June 3rd 2011 we became homeowners to a totally rad 70's house and crashed it HGTV style...no joke...if anyone wants to hire the Smith family for demo work we are available:)
And here is a fun side note. When I was little, we used to live a few streets over from this house and I would ride my bike right past it on the way to the creek/drainage system to play in. And I always thought it was the ugliest and weirdest looking house. Funny how life turns out sometimes! Anyway, how did we come about buying this house. That's the real question right?! Cody and I wanted a house that we could potentially be in forever. We were thinking about a fixer upper, and I am a gal that knows her HGTV and I grew up with parents who always moved into a house that needed fixin, so no big deal right...? When we saw this house online for the first time, I may have screamed out loud because I was blinded by the blue monster that was. After looking at it over and over online with my Dad in the background saying "If you guys don't buy this house your Mom and I will and rent it out!" Basically this house was a great deal for the price and needed some work and we were ready for it! Here are some before pictures of the house...your eyes may be permanently blinded after viewing them from all the retro blue wallpaper. Be warned.
This is the front room, and it may not look like there is wallpaper there, but I assure you there is. It's just off white and kind of yellowish. This will most likely be the one of the last rooms we redo because its a huge space where we can spread out and paint things.
You Can see our hallway peeking through with that blue and white floral wallpaper. It was pretty bad.
I know, I know. Tommy Bahama wallpaper and blue cabinets. But let me tell you
why I love this kitchen. It is HUGE, and I have gobs of cabinet space. And we have big plans for this space. Want to see my dream kitchen space?
So that's the plan. Remove the wallpaper, paint the cabinets white, new counter tops, floors and a stenciled wall. Not sure when we will tackle the kitchen redo but hopefully sometime this year. Up next, our back sun room. that has already been overhauled.
This room was added onto the house later. That is why there is a window looking into the master bedroom. It was a little creepy and has already been taken care of. This room had pine paneling that matched the outside of the house. Cody tore it all off and drywalled the whole room and covered that creepy window up! We eventually want to take out that sliding door that goes into the kitchen and dining room.
Cody drywalled this room mostly by himself. He did an awesome job and I think the room looks so much more like an actual family room instead of a room that was just added onto the house. Now onto the master bedroom! This was the room that we overhauled in like 3 days! We removed the wallpaper, put in 2 windows, riped out the carpet, put down tile in the bathroom, painted the cabinets and walls in the closet.
That was some nasty carpet! And did you notice that creepy window? Since that was the only window in the room it was wayy to dark in there so we wanted to add 2 windows on either side of the bed.
Here are the windows starting to go in. We made a fake headboard so we could figure out where we wanted the windows at. My Dad did the windows by himself. Let me just brag on him for a little bit right now. He is a jack of all trades and in my mind knows how to do it all. He has helped us with so much on this house and has taught Cody so much. He is basically our personal contractor, and I love him for working 14 hour days with us to get our bedroom and bathroom done. Do you need a lesson on how to remove wallpaper?
Then just ask my Grandpa who is 91 years young by the way! He probable worked harder than my 17 year old brother! The wallpaper actually came off fairly easy. We were able to rip the top layer off in sheets and get the second layer or glue wet and use a brush to get the rest off. If the wallpaper had not come off as easy we would still be scraping it off today! I'm sure you couldn't help but notice that bright floral stuff in the bathroom!
After we removed the wallpaper we had to prime the walls then do 2 coats of paint. I will save the after pictures of our bedroom and master bath for another post. I just want o blow your mind with all the terrible before pictures. My brother and sister and law, and niece came down for the weekend to help, I think remodeling is in my brothers blood just like mine so we naturally started his daughter young and gave her a paint brush to earn her keep:) She was naturally the entertainment and highlight of our weekend.
In a weeks time we had the bedroom primed painted and ready for carpet, the bathroom was painted and tiled and the closet had been overhauled. My family was so much help and we could not have done it with out any of them! Stay tuned for after pictures of our master bedroom and bathroom completely done, and also a tour of the rest of the house! It feels good to cross one room off our list!
