My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Closet.

2. Walls primed.

3. This is looking out of the room across the hall into the 1st guest bedroom.

4. Floors screwed down tight as I could get them. Unfortunately, this room is over the kitchen/great room which is one huge open area, so no matter how many screws I put in the floor, it still has a few different squeaks in it. It sucks, but it's the best I could get it.

5. Close up of the blinds we bought for the house. EVERY window will have a blind that looks like this. I made a deal with my wife, we buy nice expensive privacy blinds, and I don't have to put up any fugly curtains on my new, pretty painted walls After having the blinds up in the finished rooms for the past several months, I really like the clean look. Also, I would have had to put up blinds anyway, now we just have to clean blinds, not blinds and curtains!

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Painting in progress!

2. I painted the ceiling in this room before the carpet was installed as well. New fan, just like all the other rooms.

3. Room finished. Again, this is another color that looks better in person.

4. The blinds were REALLY expensive (didn't have the $ to buy them yet), and so is the electric bill in July, so I made some home made blinds for the upstairs windows to keep the rooms cool when the A/C was on, it made a HUGE difference, the A/C ran a lot less with the blinds installed.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Hallway & Staircase.

1 & 2. Just a couple pics of what the stairs and hallway looked like before we started. This was a really cheap material and the gold on the staircase looked really cheasy. They used a thick soft pad under the wood floor so it felt like you were floating when you walked up the stairs and over the hallway... it was weird.

3. Floors stripped.

4. Floor screwed down and looking toward the bonus room.

5. Floor screwed down and looking toward the master bedroom.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. New carpet on the staircase.

2. New carpet in the hallway. I haven't done any wall work to the hallway yet. I figure it's not important and I want to get all of the furniture upstairs (still have to buy most of it) before I do the final paint job on the hallway. It will eventuelly be the same color as the living room and great room.

[67ChevyRedneck]

kitchen/great room:

Ahhhhh, the greatest pain in the ass of all!

1. Look to the right of the pic and you'll see a couple funky looking doors on the right side of the wall. Not cool. They didn't "go with" anything. Someone cut a hole into the luandry rooms wall (the area appeared as if it was originally intended to be a coat/shoe area to put your stuff when you came in from the garage, as well as a laundry room.)

2. Overview of the kitchen. I hated that white light. I even broke it not too long ago, I accidentally whacked it with the ladder, whoops See the large door on the right? There's a HUGE pantry in there... so why the fugly one in pic 1. was ever added...???? I guess they didn't want to walk 10 more feet?

3. Checkin' how level the cabinets were...and found out "not at all." Apparently the first owners of the home installed all of the hardwoods downstairs (thanks guys, seriously!) BUT they neglected to properly relevel the cabinets. The corners where the countertops met weren't flush at all, or sealed, which also cause the countertops to warp.

4. Mustard wall. That's the opening to the living room on the left.

5. Overview of the "great room." I thought the thing above the fireplace was ok at first...

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Right side of the room. If you notice, the french looking doors are not french doors, and it also opens on the left side. Not gonna work for me. I'm going to swap this door out for a right side opening french door. This will accomplish a couple things. It will move the door away from the countertop/bar area that we will be putting bar stools against and utilizing as a bar/kitchen eating area. We will have the formal dining room, but will not have a table in the kitchen. We want to put a plasma above the fireplace with a rug in front of it, with a leather love seat and rocking chair for chilling, and based on my measurements, with the door and all, there won't be room for a table.

2. The other side of the wall I was mentioning. They built this thing out of plywood and 2x4's. I had a heck of a time tearing it down! This area used to be a coat/shoe area, but we'll be using it as a stand up freezer area.

3. Nice hole!

4. Hole from the kitchen side. This will be closed off.

5. Like I mentioned above... I kinda liked it at first, but that wore off after about a day, then I decided I hated it and tore it down. Plus, it would kind of interefere with my big TV going above the gas fireplace

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Everything above the fireplace removed.

