You are all caught up...

After this post, you are all caught up on the house renovation to date! We have finished running the plumbing upstairs for the washer/dryer, had the electrical work done, and even did a little yardwork! 

Plumbing Upstairs! 

 Electrical Work...

 Electrical Outlets...We passed the inspection too! 

 Yard the Day we Closed...Hot Mess

 Overgrown Yard the Day we Closed...

 I removed the random brick wall overgrown weed garden. 

 We trimmed back all the weeds and removed the logs/sticks. 

Stay tuned for more updates as soon as I have them!

Santa's Fireplace...

The only thing I had reservations about when closing on this house was that there was no fireplace. A fireplace is a must for me because of Christmas. I want my (very far) future children to know that Santa will be able to get in our house and they will have a place to hang their stockings! I knew that Matt and his dad could solve this problem by putting in a ventless fireplace like our Tree House (current place of residence) has. We were able to save space and put the fireplace up under the staircase. 

Before Photo:

 Reframed the load baring wall and put in the fireplace. 

 Yay! 

 We also did some more framing and closed off the door to the kitchen. 

 Back of the fireplace that is under the stairs. This will also have a cabinet built around it and counter tops in the kitchen above it. 

The great thing about our house is we do have a chimney that used to be used for a wood stove. Hopefully Santa won't use the fireplace because he will get stuck in a wall and hopefully my children won't figure out the chimney doesn't connect to the fireplace! 

Closing off the return

Our hallway had an old grate on the floor that used to be the air return. Having had one of these in the hallway of the house I lived in during college, I knew it posed a problem with high heel shoes. Since it was not being used anymore as a return, we were able to take it up and replace it with plywood. We will eventually feather in hardwoods to match the hallway.

Before we removed the grate

 When we removed the grate, it left a big hole in the floor. Tony and Matt framed it off and put a layer of tin underneath. 

 Putting in insulation.

 Putting in the plywood.

 Nailing it in.

 Testing it out.

Bathroom Work...Goodbye Navajo Tile!

Matt and his dad took out the pantry on the dining room side of the bathroom wall and framed it in. This opened up a good chunk of space in the bathroom for us to use. I spent an entire afternoon pulling up the tile, which consisted of a layer of terracotta tile on top, layer of grout, and a layer of cement on the bottom. FYI...when cement and grout harden...they really HARDEN!

Bathroom Before:

The space where there is no tile is where the vanity and the back wall of the pantry were. 

 From the Dining Room looking in to the bathroom. The pantry is out and framed off. 

 Pulling up tile...

 The 3 layers...

 Goodbye Medicine Cabinet! 

Pulling up the floor in the kitchen proved to be more of a job than we had originally expected. There were multiple layers of linoleum and other various floor types.  Thanks to Tony's hard work we got to the subfloor layer! 

Nana's 91st Birthday Party!!

I am interrupting the housing updates with a few pictures from my Nana's 91st birthday party. My Dad and Aunt moved my Nana to Raleigh back in the Spring. She has adjusted pretty well even with her dementia. She was doing great healthwise until a week ago when she fell and broke her right hip. She was able to have surgery right away at the hospital and is now recovery in rehab. Her 91st birthday was yesterday and because of the rehab she is not allowed to leave. We were supposed to have a dinner for her last night, but instead we took the birthday party to her.

Nana, Me, and Dad (Thanks to Jill for saving the party hats from when we were all kids!)

 Dad and Nana

 Nana and I

 Nana and her Whistle

 Dad reading birthday cards to Nana.

 Opening a present from Aunt Joann and Uncle Mike.

 She loved her new nightgown!

 Reading a card from Kelley, Pat, Abby, Ben, and Henry!

 She loved her new shirt!

 Talking to Brett on the phone!



What was going to be just a kitchen renovation at first quickly turned in to renovating the entire downstairs! We removed all of the drywall from the living room, hallway, and two downstairs bedrooms. (The bathroom drywall was relatively new and in good condition.) We found lots of layers of paint and wallpaper! We removed the drywall from the ceilings which proved tricky because whenever a piece of drywall came down so did all of the insulation!

Living Room Drywall on the walls down. 

Drywall down...looking in to the kitchen

 Tony, Matt's Dad and my Renovation Hero, taking down drywall and wires in the hallway.

 Drywall off the walls in the Master Bedroom

 Drywall down...looking from master bedroom towards living room

 Ceiling Drywall removed

 Removing nails from the ceiling!