A Little Bit of Everything

Where to begin? In true Kylie fashion I have about 13 projects started at the new house as opposed to a more reasonable one-at-a-time approach. As such, we're not even close to the possibility of having a single "after" shot of a single corner of a single room. In fact, the house is living up to the full glory of the demo phase. Piles of trash. Plaster crumbs trailing all the floors. Random screws and nails floating underfoot.

Nonetheless, for the sake of my records, let's take a look around at what's been happening. 

First up within about five minutes of unlocking the door Sunday afternoon, I took down these beauties. They'd been hung with PVC pipe (and never dusted as evidenced by the picture below!). Brilliant or bizarre? Leaning toward bizarre PVC pipe usage...The drapes were so old, discolored and dirty that I've been using them as drop clothes until I throw them out for good. The pipes are headed to the Habitat restore because they're - for all plumbing intents and purposes - brand new. 

I was hoping that taking down all her window treatments throughout the house would give it an immediate facelift but sadly, it just caused waterfalls of plaster to come cascading down and giant, gaping holes.

Then I walked around the house with a screwdriver and unscrewed every single outlet cover and took down any window hardware left. In an effort to save money, we're doing as much as we can to the house ourselves before calling in the professionals. Unscrewing outlet covers in 9 rooms is time-consuming, but the last thing I want to pay someone by the hour to do. 

Then it was Sunday night. And we just couldn't help ourselves. We got hammer happy and began gutting the kitchen. In addition to a garage full of trash, the previous owner left an appliance lift which she was coming back to get the following day. So we took advantage and moved the dishwasher, etc out. Again, the demo crew was coming in the morning and we wanted as much of the easy stuff already done so they could get straight to it.

The lower cabinets where in such an odd shape and were so broken up by dishwasher and oven holes, that we straight up took a hammer to them and trashed them. I saved the drawer pulls either to donate or reuse somewhere else down the line. Because we wanted to save the uppers and rehang them in the garage, we let the crew take them down Monday. John lacks a bit of caution when it comes to swinging a hammer (or doing dishes) and would easily have broken them (to add to a whole list of glasses and plates he's mistakenly broken since I've known him)...

Then Monday, while some guys from Scovell Wolfe were finishing the kitchen gut, I got to stripping wallpaper. The dining room, Annie's room and the powder bath came off in full strips. The green room hasn't been so generous - even with an insane amount of scoring and a trip to the hardware store to buy a heavy-duty concentrate billed as having enzymes strong enough to break down any wallpaper glue. 

Well you can't believe everything you read. These enzymes are no match for this stubborn green paper. This room in a thorn in my flesh! Below is my progress over about SIX hours! Haven't decided yet if I'm giving up and hiring professional wallpaper strippers or if it's becoming my entire family's weekend project. Five hands are better than one, right?

Like I said, I have about 13 things going on at once. Among them is my first foray into gardening. It's more like damage control gardening. The dumpster didn't exactly do the overgrown plants any favors when it slugged through this week. Instead of cutting back, I ripped out.

I saved all the bulbs to be transplanted to a different area of the backyard. But the driveway barely fits my car at places and I was sick of inevitably stepping out onto the flowers. Problem solved!

Back inside, here's a look at what our kitchen is looking like right about now. Down to the studs. We're saving the hardwoods and refinishing them. And we're reopening the window that has been covered on the right side of the picture. After 6 years in a condo with no windows in the kitchen, we couldn't pass up the chance while the kitchen was gutted to reopen the wall there.

Below on the right is the doorway to what used to be a coat closet, followed by a pantry you entered from the kitchen. Both are adios. The original entry to the kitchen will be partially walled to accommodate the refrigerator and the old coat closet door will be widened and become the new entry. I was pretty pumped to get to watch all that framing go down yesterday. Love learning stuff like that!

This next shot shows the opening to the dining room. It's being enlarged all the way to the left of that gray air duct you see. The air duct is more than likely being fed through what is now the laundry shoot. I know - sad day. The laundry shoot is getting vetoed. But it's a small price to pay to create openness in an otherwise chopped up house.