2. The wall framed in and ready for sheet rock.

3. I'm really good at making messes.

4. Base trim starting to pile up. I decided to not reuse this stuff. There was several poorly done coats of paint on them, wich also had dirt and pieces of rug stuck in it. It's not that expensive per room, so I also decided to go with the taller trim for a more fancy look. The current trim was 3.5" and the new trim will look the same, but be 4.5" instead.

5. After seeing how stupid expensive cabinets were, we decided to repaint the existing ones. What a pain in the...

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Here's WHY I had to repaint the cabinets. This is after SEVERAL attempts to get them clean (remember, I didn't WANT to paint them, so I tried really hard to get them clean!)

2. Laundry room area framed in.

3. Area above fireplace framed in. Here's a tip! Don't get in a hurry and forget to tape over the cracks. I had the tape, I had done other areas with the tape, but for some reason (it was probably 2am or something) I forgot to use the tape and a couple days later there was cracks all the way around on every joint. So I had to dig the area back out and tape it. THAT SUCKED!

4. Kitched side covered up!

5. Upper cabinets painted. It took 3 coats to cover them well... sheesh! Check out that fridge! Thanks mom and dad inlaw!

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Other side showing the cabinets painted. Whoever built our kitchen wasn't thinking.... when the doors are on the single cabinet on the left... and open... it's ridonkulous trying to reach over the countertop, around the cabinet door, and try to get something out. This cabinet may be left empty

2. I rolled the backside of the doors with a roller. They got 3 coats. With the roller, they coated well, and quickly, but not "perfect," but I didn't care because it was the back side.

3 & 4. My drying rack. I used a wagoner sprayer to get a nice even finish on these. It was so hot out when I painted they were dry to the touch in about 15 minutes. I also sprayed 3 coats on these as well.

5. Close up of a couple of doors.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. I painted the doors to the small cabinet between the stove and the fridge. Check out the color difference.

2. Starting to put the doors back up. We went with a brushed nickel mushroom handle. I picked it out

3. All the cabinets were lined after they were painted. This should keep the cabinets nice and make them a little easier to clean.

4. The cabinets had some expensive adjustable door hardware, so I just cleaned it up and reused it. I was also able to get some nice gaps after I got the adjustments figured out!

5. Starting to yank the old countertops!

[67ChevyRedneck]

1 & 2. Doors pulled off of the lower cabinets.

3. New dishwasher. I think it sat in that spot for like 3 months

4 & 5. Doors installed back on the upper cabinets!

I love 'em, I think they came out better than expected!

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Well, the walls weren't perfect, so to get the old countertops to fit, they cut out a section of the wall and pushed it in

2. Blinds installed over the door. This door is going to stay for a while, the replacement is going to be pricey, so it may be a few more months...

3. Window blind installed.

4. I'm good at making messes...

5. Just imagine the look on your wife's face when she got home from work... I wish I had the camera ready... it was priceless It was a mix of "I want to kill you" and "It's going to look sweet when it's done!"

[67ChevyRedneck]

1-5... just a bunch of pics of the work I did to the walls...

Even though I did the best I could to keep the dust down, it still got all over the house. This was with the living room completely taped off... very unhappy wife

[67ChevyRedneck]

1 & 2. More mud work shots...

3, 4, & 5. The countertop surprise is coming soon so I had to get the lower cabinets back in place, so I primed the lower kitchen walls. You can see the very first lower cabinet back in place. Believe it or not, this was the highest spot in the kitchen around the walls where the cabinets were going, so lots of shims after this one was installed.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1 & 2. Lower cabinets going back in!

3. Like I mentioned before, the entire kitched smelled like a taco bell. To ensure the smell was 100% gone I painted ALL of the lower cabinets, inside and out, top to bottom, front to back! Overkill? Probably, but you smell old taco bell for a few months and see if you don't snap!

4. Bulk of the cabinets in place... with... what's that... the DISHWASHER? Oh snap!

5. I had to build a front plate for the dishwasher to get screwed to... because I can't drill holes in the new countertop These cabinets were also "cheap" so I also had to put a plate along the back wall for the countertop to sit on.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Another view of the dishwasher area.

2. View of sink area.

3, 4, & 5. Cabinets fully installed and shimmed. I also put the final coat of paint on them.

