That is the word to describe what has taken place in our extremely old, but new-to-us home. Exactly one week ago, we started the renovations to our house. Our goal was to do whatever was necessary to get it livable. In the purchased condition, it was not.
Now, the bones of the house are excellent! It has new siding, lots of new electrical with tons of outlets, new windows, good closets, original solid wood doors and hardware, a super-cold central air conditioning unit, and all appliances (except the refrigerator), including a washer and dryer. The house has three bedrooms and two baths with a good-sized kitchen with lots of cabinets and a nook, a living room, dining room, sitting room, a full unfinished basement with storage and laundry room, and a HUGE attic that will someday be renovated into a master suite.
But the condition of the house was HORRIBLE! The paint colors were: red, fuschia, purple, black, tan, gold, green, brown, periwinkle blue, gray, and many others. The hardwood floors are original to the house, but were covered in paint and carpet glue, loaded with staples, nails, and carpet tacking strips, and were beat to heck! The kitchen and bathroom had no flooring.
For us to even be able to move into the house, we had to paint EVERY surface! We painted all of the trim, wainscoting, doors, and other woodwork white. We painted the walls a nice, sunny yellow, and a couple of rooms a darker gold. The kitchen is painted green with black cabinets, the bathroom is painted green with a dark brown vanity. The bedrooms are tan and gray. EVERY room required two and, sometimes, three coats of paint. And the ceiling had to be touched up all over the house from various paint disasters.
We laid tile in the kitchen and bathroom. And we grouted it all ourselves. This was something I had never done before, so I was feeling pretty good about how great it looked! I even had to build a corner to a wall in the bathroom with spackle. I have certainly widened my repertoire!
And then there were the hardwood floors. We desperately wanted to salvage the floors because they are original to the house. They are four years away from being 100 years old! My dad rented some sanders and he and I sanded all 1500 square feet of the hardwood. It was a mess. We were a mess. It was hard, hard work. He used the big sanders and I crawled around on my knees with the edger for several hours. We just didn't know if we had done enough. I had a small panic attack, and even called Rick in tears. He talked me down from the ledge, and I got up first thing this morning to stain all of the floors.
I didn't want anyone else to have to deal with the stress of the floors, so I stained them all myself with a hand-held paintbrush. It was actually a really fun project. And they looked SO GOOD! I couldn't believe it. We chose a darker stain from Minwax called "Special Walnut". There are lots of imperfections in the floors from their 100 years, with knicks, cracks, and color variations. But, I really could not have been more pleased with how they turned out. My dad said they looked like an old schoolhouse floor. And since lots of school will be going on in those walls over the next several years, I thought it was very fitting.
This may sound so crazy, but all day I just felt like my floors were speaking to me. They were thanking me for cleaning them up, and conditioning them with new stain, and bringing them back to life instead of covering them or replacing them. I even felt that way about the colors we painted on the inside of the house. I would have never chosen that shade of yellow or green for the bathrooms and kitchen in our current house. The house just spoke those colors to me.
Anyway, this evening my mom, aunt, and I put on the first coat of polyurethane. Tomorrow morning we will apply the second coat, and the final coat will go on tomorrow night.
Then, the house is move-in ready.
It's a miracle. It's nothing short of a miracle.
I am so happy and so excited to start living in our new home. Our furniture, accessories, and new curtains will just light up that home. I can't wait!!!
We still have many, many projects to do after we get moved in. But, the necessary and hardest work is done! Thank you SO MUCH to my Dad, Mom, Aunt Sally, Monk, Dawson, Tonio, Rylee (for babysitting Eli and Brynne), and Rick (for supporting me and my dream). Without this group of people, I would still be painting trim.
I will be posting some collages of before and after pictures in the next couple of days, maybe even tomorrow. If you want to be able to see them, be sure you let me know that you are wanting to receive an invite to follow this blog when it goes private. I haven't made it private yet, because of time. But it will happen soon. If you have commented or e-mailed me, I have your info down and you'll get you invite soon.
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