153: The "After"

Transformation got started slowly in December.  My cousin who did a lot of the work was working for a Christmas tree farm, so between juggling that, a pregnant wife, 3 kids and the 153 house project, it was a tight schedule.  After Christmas I was sick, so my jobs didn't move as fast as they should either... Progress continued through January and February and was nearing completion.  

I love small towns!  On one of my MANY trips to the local hardware store, I started talking with one of the employees about the project at hand.  I had mentioned that I still needed to find someone to replace the roof.   Coincidentally, the same employee does roofing on the side.  His bid was much lower than the first I had received.  I knew at one time he was my neighbors cousin and I saw the work he had done on that house, and honestly that was all the reference I needed.  Roof is in progress as we speak.  

With word on the street, we found a renter pretty quickly when the house was nearly completion.  Again, with a small town, although I didn't know the couple personally, half of my friends did.  The waited patiently while we finalized the last details.  

AFTER PICTURES

Starting upstairs again, this is the front bedroom -facing Howard St.  It was a khaki color previously, but gone is the green trim and ripply carpet.  Most of the house was painted in Behr paint - I believe the color is called "Baked Scone".    It's a light beige.  

Another shot of the front bedroom.  All the outlets/light switches in the house were replaced as were the plate covers.  We added base board moulding around the floor of the bedroom.  I don't know why it makes a big difference, but it does! 

Master bedroom "after" transformation.  Six plus layers of wallpaper were discovered and because the house is so old, the walls were plaster and not very smooth.  We covered the walls in white bead board (faux wains coating) but the room was so overwhelmingly white, we decided to paint it the light beige of the rest of the house.  The nasty dirty carpet was replaced.  

This is the view from the entry door to the bedroom.  This shot gives a better look showing the bead board.  The small door is access to attic storage.  

The master bathroom after shot.  The shower was replaced with a regular stand up shower stall.  We added a side wall for support.  In the long run, with renters, my thought is this will stand up better.  No worrying about glass doors.  

Gone is the Robins Egg blue paint and pink striped wallpaper.    A new mirror was added as well.  

This is the view as you enter the front door.  The maroon carpet was removed and the stairs were in great shape.   They were cleaned and new polyurethane was added.  Yellow paint was replaced with the beige.  

Another after view of the gorgeous stairs.  

After view of the living room - floors and fireplace.   I expected to have to replace the carpet in this room, thinking there was a reason that carpet was put down in the first place.  However, when the carpet was removed, the floors - like the staircase were in good shape.  The floor in the living room and dining room were both sanded and polyurethaned.  They look incredible.  The fireplace had been placed on TOP of carpeting - so we added trim to hide the remnants that wouldn't come up.  

Another view from the front entry door of the living room leading into the dining room.  

Dining room looking toward the front of the house/living room.  The floors here were bare already and the original plan was just to clean them up  but when I made the call to redo the living room, this room was sanded to match.  They also look incredible.  

This is the downstairs bedroom.  The main challenge in this room was to cover the closet doors that had been written on in marker.  It took MULTIPLE layers of KILZ.   The stained carpet was replaced with a beige and baseboards were added here as well. 

Downstairs bathroom:  wallpaper stripped and KILZ added to ceiling.    My cousin thought the beige would make this room a bit too dark and I agreed, so we found this medium green in my basement, unopened.  I honestly can't remember  what I bought it for.

Another shot of the downstairs bathroom.  The wood was cleaned up with Murphy's Oil Soap.  

View from the kitchen toward the dining room.  Gone is the wallpaper - LOTS of stripping.    What a serious pain!  The cheap bead board (lower quality than the bathroom bead board) was painted to look like wains coating.   With the age of the house, some of the ceilings are coved -- including this one.  Because of this, we decided that the ceiling would need to be the same color as the upper walls.  The beige would have probably been too dark again - and at this point I was reaching a beige over saturation point.  With the counter color (see below), there weren't many options, so green was a likely choice.  This is called "Delicate Leaf" and was purchased at Tru Value -- as it was a last minute call.  

Cabinets were painted, a new stove (and refrigerator out of view) were purchased.  No more country stickers on the doors!

  

It was a LOT of work, and isn't still 100% completed.  The roof is about 60% completed.  Two small cedar trees along the south side of the house will be removed.  When summer arrives, we'll probably do some outside paint touch ups.  All in all I am very happy with how things turned out!