De-popcorning and re-texturing

Removing the popcorn ceiling was one of th first steps of the remodel, completed almost a month ago now. The removal of the popcorn ceiling was insanely messy, but pretty easy. Apparently our ceilings were only painted once or twice and were initially sprayed correctly and professionally, which helps a ton in the removal process.

After all fixtures were removed and the floor covered with plastic, N soaked a section of the ceiling with water.

Just realized that the fan was still up in the pic above...this might have been our "let's just test it out" practice session. :)

Also, aren't those painted vines on the wall just lovely? It's the same type of vine that had all but swallowed the back yard, trees, fence and all. Nice.

After spraying and waiting a few minutes, you grab the paint scraper and just scraaaape off that nasty popcorn in one fell swoop.

It's a, uhh, messy job.

A few shots of the rooms, post-popcorn but pre-texture. Guest room, after contractor skim coated the area where we had removed a painted-over wallpaper boarder that RUINED the walls:

Guest bath, after contractor added the drywall patch where the soffit was, mussed and sanded, moved the electrical, and patched up all the dings in the walls from our wallpaper war:

Girls' bath after same soffit patch and electrical work, and practically a full skim coat on the walls. This room was the worst of all of them in regards to damage post wallpaper removal. It is what sparked us to have the contractors help with wall patching in the first place. :)

I know it doesn't look like much, but the clean white walls are such a huge improvement from what they were before.

Remember this?

Wait, here's an even better shot:

Ick.

The texturing process is even messier than the popcorn removal process. The amount of taping off and plastic, yikes. Needless to say, once we saw all of this, and their two-person team to handle the fancy schmancy texture machine, we immediately knew we made the right choice in hiring out the job.

"I wonder if I can put Addy down for a nap up there while they are on their lunch break today? Maybe I'll go take a look..."

Ha. Yeah. That didn't happen.

And here they are! Finished ceilings in all of their glory. Re-sprayed and painted. 

The baths are just begging for chunky new mirrors, fresh paint, and modern light fixtures and tile, don't you think?

Clean slates, ready to be built back up. It took us a long time just to get to

this point, and it feels good.

And speaking of begging, if these walls (in what will be the nursery) could talk they would surely say, "get these stupid vines off 'a me!!"

Next up on the agenda: ordering and beginning to install light fixtures, scouting flooring options, ordering the door knobs and hinges, and picking up all of our paint. We met w our decorator again yesterday and rearranged a few colors. Can't WAIT to get color on the walls. And of course trim painting will continue in the basement.

Going a little stir crazy

When all else fails and you have barely left the house during the last few frigid days, plop the tub of trail mix down at lunchtime and tell her to go to town.

Soffits no more

It occurred to us a couple weeks ago that if we updated everything, especially in the bathrooms, and kept the large soffits in place, the bathrooms just wouldn't look modern and new. I'm

not sure what the trend was elswhere in 1982 but good gracious, this house is chock full of soffits and can lights.

We were fairly sure that each one upstairs only contained the can light fixture, so with a dozen, "Are we sure? Are you sure? ARE WE SURE?" confirmations out of the way, N took a hammer and busted in.

No turning back now!

 

After a little crow bar and saw zaw (sp?) action, the guest bath was completely soffit-less, crumbly attic insulation and all:

And here's the girls' bath during and after demo (complete with a lamp, as all of the light fixtures were already MIA at that point):

 

Look how pretty that wallpaper was. Not.

 

It's really hard to tell in these photos, but removing the soffits adds so much to the visual space of both baths. We have 9 foot ceilings upstairs and now you can "see" all of that space so much better. Huge difference. Plus, now we will be able to install a traditional vanity light fixture instead of continuing to rely on the can lights that were installed in the bottom of the soffit.

Guest bath w the drywall back up (and mirror and painted-over wallpaper gone): 

The ceiling looks sooo high. We had our contractor do the drywall repair, mudding and sanding, along with moving the electrical wire from the ceiling, where it was to connect to the can light, to the wall, where it will connect to an actual bath vanity light fixture.

Girls' bath:

That's a terrible photo, but the drywall is all fixed up and the electrical moved. Soffit no more. And check out that old wallpaper! That was under the mirror and is what was put in when the house was built. It's like a metallic graph paper. Meow.

Oh, and the original paper we found in the guest bath under the mirror had pink and white vertical stripes. Maybe there were little girlies in this house 30 years ago, too? :)

(By the way, we removed the mirrors because we wanted to be rid of all wallpaper and have clean, fresh walls everywhere, plus we plan to frame them before putting them back on the wall.)

More soon...

Trim and paint!

