The Upstairs Hallway

In the beginning when we got the house, 

there was a wall 

separating the first and second floor apartments.

It surrounding the upstairs railing of the staircase.

We couldn't wait to open the area up.

The original wall color in the downstairs hallway was an off white,

while the upstairs hallway was a rather dark and dreary dark brown paneling.

We painted the downstairs hallway a light blue color.

You can check out that project here

I was not fond of the dark paneling. 

It sucked up all the available light.

And on the triangular wall above the stairs

was a lovely shade of baby poop mustard yellow.

So I decided to paint the paneling.

Painting paneling isn't really that difficult. 

The hardest part is the cutting in, as 

you need to paint down each of the grooves in the paneling.

And you want to make sure you use a good primer 

to help hide any staining, and give your paint a good base to adhere to.

Even with just the primer,

the hallway looked so much better and brighter.

I painted the upstairs hall the same color as the downstairs hall.

Right now I have to live with the ugly wire hanging by the stairs.

It was originally hidden by the wall that used to be at the stop of the stairs.

Once we replace the door with the new construction window,

the wires will be gone.

The curtains on the door and window were curtains my mom made for her dining room years ago.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the hallway.

You can see where I'm working on the floor.

I've only been able to get the section between the steps and the bathroom scraped.

I'm still working on the other area of the floor.

There's still lots of updates coming!

The OTHER Bathroom

Our house is a 2 bathroom house, though currently

the downstairs bathroom is under going

a complete tear out and renovation.

So that left us with the ugly upstairs bathroom.

You'll recall I painted it last year.

If you can't recall, you can read about it here.

Anyway, here is what it looked like prior to painting the walls a peach color.

Here is a photo from just the other night.

Yes the walls look lovely, 

(and so does the brand new window behind the blind)

but I want you to focus on the flooring.

The yellowish flooring with the creases that held

decades of dirt and grime

that no matter how much, long or hard I scrubbed 

on my hands and knees

would never look like it was completely clean.

Plus, it just didn't match.

But I don't think yellowish grimey floors match anything, really.

So, I was walking the aisles of Ollie's Bargain Outlet at lunch,

looking for cheap good stuff

when I came across some flooring.

Long story short, I ended up finding 6x8ft sheets of vinyl flooring.

I measured the bathroom and sure enough, with the exception of a small strip

behind the toilet, 6x8 ft would work.

So I talked Big E into putting in vinyl flooring.

Oh, I forgot to mention it was only $20!

I was expecting to just slap that puppy on top of the existing floor, but Big E said the old floor had to come up.

This is where it gets a little hairy, 

and I'm not talking about Big E's chest hair.

I, in my "I found $20 easy to install flooring" high,

assumed that I'd cut the caulk that ringed the flooring

and that old floor would pop right out.

I've been involved with several projects in this house, 

and not one has gone completely as planned

so I can't really tell you why I thought this was going to be a piece of cake.

Other than the $20 piece of floor euphoria.

There were 3 distinct layers of flooring in the main floor areas.

The yellowish one, another one that was whitish with flowers or something and a blue/green

old linoleum tile with the tar backing.

And under that, 

original hardwood floors.

Even stranger was the cement or plaster I found 

in the floor.

At first I thought it was the part of the original wall

before the house was added on to.

Turns out it was a chunk of plaster.

It was used to fill a hole in the floor.

I'm not sure what someone does

to cause a hole in hardwood floor 2 inches or so deep.

It added more work because we now needed to fill the hole properly.

It took about 6 hours, 

but I managed to get all the floor up.

Over by the toilet I found 2 other types of floor that were 

nailed in place.

The toilet was also raised up for some reason.

Seriously, even the tar covered wood floor looks better

than that yellowish floor.

It took a little longer to get the floor clean enough for adhesive, 

but it finally got done.

Definitely an improvement,

and worth the hours of labor.

Just a couple of decorative touches and it'll be good for a long time.

New Floor

 These are photos of the kitchen from last year

before we started doing anything.

 You can see the duct tape patch on the floor

where Miss Bertha sat in her kitchen chair.

 The kitchen "table" at the time

was actually a cabinet and countertop

that we removed.

 We painted the walls and removed the linoleum

to find mostly hardwood floors.

But in the back portion of the kitchen, there was plywood subflooring.

This is the area that was added onto the house after it was built.

The line where the hardwood meets plywood is the original

footprint of the house.

I spent a lot of time worrying over that hardwood.

I went through a ton of possibilities of what I could do to save it.

