasted.

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Try to not take a photo of a window with the camera on auto setting. All we see is a black mass and a lit window.

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Thanks for the tip. That black mass is the couch the estate sale people left for us (we probably should have had them take it - it looked much nicer than it felt). And that's the LR (aka the cave), which has zero overhead lights. There is one switch connected to a single receptacle.

Part 3: Paint and Light Fixtures – Main Level

We decided at this point (Sept/Oct ’11) to focus our attention on the main level, which includes the DR, LR, and Kitchen. The bedrooms are on the upper levels and we didn’t want to spend the time deciding on bedroom colors at the time.


Starting at the ceiling and working our way down. Getting rid of the gold ceiling definitely made the room feel taller – very important since the ceilings are not even 8 feet tall.


Ceiling shot of the front hallway – not much to say, painting is boring


Picking wall colors was an absolute bear! This picture may only show 7 choices for the LR, but we ended up looking at closer to 15 different shades of yellow. You can see the pile of paint cards at the bottom left of the photo.




Here’s the finished LR room (for the time being). Coffee table, end tables, and another lamp are still on the list of things to get for this room. For whatever reason, our LR has no overhead lighting. There’s one receptacle wired to a light switch.
The new paint definitely lightened the room up, but it still feels like a cave sometimes. Recessed lighting is on the to-do list for the room (pretty far down the list though).




New fixtures in the DR and front hallway


Choosing a color for the hallway (anyone noticing a trend here?!). I think the reason we looked at so many colors is that our main level doesn’t get a large amount of light. We’ve got tall trees on the side and back of the house, which block a lot of sunlight out. Even the lightest options on the color cards made the room dark. We had Home Depot mix lots of colors 50% lighter, which has worked well so far.





Front hallway painted minus the wall leading into the kitchen.

dang, you kids are ambitious! Just think, my house looks somewhat like that c.1976 and Hubbs can't figure out why I want to update.

The other evening he was griping about supper for 7 being late and that I could get things finished faster if I used all 4 burners. Yes Love, I could if all 4 of them still worked!

I anticipate your project and its documentation!

Your LR is probably an old formal sitting room, hence no ceiling fixtures. My new house our office was listed as that, but it was finished before we could tell them to put a light in the ceiling. So a switched light it is.

I see it as builders being cheap (one less thing to wire on the ceiling). I also have my own ideas that you can tell the price/quality of a place by the number of electrical things on the ceiling (from my own experience as an electrician).

Looks good. Like the color combos of the floors with the paint.

I know this is probably a stupid thing, but have you thought about trimming the trees to get a little more light to come in?

~egon

Our "formal living room" became the Formal Dining room when the girls started crawling. Dining room became the kids playroom (easier to gate off). I had an electrician come out and he made the outlet (had been light switch active) regular and added the overhead light to use with the switch. Ours is a one story, so it wasn't too difficult to run the wires in the attic and connect to the existing switch. It made a big difference in the room!

Both our 1960's houses simply had a wall switch that turned on a lamp in the formal LR. We added ceiling fan in the middle and 4 recessed dimmable cans on the perimeter.

Old houses were very dark!

Very exciting work!

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thought about trimming the trees to get a little more light to come in?

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We have, but I think it'd take a bit more than just a quick trim on these trees to let in more light in the LR. While the darkness is slightly annoying, the shade does help keep the house cooler in the summer.


There is one row of trees that runs down right next to our driveway. We're not sure if they are on our property or not. Plus, behind those ones are even more trees blocking out more sunlight.


We do get a decent amount of light at the back of the house (kitchen and DR) in the winter months after all the leaves are gone.

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Hubbs can't figure out why I want to update.

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Maybe put him in charge of dinner and pick recipes that use 3-4 burners? We only had that cooktop for a few months and I didn't even want to attempt to cook on it after a few times! I can't imagine using it long term. Plus, we were just burning everything anyways since we're used to gas cooktops.

Floors were a good find! Looking good. Also I really like the knotty pine paneling in the basement.

