Laundry Room

Another time-consuming project we had underway during our move was the laundry room, which is also the bathroom for the lower level. When we bought the house, there had been a washer and dryer in a homemade laundry room that had been sectioned off from the garage. It needed a bit of new flooring but we thought that wouldn't be a problem.

When the occupants left, they took their washer and dryer, which should have remained, to their new home. After a little investigating, Jared discovered that not only was the floor rotting out, but the vent hookup had not really been done properly either. We were left with this:

So we decided to put the laundry room back where it belonged, rather than try to fix the strange set-up that the "remodelers" had constructed.

Jared's dad patched the hook-up holes for us:

Then we had to go about tearing up the walls in the perfectly good (except hideously painted) bathroom where the laundry hookups needed to be returned. I say "we" but what I mean is "Jared and his parents."

With all the walls down, Jared figured out how to reroute the water and the dryer vent back to the house's original design. I was impressed to say the least!

With the addition of entirely new walls, the space started to look like a room again.

I was especially pleased with the water hookups and dryer vent. They work!

Add a little paint and put the fixtures back in (easier said than done) and voila! It's a laundry room/bathroom!

Jared also added vinyl  wall-base trim and a lighting fixture, not to mention the washer and dryer units themselves, but I don't have photos of those yet. The last items to add are the mirror above the sink and maybe a shelf. Yay, Jared!

Homeward Bound

Well Blogfans, in case you haven't heard the news, Jared bought a house that (now) looks like this:

It's unfortunate that it's so difficult to photograph entire rooms, because these pictures hardly convey the amount of work that has been (and will continue to be) going on in this house. There are too many projects to put in one post, but I'll start with one that was a major concern: the sloping cement floor.

We pulled up carpet, padding, tack boards and trim, scraped adhesive, and convinced one of the brilliant operations employees from the zoo to come measure the uneven spots with a laser level

Then Jared ground down the exposed cement and built up twenty little mounds to mark how far up each low spot on the floor had to be raised. Our savior from the zoo, plus my mechanically-gifted brother-in-law and an extremely generous friend of Jared's spent several hours mixing, pouring and smoothing what turned out to be over 4,000 pounds of cement!

There aren't any good "after" photos yet because the room, even though it is now carpeted and full of furniture, isn't really set up. We aren't quite to the "after" stage yet.

Another project that was rather time-sensitive was the hall bathroom, which needed to be in working order for us to live in the house, since it would become our primary bathroom. It started out looking rather shabby, with some strange safari wallpaper border, a lazy paint job (they didn't paint near the door trim and also neglected to paint near or around the mirror).

Additionally, Jared found that the caulking in the shower was...insufficient. Unless you really want a removable soap dish. And rotten drywall.

After some intensive scraping with a putty knife, (and some help from Jared's hard-working mother!) we eventually removed all of the hideous wallpaper as well as the caulk. The joints in my hands did not thank me. Here is the room with the new paint job, soap dish and complete re-caulking:

Okay, so the photos don't look like we're transforming the house quite the way I FEEL like we're transforming the house, but they're all I've got. Trust me, we're working hard.

Home

I know I've been neglecting my blog lately, but there's a good reason for it. We bought a house! Technically, I am nowhere on the paperwork, so I guess I didn't buy one, but I get to live in one anyway.

I also got to spend an entire month going completely out of my mind trying to fix up the place to get in move-in ready. It looks much better now than it did, but I will admit that during all the chaos I didn't manage to take many good photos. But never fear, the DIY projects are enormous and not nearly complete, so there will be plenty more posts to ogle.

This one will be brief, but I do have one set of photos for you.

Exterior before:

And exterior after:

More to come soon!