A large forklift delivered practically all of the new trim this afternoon. (The rest will be delivered next week sometime. We purchased so much they ran out of stock!) All baseboards, window trim, door trim, and crown moulding for the three beds, two baths, five closets, and hallway upstairs will be brand new.

Our basement is officially carpeted in trim. Everything was purchased from Lowe's already primed, which is a huge help. All of the existing doors, closet rods, and closet shelves N had already spent hours and hours sanding, cleaning, and priming two coats on each side. The fact that tonight he could jump right to picking up the "real" paint with the new trim was awesome. And with the purchase of a 5-gallon bucket of our newly decided upon whole-house trim paint color, it feels like we hit that tipping point of the project. We're finally inching towards building things up again instead of still tearing them down.

Somebunny thinks all of the boards are fun little balance beams.

Also, proof that our house is in ruins - those are the guest room mattresses leaning against the wall. Two floors below where they belong.

Quick shot of most of the doors and closet shelves, all existing. And all receiving their first coat of paint tonight.

Wohoo!

Creamy off white paint on left, just primer on the doors in the middle and on the right. Such a difference! It looks so finished.

We busted our buns on New Year's Eve and Day getting all of the remaining wallpaper taken care of upstairs (we're such party animals.) 5 of the 6 rooms

were covered. In two of them the paper had even been painted over. Bonus! We also found different wallpaper under the bathroom mirrors than what was currently on the walls. Why do people love this stuff so much?! :)

Next up is cleaning all of the de-wallpapered walls with a vinegar water solution, at least for me. Then they will be ready for patching (lots of dings from our wallpaper wars), sanding, and priming. N will be paint paint painting in the basement for a while. :) As with any project, we have a million little things we are also working on...confirming wall paint colors (meeting w decorator on Monday), choosing carpet and tile and organizing the timing for installation (eek, haven't started), choosing door knobs (done), vanity pulls (done, I think), light fixtures (4 of 5 diff fixtures done), communicating w the contractor who is helping us with drywall patches and ceiling re-texturing (more on that soon), and more. Two Type-A personalities in this house - we have lists and lists and more lists. Fun fun. :)

DIYer in training

The mimicking has really picked up lately, especially with mommy and daddy working so much on the remodel. Such a big helper!

She often drags two or three tools to a certain section of wall, then picks one and goes to town. Here it was a brush, scraper, and cleaned out weed sprayer filled with water that we've used to soak and remove the wallpaper. It also looks like one of her dolls was trying to make an appearance, but didn't quite make it.

Oh, and dancing with the paint brushes was her addition. I'm pretty sure she hasn't picked that up from us. :)

Upstairs remodel!

First, we decided that with another punkin on the way, we should probably change the name of this blog so that it's not Addy specific.

Second, if it's a general, family blog, why not use it to document and share our crazy DIY projects too, right?! We thought it would be nice to have a short and sweet history of the projects we have worked on in our new home. We neglected to take sufficient before and after pics in the old house, and we regretted it. Not this time!

N tackled the landscaping when we first moved in, but before we get to that, I thought I'd share more recent updates: the beginnings of the upstairs remodel. We launched into it right after Thanksgiving, and the to-do list quickly lengthened. We plan to replace everything for the three bedrooms, two baths, and hallway: all trim, paint, flooring, light fixtures, window coverings, light switches, etc. That also includes scraping off all the popcorn from the ceilings and hiring a contracting to spray a new, flat, more modern texture.

First step: prepping all of the rooms. We removed all of the baseboards, window trim, door trim, doors, light switch and outlet covers, light fixtures (including fans), and closet shelves and rods. We had originally planned to paint all of the existing trim, but upon closer inspection it was narrow, faded, and pretty beat up. New trim it is! Oh, and prepping also included emptying the rooms of all of their contents. Don't go near our attic closet - it's packed floor to ceiling with furniture. And I'm pretty sure there are a few mattresses in the basement, and an extra bookshelf or two in the office. We are an unorganized mess.

 Anyway, we removed all of the trim. There was a TON.

While Daddy worked on the trim, Addy and I started tackling all of the wallpaper. Both baths, the hallway, and two of the three bedrooms all had paper. Yippee. Not.

We started with the hallway. Somebunny got really into it - she would stop, point to the wall, and demand "Off!" anytime we walked by. That's Addyspeak for: "Start a piece of paper for me so I can pull it off! And make it snappy!"

 The rooms were left looking rather empty. No trim, fixtures, or covers.

 Prepping also meant removing the giant cover to our attic fan. Creeeeepy.

Popcorn ceilings are next...more to come...

Coffee date

Because what other way is there to celebrate a rainy Thursday than with a chocolate milk date with mama?

Naked goofball dining

Because what fun is it if you can't be silly while you're eating a meal?!