Chris took off the last two weeks of the year and we did our best to make the time productive or at least busy. There was very little time for relaxing (oops), I think he had maybe two days to sit around relax and read a book, but a least he had those, right?
Lance and his friend Mac worked on getting the Rock-Wool Insulation up in the attic and by the end of break they got most of it up. What a difference that has made in keeping the second floor temperature much more constant.
Chris had a long list of things that needed fixing: Door handles, toilets, faucets, etc. So thankful to have a handy husband.
Now transformational work. Unfortunately, I forgot (as usual to take before pictures, so I had to go back to pics taken after we moved in; for good or bad very little has changed in the last seven years.
We warmed up on the kids bathroom. This room has been out of commission for about two years. We had a mold problem, we dealt with that immediate problem and painted the walls with the recommended Lye based primer so that no mold could ever regrow and then it sat waiting for the pretty top coat. Chris doesn't paint, he says painting is a "hostile environment". I like painting but by myself and the offers of help made the idea of starting a little intimidating. Then for the last year I couldn't even attempt to paint because of my back. In the end, Lance and Titus helped me put on the top coat and I cleaned up the mess (my reach is still limited). It worked out really well, the color was perfect and the heavy nap rollers created a wonderful stucco like texture to hide all the poor patch jobs. Then Titus installed the new light switches and outlets (with a little help from dad but mostly by himself). Chris also figured out the mystery of the leaky toilet (needed a longer intake line). We still need to put the crown molding back up and paint the cabinets but its a huge improvement. More importantly the kids can use their bathroom again instead of six people using one bathroom with only one tiny mirror.
This is the staged photo from the previous owner of the kids bath, staged looks so much nicer than in person:
Speaking of the master bath; here is the staged picture from the previous owner:
Remember I mentioned it only had one mirror? The mirror on the left fell down suddenly one day about a year after we moved in and that spot has stayed vacant ever since. The tub in this bath is really only good for soaking clothes, so we use it more as a laundry tub, hanging clothes to dry above. I was always envious though of the shower curtain in the photo above from the previous owners and you'll notice in my re-do photo I finally found one just like it which beautifully hides the utilitarian nature of the tub. Shortly after we moved here I had dreams of a full-bath re-do and we picked up some cool faucets on clearance. Seven years later Chris and Titus finally installed them, without doing the major re-do and there was the bonus of cleaning out the trap. The walls in the bath were full of poor patch jobs just like the previous bath but we tackled this room after the kids bath and the kitchen re-do, when we were tired from painting. I remembered we had the box of Ansel Adams photos still in the closet since we moved in and instead of painting and texturing the walls (were okay with the color) we just covered everything up. I got two big mirrors for cheap on Amazon and we turned the light upside down to make them fit. Titus installed new light switches and outlet covers and Ta-dah!
Here's the final product which I just love, only thing left to do is someday paint the cabinets white:
I'm very upset with myself that we didn't take before photos of the kitchen. The photos below is from after we moved in. In the last seven years those counters got very crowed with food stores, kitchen appliances, radios, drying racks, etc. A big part of our re-do was rearranging the cabinets to put what was on the counter up but still accessible. We added a knife rack to the inside of cabinet door and a towel rack to the inside of another so that we could get rid of the drying rack (ugly, old and starting to smell). Now we just dry everything right away and put it away, which keeps the counters so beautifully uncluttered and forces me to wash towels more which is healthier. However, what made this a make-over is the wall colors. We talked about color since before we moved into this house, how the kitchen needed help. We spend most of our day here and I really wanted it to be a happy place but I just couldn't figure out how to do that on our budget. Enter "Yukon Gold" and "Mecca Gold" and the topper a cute little wood piece that says "JOY" I painted black to personalize the space. Now instead of dreary, this is the room that brings the sunshine into the cold rain-forest called North Carolina.
Here are the pictures from after we moved in:
As if that wasn't enough for a two week period we had one more major project. Converting the TV Room into Lance's new Train Room. Lance had been working with his siblings for past couple weeks building the tables. We had to rearrange the school room and the Piano room to take the furniture and pictures from the old TV Room and we had to find cheap carpet tiles to put the train tables on to help keep them level. We started the rearranging a few weeks ago but still had lots to do. Chris moved a ton of pictures but we made it all fix. Now the new thorn in my side is the nasty mint green color of the Noise Room (as the Piano room has been renamed) but that will have to wait a bit till we recover from this re-do.
Before pictures after we moved of TV Room:
Before picture after we moved in of the Piano Room; this room was always under utilized accept when we needed the space for parties:
Now we all need another two weeks to recover :-)