Another thing going on is some minor bathroom updating. So after measuring all the existing vanities, my search has begun for some inexpensive replacements that bring the house from 1970 to present day. Before you think I'm nuts for trashing what are not the most offensive vanities I've ever seen, just know that the faucets were leaking so bad that whenever you turned the water on to wash your hands about as much water spilled back behind the sink. Ok, a bit of an exaggeration. But enough leakage to merit replacement.

 

I bought a Kohler sink at Home Depot with some of their Home Depot faucets just to try on for size. For being a big box store, it wasn't exactly cheap. So they might head back if I can find something comparable online. We didn't screw anything in. Just momentarily staged it all to wrap our heads around it.

Oh, and after about three minutes with a paint deck up next to this tile, I decided to paint...the tile. Because there's no shower in here, the tiles see very little moisture and can definitely handle (according to Sherwin Williams) an oil based paint. Another reason the sink isn't being re-installed until next week.

And the built-in vanity is having some cosmetic surgery done as well. New top. New paint. New hardware. A really killer vanity light that should be coming in the mail soon.

Well I'm off to meet our contractor and finalize the cabinets for the kitchen - which even best case probably won't be finished and installed until a week after the baby comes. Womp. Womp. 

Also deciding on an exterior paint color (there's so little to paint given it's mostly brick and we got a jaw-droppingly low bid to have it painted that we're going with it! John and I are going to be painting the garage and just about anything else we can reach to save some money).

So there it is. Another long, mostly (maybe entirely) boring update on the house.  

OH! And before I forget, let's take a quick minute to commemorate the worst moment of the week. The moment where from standing in an upstairs window stripping wallpaper I saw the previous owner of 42 years come to get her appliance lift and gaze upon the dumpster full of her kitchen cabinets, drapes, blinds, carpet and light fixtures. It was brutal. I most definitely snuck out of the house without having to see her and took a little car ride until she was gone. Talk about awkward. And scary! This woman is a woman to be reckoned with and she was one unhappy lady when I saw her through the window. One very unhappy lady.

Wrapping Up The Tour

If you missed it, here's the first floor of the house we just bought. But before we go upstairs and down, let's rewind a little and I'll fill you in on some details. 

We bought this house for a few reasons - loved the potential of the curb appeal, loved how close it was to John's work and loved the square footage. So briefly, let's talk specs. The house has four bedrooms, two full baths, a half bath on the first floor AND a half bath in the basement (Currently without a toilet. But, hey if you're going to lose one component of a bathroom, that's not a bad one, right? Ahem.) The garage is a tricky deal, but we'll get into that in a minute. For now, let's call it a two car. It does NOT share a driveway with a neighbor - a big plus in my book. The basement is partially finished. Not well finished, but partially finished :) An addition back in the 1940's left the house with a pretty unique den and large first floor master suite. It has an attic fan - woot, woot! All the bedrooms have reasonably large closets. And there's a questionably operating fireplace. For our budget, this house was a no-brainer. And maybe my all time favorite attribute was that it wasn't so ugly, dated and gross that we couldn't live in it relatively quickly, but it was just ugly enough to not feel bad about ripping things out. 

Alright, back to the tour. 

Here is the original master and what will be our bedroom. If you're wondering, yes, the drapes do match the bedding and - get ready - she left everything for us - bedding and all!! Best day ever. Because who doesn't love used bedding and drapes drenched in dust! ME! ME! But, hey, just because it's not my jam doesn't mean it isn't yours. Coming soon to Craigslist...

A shot of the his and hers closet. More like pretty decent closet on the left and room to store about five T-shirts in the closet on the right. Guess whose is becoming whose?

And now for some beautifully coordinated wallpaper and carpet. It will make it's final appearance this afternoon and find a new home in the dumpster tonight. Gosh, I wish I wasn't so cold-hearted! But who can deny the ugliness of this combination. Not I. Soon enough, though, this will be the nursery.