But in the end, 

the reality that there was concrete under the plywood

and the very worn condition of the hardwood

plus the amount of water the dogs slop everywhere,

I decided to go with my original plan of putting down vinyl tiles.

Big E laid the first one in place.

And here we have a teaching moment.

While talking about the best way to attack the floor, 

I mentioned the instructions on the back of the box.

Big E mentioned he had done this before and wanted to start in a corner along the wall.

I agreed to go with his thoughts as I had never done any of this before.

So we started along the wall.

 It goes pretty easily once you get your first tile in place.

 But you really need to follow instructions on the box.  

Especially when your house doesn't have a straight line in it

to save its life

and you're laying tiles with a checkerboard pattern.

You can see the tiles by the doorway are crooked

compared to the tiles Big E is working on in the photo below.

We ended up needing to order 2 more boxes of tile

to replace what we started using.

Once we got things lined up and on the right track, 

it was simple to gets things put down.

And now we have a shiny new kitchen floor.

I miss the hardwood, 

but I surely don't miss the plywood!

Big E also removed the light fixture above the table.

So all that's left in the kitchen for now

is to get the cabinet painted white.

Moving Along

Apparently the bathroom elves

visited the house while I was on vacation.

Or it was my dad and my brother.

We have one wall nearly completely insulated,

and we have a ceiling with a light and vent installed.

Currently, I'm searching for a shower base 

in the dimensions we need.

We decided to have one that is 36" x 42",

but I need the threshold to be on the 36" side and I can't seem to find one.

So, the other option is 36" x 36".

I imagine I'll have to make a trip to Lowes.

Bathroom Progress

I finally got some photos of the bathroom.

I happened to stop at the house in the afternoon while my dad was busy working on it.

I was able to help him out with some of the renovations.

Ok, so really I stood on the stepladder 

and held the measuring tape so he could measure the width of the ceiling.

We have some insulation up.

And the window that overlooked the laundry room has been closed off

and framed out.

And we have new electric wires run

for outlets and light switches.

The pipe in the corner has also been framed out.

We will be losing some ceiling height in the bathroom-

it will only be about 8'2" in there.

The ceiling will basically drop down to the underside of the new 2x4 in the photo.

There were never any exhaust fans in the bathrooms

so we're adding those and that requires venting them to the outside.

And that required a loss of some ceiling height.

Not a big deal in the bathroom.

The bathroom downstairs used to be some kind of porch in the past.

You can see the old transom above the doorway. 

I would love to be able to restore the transom somehow,

like with a stained glass window that doesn't open.

But currently, the kitchen ceiling comes down over the opposite side of the transom

and we are nowhere near ready to do the work to raise the kitchen ceiling to its former glory.

I'm hoping when we are redoing the kitchen, perhaps we can revisit the transom then.

Our bathroom sink will be located where the other sink was which is to the left in this photo.

The door will be switched to swing open on the other side

so it won't interfere with the sink.

I measured the spot for the shower stall, 

and I don't think a 42"x42" base is going to work.  

So it's back to the drawing board for that.

It doesn't look like much has been done here, 

but it has.

I can't wait for the finished product!

The Big News

So, the BIG news I've mentioned can finally be shared. My husband and I are getting a house.  And it isn't just any house, it's the place we've been living in (in the upstairs apartment) for a few years.  The house belonged to Miss Bertha, our landlady, who we came to know and love like family.  Sadly, Miss Bertha passed away this July at the age of 91.  My husband and I worked to come up with a way to purchase the house and turn it back into a single family home.  Without going into all the personal details, we've managed to do that.  A settlement date has been set up.
The house was built in the early 1900's (I'm anxious to be able to find the actual history on the home) and needs a lot (I mean A LOT) of updates not to mention the work to turn it back into a single family home from a multi-family home.  Despite the enormous amount of work, hard work, needed to get things in shape, I can't be more excited.  We're chomping at the bit to rip up old carpet and reveal original hardwood floors, and my husband can't wait to take down the wall separating the upstairs from the downstairs.  And of course, it will all be blogged about here.

This is a photo of my husband and I and Miss Bertha at our wedding.  It's one of our favorite photos from the day, and we were both pleased she was able to share our big day with us.  She had a great laugh and was always laughing and smiling.  She always baked us zucchini bread for our birthdays and had a special treat ready for my son on special occasions.  She told people my husband and I were her "adopted" son and daughter.  Staying in the house was more than just getting a house, it was being able to take care of Miss Bertha's House.  We recently learned that she wanted us to be the ones to get it after she passed.  I hope we do her proud!