Part 4: Kitchen Remodel - demolition

Redoing the kitchen has been by far the most fun, challenging, and rewarding part of our house remodel. My wife and I spent many hours/days working on this together, which has been a blast (most of the time). When we were looking at houses, the kitchen potential was our #1 priority (we both love to cook and she loves baking/cake decorating). It didn’t matter if the rest of the house was perfect, if we didn’t like the kitchen potential, we didn’t even bother with the rest of the house.
The kitchen originally didn’t have much counter space with having a separate cooktop and wall oven. However, one entire corner of the kitchen was completely unused (pic below). We knew we could add some counter space by installing a range vs separate cooktop and oven. Also, utilizing the free corner would help.


This wall on the left has the DR on the other side. We had 2 options. 1) keep the wall and put both floor and wall cabinets on it or 2) knock it down to cabinet height and just put floor cabinets along the length. Since it’s not a load-bearing wall, and we felt option 1 would make the kitchen too cramped, we decided on option 2.


While I didn’t think there was anything major behind this wall (i.e. plumbing or ductwork), I went ahead and drilled some holes to check it out. I was correct and there were just some electrical cables I’d have to relocate.


Demolition is dusty work!


Almost done with sheetrock removal. Sorry for the spotty picture, our camera kept focusing on the dust in the air!


After checking the bulkhead for any kind of plumbing and not finding any, it was time to take it down.


Along the entire length of the bulkhead (appx 25 ft) was this wire mesh that was used where the vertical part of the bulkhead met the ceiling. I’ll die a happy man if I never have to do that again!


The kitchen threw up all over the hallway! (and our refrigerator was in the dining room during this process).


Most of the bulkhead gone as well as the top cabinets. When or if I even get around to it, all these cabinets have been stored in the garage and one day I’ll get to organizing the garage and use them down there. I also pulled the cooktop fan out of the ceiling (it didn’t work – shocking!).

My wife and I were hoping we’d buy one of those houses from an elderly couple and find a shoebox full of money hidden somewhere like a bulkhead…





instead we got Morse Code flash cards and an edition of “The Family” from 1968. Oh well, maybe the next house we buy.


The wall is on its way down. This is standing in the DR looking into the kitchen.


Sink and sink base gone. Pulling out the counter with the big oven cabinet waiting to be tackled. I don’t have a picture but getting that huge cabinet maneuvered down the stairs to the basement was a gigantic pain. We had too much stuff in the way to get it into the garage, so it was “temporarily” put into our laundry room. This was in December 2011…it’s still in the laundry room.


And we’re down to the studs. The entire kitchen had 3 total receptacles in it (all on the same circuit): 1 for the refrigerator, 1 at counter height, and one down near the floor on the wall we cut down. I think the dishwasher was on the same circuit too. The entire kitchen was hooked up on 2 circuits (lights, DW, receptacles, and fridge). Needless to say, we had to do some updating on the wiring.
I think we ended up running 5 new circuits: One for the fridge, one for the microwave, 2 for the new receptacles, and 1 for the dishwasher.
We bought one of those Bagsters from Lowes and used that for the debris we created. We filled that thing to the brim with all the mess we created just from the kitchen.


I think we were fortunate here. It looks like someone connected a galvanized pipe to copper here. Thankfully it’s just the vent for the sink and not a drain so there was no water damage.

Now that we’ve torn it all apart, it’s time to start rebuilding it!

It's cool that you at least found something up there... the only stuff I've found in a wall are dead bugs and bent nails.

Part 4: Kitchen Remodel – rebuild


Once the studs were exposed, we did the following tasks:

• Ran new cable for multiple new circuits
• Repaired/replaced a few damaged studs
• Added insulation (we live in the north and there was no insulation!)
• Moved the plumbing over 1 bay to the left to center it under the window

New receptacles, switches, etc. installed and drywall going up. I’m standing in the DR looking through the space where the wall used to be. We also scraped up the vinyl peel n stick tile to reveal sheet vinyl/linoleum. This left the floor a pretty sticky surface, so we did what any good contractor would do – throw flour on it!


Standing in kitchen looking into DR.