[67ChevyRedneck]

1. Finally bought the matching stove. So now we have all the appliances!

2. Finally priming above the cabinets!

3 & 4. The great room walls primed!

5. Everything cleaned up and time for a break!

...stay tuned... more to come...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Wow, that took a long time to get all of those pics up. I'll caption everything over the next couple/few days.

Well, that's where I'm at for now. Just finished painting the kitchen ceiling today. I'll do the great room tomorrow. New light fixtures/fan, paint, and the countertops come on Monday!

[383Ram]

You did all of this to date!? Wow, i need to hire you---if i could afford it.

Were the kitchen cabinets just off white before you painted them or were they just that nasty? Did you have to use a special paint?

I can see why you pulled the carpets up. They must of had pets i assume. I pulled carpet recently from an upstairs hallway (the whole house is real hardwood) and basically just used the carpet as a dropcloth to protect the floors in the working progress. Speaking of which, man i cant believe you had no drop clotch on the floor when tearing out by the fireplace. How much damage did you do to that hardwood?

You want to try fun, try a old house with plaster and lathe and old ballon framing (nothing is 16 on center). This is probably why i dont work on the house as much as i should, its a mess to take down and more puzzleing figuring how to get something back together.

You should post the before and after pics together, makes it easier to see what you have done exactly---just an idea...

[67ChevyRedneck]

I used to be a Civil Site Design Project Engineer. I did site design and analysis for large commercial developments (wal-mart, lowes, walgreens, and value place motels were some of out bigger clients.) No one's building, so no job for me LOTS of time to work on the house!

I started the first week of May of this year right after we closed on the house. I put in about 60+ hours per week until we moved in on June 29-30th. Everything was easy until then. I've done everything except the carpet install. I had the carpet installed only days before we moved in (on purpose) so work went much slower after the carpet was in! I would have been insane to have even tried that. It took a crew of 4 guys 9 hours to do our house, and they didn't even have base boards to go under! I basically took all of August off. Had a touch of depression (bad emotional spell from lack of job) plus I was burnt out on the house.

Yes, the cupboards were that nasty, that was after scrubbing with several different cleaners. I skuffed them and just painted them with an interior paint. The uppers have been painted for a couple months and seem to be holding up well.

Carpet was nasty. You can't see it because it was covered in dust, etc, but I used the old carpet pad in front of the fireplace. When it got kinda full my wife helped me carry the pad outside and we dumped all of the stuff into the trailer, worked out well. No damage to the floors

I wanted a "newer" house but not a new one. Everything is up to code, but it's not quite as thrown together as some of the ones I've seen in the past couple years. (My company also had a subdivision team and I did a couple site visits for them, I've seen some very nice work and I've seen some not so nice work.)

I was trying to do "progression photos" of each room. It will probably make more sense when I go back and label everything.

[nuke1]

House looks great!, My wife has had me doing renos for he last 2 years as we can afforde it, but t he problem is she wants it done now! lol. don't they all. Sorry about the lack of a job. I would say move up here, we are boming. kinda weird actually but we are the only province that is. Good for us at least thou. Later James

[67ChevyRedneck]

Thanks! We love it here. The job market will come around. If not, I'm pretty versatile, I'll find something. My wife makes a good bit more money than I did and she likes her job. No point in us moving and she'll lose her job. I'm also originally from southwest NY, off lake Chautauqua, kinda near Lake Erie. I moved away from there as quickly as I could. I don't like temperatures below 60 degrees.

[383Ram]

Well, your doing a fantastic job for sure,, i like foward to the captioned pics and more as you post them. I always love to see the works in progress (houses, vehicles--etc). Its also a good time to take notes for when i do stuff too. Thanks for the post.

Oh, global warming has made NY winters much better----i personally don't like it above 75 so i guess this state is the best compromise... even though they tax the crap out of us---of couse i hear Canada's taxes are worse...

[67ChevyRedneck]

Almost my entire family still lives there. I still "go home" once or twice a year. I went home last winter when they had those 3 freakish snow storms before Christmas! It's beautiful in the summer.

[Sillyoldman]

Hey JJ. Lookin good. White is calming. I like it.