There's Potential

The moment we walked into this house, we knew it had to be ours. That evening we put in an offer and 2 days later we were under contract. Wahoo!

For the last month, we've been shopping for paint colors, flooring, and contractors who will knock down a few walls for us.

There's so much potential. That's what we keep telling ourselves and everyone else. Some think we're crazy and then others can't wait to help us tear down a few things and rebuild.... the later folks can stop by anytime. There's plenty to do.

On Friday, September 30th at 4pm, it was official. The attorney handed us our keys and we looked at each other with huge smiles on our faces like we were just given the largest Christmas present ever. Our realtor, Cindy Kelly, has been FANTASTIC and we are so glad we found her. She helped us every step of the way.

As soon as we got those keys, we went home to change clothes and then went straight to our house to start demo! I guess you could say it's first-time-home-buyers adrenaline :)

Here's a few "before" pictures so you can tell where we're starting from. Now, keep in mind... potential is the key word.

Entry

First part of the living room and entry. Notice the marble shag carpet. Original with the home in '84.

 The living room continues to the dining room.

 This is the wall in the living room that we will be knocking down to make it one great room.

 This is the family room on the other side of that wall and it opens to the kitchen. This will ultimately be our dining room and the front room will be one great living space.

 

 Screened in porch off the family room/future dining room.

Kitchen. Don't you just love the stained glass rose?

 Laundry room off the kitchen.

 Garage.

 Master with vanity and 2 bathrooms... much work to be done here... but that'll be next year.

 Yes, I have a phone on the wall in my bathroom. No, I will not be using it.

 Now to the upstairs.

This is the open loft area.

 First bedroom

 Second bedroom.

 Bonus room. Don't you just love this carpet?! Why in the world would be ever want to get rid of it I'm not quite sure :)

 Basement.

Okay, now that you have a general idea of everything, here's a series of photos of our weekend warrior work. We started at 6:00PM on Friday night and by 9 we had all the carpet and pads removed from the entire house. Booyah.

The wallpaper in one room was just peeling off like magic. Awesome.

Pulling back the first piece of carpet.

 TIP: Make sure to cut your carpet into strips. Easier to remove, easier to carry.

 This was by far the hardest part of carpet removal. Someone went crazy with the staple gun on the stairs.

 Good thing I like meticulous work and am apparently good at pulling staples from wood.

 Here's the final pictures of all the carpet and pads once removed from our house. Now who would like to come and dispose of this for free?? Any takers?

 After carpet is removed, staples and tac-strips had to pulled up from the floors so that we can install hard wood floors. This was tedious and I pulled up the tac strips while JT pulled up staples. After 2 hours of this, our backs were killing us and it was midnight.

Saturday's Agenda:

- Buy carpet and hardwood flooring (they were on sale!)

- Get started on wallpaper

- Start sanding the stairs

- Start ripping up linoleum

- Remove all the baseboards on the first floor

The day went so fast I forgot to take pictures till the evening. JT removing wallpaper.

 Removing linoleum in the entry... we're gonna need a larger crowbar.

 Making some headway in the 1/2 bath.

Sunday's Agenda:

- Finish pulling off all the baseboards

- Remove all the linoleum

- Finish prep for all the floors

Here's JT with a 3-foot crow bar ripping up the last parts of the entry.

 We learned how to remove a toilet! JT is conquering his thrown :)

 Tada! No toilet, baseboards, or linoleum. Making progress.

 No on to the laundry room. I swear I'm doing work too, I just can't help but take pictures of a really hot guy at work.

After we sanded the stairs down and striped the finish off, you can really start to see the potential!! We will stain our stairs and railing to match the Whiskey Brown 4" Hand Scrapped floors we purchased. I can't wait to install these.

 We had to remove a few doors through the house to get up all the flooring. This is the long front room that will be our great room.

 Doesn't the laundry room look so much better?!... just look past the wallpaper.

Mexican food is something hard to come by in the great state of Kentucky. We're still making our way through trying various ones and on the way home today, we saw Salsaritas, a quick-dine mexican restaurant. Similar style to Qdoba. The chips and salsa were AMAZING!! And we even got out of there for a total of $13. Definitely worth every penny.

Our bodies hurt. Our joints are tired. And we're so happy we're doing this together. I really can't say enough about how much I love working laboriously with my husband. He truly is so encouraging and great to work with. I grew up in a family that always did DIY to our homes and I can't tell you how much that has helped in the last 3 days of my life. I'm excited to document all of our projects and if you have any questions on any steps we take, feel free to leave a comment on this post and I'll reply.

We're not planning on working during the week so that we can rest our bodies and focus on our real jobs :) More updates to come next weekend. Stay tuned...