Got all of the drywall up and then figured out the microwave receptacle was in the wrong place so we cut a chunk out to move it. Also, we put in 3 new recessed lights and got rid of the middle fixture.


At this point, we had finished up the drywall, including the ceiling opening that was left by removing the bulkhead.


This was the first attempt at a paint color for the kitchen. While it doesn’t look too bad in the picture, in reality, it was a shade of green that resembled a typical alien. We found a shade of green that was much more muted. I don’t have a picture of it, but our Living Room was completely full of the cabinet boxes. You can see a few in this photo through the big opening.


Scared the crap out of my wife here.


Cabinets going in. I’m so glad my dad told me to leave room for the crown molding up top or else we would have been installing these twice! At this point, I had run all the new kitchen circuits down to the garage, but not over to the panel yet, which is why the microwave is plugged into an extension cord.


We both highly recommend getting the 24 inch depth cabinet over the fridge. Both sets of our parents have kitchens with the 12 inch depth cabinet that never gets used. We use this one all the time. We switched the placement of the DW and sink in order to center the sink in front of the window.


Base cabinets in over by the DR.


While we would have enjoyed granite/quartz counters, it was out of our budget. My wife was set on an undermount sink, which ruled out laminate. We ended up with these wood counters from IKEA and love them. I cut the sink hole out with a jig saw and went through a few blades in the process.


Ready to be sealed. Since this was in Jan/Feb up north, the garage wasn’t warm enough so one of the bedrooms was used. Nothing like opening up windows for ventilation and turning the furnace up to keep the room warm.


Cabinets almost all the way in. Hardware installed and appliances (minus fridge) in place.


Dry-fitting the counters before installing the sink


I know it’s weird to like a sink this much, but this sink is fantastic. 10 inches deep, 30 inches wide single bowl. I don’t think we have a dish that won’t fit in there. Also, the counters are sealed at this point. We used a brand called Waterlox and have been very satisfied with it. When I researched wood counters, this brand often was referred to with glowing reviews.


Cabinets and counters are in at this point we’ve got the floor loosely prepped for tile.


Dry run for tile layout


All the tile in and half grouted at this point. Still hadn’t removed the haze yet.


Finally we were able to get the fridge into the correct location. We had to take the doors off to fit it through the opening though.


We learned that for whatever reason, IKEA rarely has all the size options for their wood counters in stock at one time. We bought the other side of the kitchen’s counters in Jan/Feb and this one finally came into stock in May! It was a lighter shade and didn’t have the random darker shades like this original set did. Since we were pretty fed up with IKEA at the moment, we went to Lowes, bought 2 stains, and painted in the stain on random boards with Q-Tips. Then we stained the whole counter to match the others and sealed it…..


And then it did this, so we returned it, got another one that looked the exact same and repeated the process. That was brutal.


This is the finished product.


Starting on the backsplash.








Grouted and new recessed light installed over the sink.

As I type this all up and organize all the photos we’ve taken, I’m realizing that there are some things in the kitchen that never got photos taken of them. I’ll have to do that and post those as well.

Are you leaving the old kitchen window?

Wow, man, you're like my freaking hero. At the same time I hate you because if the gf ever sees this, my life is over.

Kitchen looks AWESOME. Small but awesome.

Are the stairs down to the basement?

~egon

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Are you leaving the old kitchen window?

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For now, yes we are. We thought we were going to have the windows replaced soon after the kitchen was finished, but that's been put on hold until future notice.


Thanks for the compliments Maxiumus. This project definitely can gobble up your weekends and weeknights!

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Are the stairs down to the basement?

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Yes, they go down to the basement.

Thanks for the compliments as well Dr. Doctor.

It is a pretty small kitchen (11'x11' with ~3'x3' taken out due to stairs), but taking the wall down and adding the large counter there definitely makes it feel bigger.


[This message has been edited by Lavender Gooms (edited 9/25/2013 5:41a).]