Here's Annie's room. Not much to say about the bones of the room. We're losing the paper and the curtains. Probably lose the chair rail, too. But the jury is still out on how much will get done before our due date.

Behind the door below is a laundry shoot down to the basement. I can't wait to find all the surprises that I'm sure Annie will surely be tossing down.

Below is a picture of what will be our primary bathroom until the day we move our master downstairs. It's not huge, but it's not tiny. And it has enough storage to make anyone coming from our condo swoon. Again, here's another instance of balancing what I really want to see happen in here with our delivery due date, our budget and our desire to get in the house sooner rather than later. Maybe we'll just splash on a new coat of paint and put up a new shower curtain. Maybe we'll rip the vanity out and go big or go home. Who knows. I think phase one will be paint and we'll see how content we can be with that. Unfortunately that built-in make up counter is a super odd height which makes it a little more than tempting to rip out.

And now for the basement. Oh, the basement. I feel like I'm in the basement of a countryside church. I can just see us now as a family sitting on the lovely floral cushions atop the wooden pews reading bible stories in front of the fire. Except rut-roh, within 10 hours of taking possession we kinda sorta tore them out. There went that wholesome family tradition.

The paneling is going to get a coat of paint - probably high gloss and probably a dark navy. We'll paint the brick fireplace, throw a rug and an old couch down there and call it a day until we figure out how this basement best fits into our lifestyle. Playroom? Movie room? Study? We don't have pictures but there's actually two decent sized windows down there so it's not your typically dark basement.

And last and least...this. This mess of a backyard. I know it doesn't look it but it's a world of problems. Let's start with how the seller listed the property as having a two car garage. But it turns out to be a 13 ft. 10 inch opening. So maybe it fit two cars back when cars weren't the large family-transporting tanks they are now. But today is a new day and a minimum opening for two cars is 16 ft. So let's just say we nix the door on the left and expand the car opening. Well we have to move the fence. And if we move the fence, we'll see about an 8 inch step up to the sidewalk leading to the garage. So whoever parks on that left side will have to propel their car over a massive "curb." And the sad reality is the driveway as it is is in terrible shape. A mudjacking job gone wrong. So it needs replacing anyway. But if we move the fence and redo the driveway we have to rip up the adjoining patio. Which we'd love to do. But just how much can we really afford right now? The question of the day. It's amazing how one thing leads to another. Not to mention a giant tree not pictured which is concerning not only to our foundation but also to the neighbor's roof.

And this last picture I almost don't even want to show. Because it's just so bad ugly and being that I'm more of an interiors gal, this exterior concerns me. I pour over enough pictures of kitchens and living rooms, etc every day that I can see potential in just about any house. But exteriors are a little beyond my realm of interest. Anyway, we'll certainly be working on it. But it's probably the one view of the house that makes me chuckle that we ever bought it. It's just so bad...

So there you have it. A full house tour. Funny how these are all the pictures the realtor put on back in March when I initially saw it on the internet. And I didn't even think twice about wanting to schedule a showing. And now, lo and behold, we own the keys!

It's About to Get Real Up In Here

Mosquito bites and afro hair. Love these Kansas City summers. But this 2013 summer has been full of even more to overcome than frizz. Like homelessness, no internet, a toddler in their terrible two's and the unwelcome back pain that this baby in my belly is gifting me with. Though I welcome the unwelcome pain just knowing that we get to shift our eyes from tantrums soon enough and hold a squirming baby boy in just under 8 weeks! And look how precious this sweet thing is in between her fussiness.

Anyway, needless to say, I haven't blogged much. At all. Okay, I just straight up haven't blogged. But this morning marks an important day - one worth an early wake-up call at my in-law's to snag some internet before the house wakes up.  Because today is the day I start ripping down wallpaper in our new house. The day I start pulling up carpet. The day the drapes go into the trash. And the chandelier comes down. Along with the kitchen cabinets. Along with the entire pantry and coat closet. Cover your eyes and ears, previous owner, today is the day your house stops looking like your house. 

Because last night we got the keys to our new Brookside address. And nothing about that process was easy. Paperwork a beast and the seller a nightmare. But it's ours. Floral wallpaper, blue backsplash and all. 

