The House

So.. I'm finally going to showcase what our life has been for the last 3 months. Keep in mind that the pictures don't do ANY justice because it looked much worse in person because you could see the dirt. :) I'll start from the ground and go up from there...

The Basement:

This is the room that started all the trouble. This shower is what contained the mold. It turned out that the piping for the shower head had a small, slow leak that had been undetected for who knows how long. The water just kept building up, and eventually started bubbling out the drywall on the far side of the shower. You could see it from the other side (in the entrance to the basement). I never did get a picture of the damage before the mold specialists stripped the entire bathroom completely.

Here is the bathroom as it looks now (well.. with piles of tools all over the floor as well). You can see the piping for the shower is boxed in with the white taping. There used to be a wall enclosing this space.. but it's gone - along with the mold. :)

This is the laundry area (obviously). The only changes here consist of a brand new furnace and installation of an air conditioner. Also, we sold this washer and dryer and my nicer set is in it's place. Oh - and the curtains came down as well.

This is my fabulous father-in-law, Richard. He got us a great deal on the furnace and a/c - and installed it for free! Bless him! When we tore out the old furnace (it was original to the house) there was a huge hole underneath it, so we had to lay new concrete.

This is the family room. You can see the brown shag carpet, but you can't smell the mix between mold/mildew and cat urine. Let me tell you, to a pregnant woman's nose.. it was torture. The red carpeting you can see in the other room had mold infested in it as well. I didn't get a great picture before the specialists tore it out. But.. I'm pretty sure it was installed in the 70s. :) There were olive green and yellow flowers in the pattern.

We started by tearing down the wooden paneling, but soon found the electrical work to be VERY dangerous. The few lights that were "installed" were plugged in through an extension cord running through the wall. When Justin touched one, it disintegrated in his hand and the two wires were touching. All I know is that is a huge fire hazard, so we decided to tear out the rest of the drywall in both rooms, and the ceiling. This way, Justin can re-wire the whole house - upstairs included right through the basement. After that, we'll refinish it. Plus, we need to add some insulation around the exterior... as you can see these cinder blocks are all that was there.

This was the extra bedroom in the basement, when we decided to tear out the rest of the basement, this drywall came with it. Now it looks just like the family room.

Main Floor:

The kitchen is the only room we haven't changed much. The faucet was leaky, so we replaced it, we installed a microwave and a new cook top, and tore down the black and white checkered contact paper on the back splash. Granted, it doesn't look as pretty, but we'll get some tile up pretty soon. Oh, and you can't see the other walls, but I painted them the same blue color as the kitchen in our condo.

This is the living room. We ripped out the brown shag carpeting, shined up the hardwood flooring, textured the ceiling and painted the walls a cool bluish-grey color. Justin also installed dimming recessed lighting and a fan in the center of the room. Sorry.. I don't have a picture of the lighting, but you get the idea.

The other rooms on this level are a half bathroom and a pantry. I took pictures of these with a neighbor's camera, and although she was gracious enough to print them for us, I have misplaced them. As soon as I find them, I'll scan them in so you can see how disgustingly dirty this house was. Those rooms were the worst.

Upstairs:

Here is the hallway... on the left side of the picture you can still see the wallpaper with the wicker-like texture, and the right side shows the minty paint underneath. The wallpaper was a PAIN to get off the walls. It took 3-4 people almost two days to get it all off. I have to say - I don't care how popular wallpaper gets in the future, I will NEVER put it in my house. We had already replaced the light fixture in this picture.

We replaced the carpeting and painted everything white. We couldn't believe how much it brightened up the space. Now we think it's almost too bright, but we're not going to do anything about it for now.

This room is the bathroom (obviously). We haven't done much to it besides replacing the gold fixtures, towel racks, and taking down the curtain. The window is pretty big, and we tested the "frost" one night. You can see right through it! For now we have a black towel hanging there, but I'm trying to figure out how to sew a vinyl curtain to hang there instead.

The master bedroom wasn't too bad. We repainted, replaced the light fixture, carpeting, and the baseboard.

The baby's room. Unfortunately, my cell phone didn't capture the grandness of this wallpaper. It had cars, football helmets, pioneer wagons, and some kind of animal among other things. It was the most random thing I'd ever seen! The carpet was super worn. We thought there was only a pad in the middle, but it was just so flattened and old that it just disintegrated when we tried to roll it out with the carpet. You can see some of the dirt in this picture if you look above the outlet... that is dust. Plus if you look carefully, you can see vertical lines on the blue wall about 16 inches apart. Those are the studs, visible only from the dust that has accumulated over time. How could you not wash the walls for that long?! Or at least paint...

The office. For some reason, my cell phone didn't pick up the yellow. Two walls were bright yellow, and the other two had a pale flower patterned wallpaper. Bright yellow, pale pink, and Barney purple... I'm not sure what they were thinking. Anyway, this wallpaper was also a pain to get off, but at least it was only the two walls.

I took off all the outlet covers and switch plates in the house and I couldn't believe how many different styles there were.. I'm sure they must have been stylin' at one time...

Outside:

There was a cinder block divider along the carport. I'm not sure why it was there... because it was just filled with loose cinder blocks and garbage. Maybe they wanted a flower bed. Anyway, we knocked it out. I think the guys had fun with that one.

I couldn't believe how much it opened the space...
We filled up two city dumpsters with cinder block, foliage, an old shed in the back that smelled like paint thinner, the drywall from the basement, and plenty of junk that these people left behind. This tree started out more like a bush... but Justin trimmed it a bit.
Justin's brother Russ came over and went crazy with his chain saw. He kept going until like 10:30 that night. I'm sure the neighbors were thrilled we were moving in. But, I have to say - he got so much done that night, our house and yard looked completely different the next morning.


After all our hard work we had to sit for a while... and don't worry - we threw away the swing pad and cover. I'll have to find a modern version for the swing in May. And don't mock my outfit.. I didn't want to buy maternity "grubbies." I wore what I had, okay?