I love the countertops--personally I don't care for the granite and other similar countertops. I've been baking and cooking for years and unless you are willing to go European style and not treat the solid surface counters (so they acquire patina and scratches which many Americans and realtors don't like), the wood will always look more welcoming.

nice work! i don't have the appetite for it, but i enjoy being the voyeur.

Part 5: Bathroom Remodel

I kept saying I’d wait to type this up until after the bathroom was finished. We started the bathroom work back in August and got a good chunk done rather quickly. Then the fall semester started and we didn’t really get anything done the entire time. Working full time, night class 3 days a week, and a new baby = house work stops!

As it stands now, we’re about 80% done with the bathroom and it is perfectly functional which means I probably won’t get the final 20% done for who knows how long.

Here’s what the bathroom looked like before:



We first took out the old window that had rotting wood on the outside and replaced it with a new glass block window. Then we gutted the shower down to the studs, installed new insulation (it was only partially insulated – not sure why), raised the shower head up about 6”, and decided to tile all the way up to the ceiling.



As I type this up, I realize I don’t have a picture of just the completed shower. I’ll have to get a pic and add it later.

Next up was the rest of the bathroom.

I can’t stand round seat toilets, so we changed that out to an oval seat model. Plus, the old one had a permanent stain at the water level which refused to come clean no matter what we tried on it.


Old wax ring (what’s left of it)

The bathroom originally had carpet in it, which my wife and I still don’t understand why people have carpet in a bathroom. Thankfully it was just a rug cut to the dimensions of the bathroom and it came out very easily, and down went ceramic tile.






We installed beadboard up to just above where the old tile had been. And added a nice trim piece of molding at the top.


View from the hallway


New vanity and toilet

That’s as far as we’ve gotten so far on the bathroom. I still need to finish smoothing out the hole we patched from the old medicine cabinet, run both the exhaust fan and GFCI receptacle circuits down to the panel, and finish the rest of the trim work. I’ve only done the left side of that bathroom and a tiny bit of the right.


[This message has been edited by Lavender Gooms (edited 2/7/2014 12:36p).]

We finally got around to finishing up some odds and ends on the kitchen remodel and here are some photos to go along with them.


Fixture over the peninsula and a decorative panel I put together to cover where the old wall was. I still have to run caulk along the edge of it to finish the transition. We were very pleased with how it made the kitchen look once we got it up there.


When we started the demo, we were able to re-route some cable to this corner and give me a place to hard wire in some under cabinet lights. I finally got around to getting them bought and hooked up just a month or 2 ago.


This is with them on, but it’s not a great photo. I’ll need to get one when it’s darker out.


Full view of the kitchen. Changed the door trim from stained to white.

What did you use for undercounter lights? I need to do it and I keep changing my mind from pucks to rods to LEDs to multi-color LEDs to I don't know.

I like your though.

~egon

I wasn't sure about the paint color for the kitchen until I saw the final product. Very nice.

UPDATE!
The last few months have been spent down in the basement and laundry room fixing those up. It looks like life is going to have us moving in the next 6-8 weeks, which means it’s going to be a mad dash to the finish line for us.

Nothing like planning a move, finishing a house renovation, class 3 nights a week, working full time, and a 9 month old at the house!
We decided to dress up the laundry room and make it into a laundry room/half bath combo since we already had the toilet in there.


Beginnings of painting the walls


We took our old kitchen cabinets that were sitting in the garage and were able to use them in this area to create some storage space and a spot for a double sink.


I had to build a little platform to get the W/D level since the floor was sloped too much


Our neighbor, who installed our new furnace, A/C, and water tank suggested building a wall with sliding doors to close of the furnace space, but keep access to the units, which is what the framing is for. We’re also going to install a drop ceiling in here and add more lighting.




Had to relocate a register just a few feet over in order to put it through the wall here.


$800 for a custom order laminate counter or $100 for the wood, stain, and sealer to build this one?!

It definitely takes some maneuvering with 2 people to get it set into place.


[This message has been edited by Lavender Gooms (edited 4/1/2014 2:48p).]

The basement remodel is finally coming to a close!!! There are just a few minor touch up tasks to do and it’ll be 100% done…just in time to put the house on the market.