Given that it won't (pray to Jesus) look anything like it currently does in a few weeks, let's take a tour!

So the outside is huge part of why we bought the house. Because the inside is so bad in so many ways, that I needed to at least feel like by simply changing the black and white trim paint to something less...black and white, we'd have great curb appeal. Landscaping ain't my thing. So we needed a leg up here. But soon enough, goodbye bad paint and goodbye bad driveway.

Through the front door, you're welcomed, or in my opinion, accosted by a sea of popcorn ceilings and yellowed paint and yellowish hardwoods. It's almost blinding. But it's almost gone, too :) First half bath is to the right. All around ugliness up in there. Bad tile, fixtures, square toilet (what?!). It's weird. And it's staying. Because this little boy is kicking strong in my belly and we don't have time to do it all just yet. But savor your life, little powder room, because I'm only giving you another 12 months...tops.

Turn left through the front door and you're in the living room. Not much to say here. I'd like to square out the openings to the entry and dining room but our budget isn't exactly allowing for all these nonessentials.

We're told that the fireplace works. We'll see. Luckily John was a firefighter, right? We'll have extinguisher in hand as we light the first blaze this fall...

Back through the glass paned door in the picture above is this den/library. It's both my favorite room in the house and the room I'm most confused about as far as its future. For now and the sake of our sanity, we're keeping everything as-is. Down to the last thread of that stunningly red carpet. Painting wood is such a no-turning-back commitment that I want to live here awhile before we decide where we go with it. But say hi to the soon to be grab-a-blanket-and-watch-Homeland room.

Back into the living room and out through the back, curved case opening is the dining room. Won't lie. It's pretty small. But we'll be opening the right side up to the kitchen, so we'll see where that takes us.
For now, I'm dreaming of gray grasscloth. Yum.

And now for the real gem of the house. Ahem. Why bother? It's getting gutted in less than 24 hours. Anyone want the stove? Top dollar, folks. And an antique to boot. Check your local Craigslist soon!

What you can't see is that facing that indoor patio table is a 3ft by 5ft pantry plus a coat closet. Those two things will disappear and the opening to the dining room and entry will get bigger. Also, the window on the right below will shrink and sit above new countertops that will span the whole back wall.

There's a book that could be said about what we're doing with the new kitchen, but that's for another day.

And last but not least on the first floor, another fav of ours is the master suite off the dining room. While it's a sight for sore eyes now, it's a room we have big plans for. After hosting our makeshift kitchen for the next couple months during the remodel it's going to actually be our "family" room. Why, might you ask, do we need a family room on a floor with a living room and a den? Because often to our dismay we're crafty people with lots of crap. Like pianos and sewing machines and such. So while this room won't have a TV in it, it will have our desktop, John's upright, a couch, and a closet full of HomeEc things. Sounds cluttered, but we did something similar in our last few months in Branson and we were all about it. Spent way more time in that room than any other.

Then later, when we want to forget we have kids, we'll move the master back downstairs in here where it belongs, turn the left side of this next photograph into a walk in closet and update the bathroom.

In the meantime, we've already lost the wallpaper border and coordinating shower curtain drapes, so we're well on our way to a perfectly viable, low budget makeshift bathroom upgrade.

I'm out of breath. The rest of the house can come tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that's when my dad's Scovell-Wolfe crew will come in and demo the kitchen. Then we've got an electrician coming to put canned lights throughout the first floor because there's zero overhead lighting in most of the rooms. Plus, we're overlaying all those popcorn ceiling and what better time to rip up the lids than when you're already scewing with them. After a week of that, we'll try to paint as much as we can muster before we have the hardwoods refinished to a dark ebony. A week of drying later and we'll try to actually live there! But for now, we're house hopping as our condo rented last month and all our stuff went into storage. Love living out of a suitcase. It's just sublime...but those hardwoods can't dry fast enough!

So that's the short of what's to come this month. But I'm going to try real bad hard to keep track of it all as we go here on the blog.