Holey Wall!!

How does that kids song we used to sing at camp go?  "There's a hole, there's a hole, there's a hole at the bottom of the sea..." or something like that.  Well, there's a hole in our wall, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Being the classy 70's style ranch that our house is, it has the typical long rectangular shaped living room, as seen in previous pictures of carpet removal.  What is not seen in those pictures is the fact that to get to the rest of our house you have to walk out of that room and back towards the front door, then around a really misplaced coat closet and finally side step a couple times and you can access the rest of the house.  Not very functional if you ask me!! So what do you do when you aren't interested in line dancing around your house just to navigate from one room to the other?  TAKE OUT A WALL!!!! ok, or at least part of one.

The wall we are changing is the one on the left side of this picture.  On the other side of that wall is the living room!!! Say hi to our awesome day before moving cleaning and beer bringing crew!

Let's kick off this renovation with a story...

One Sunday night, not too long ago Darrah was in a horrible mood and frustrated that the house wasn't coming along as quickly as she would like, so her awesomely sweet husband walked out to the garage, grabbed his tomahawk and told her to throw it at the living room wall.  Now that is LOVE!!  After about 20 minutes of us beating the wall in to submission we called it a night, swept up the floor and went to bed. 

Our wall looked like this when we were done, and also for the next couple of days

For the week and a half following that, this is what our wall looked like.  Hey, we could squeeze between the 2x4's and thus walk freely through to each room.  Progress is progress my friends!!

Finally our wall now, today, at this very moment, looks like this...

I have big plans for this wall, including pillars, crown moulding and so much more!  Stay tuned to see not only what the final product looks like, but maybe you could start taking bets with friends on how long it takes us to finish it!!  



You Have to Start Somewhere

And I chose the smallest room in the house to start with!  The laundry room. Not only was it the smallest, which made the project quicker and less daunting, but one of two rooms out of 10 that didn't have wallpaper in it.  That's right...8 out of the 10 rooms in our house are wallpapered!!

The room was dingy, and literally falling apart.  The "white" walls had more of a greyish brown tint to them, the insides of the cabinets were dusty, dirty and stinky.  Speaking of the cabinets, they were literally falling off the wall!  Who ever installed them only nailed them to the wall.  No screws, no finding a stud, just four or five nails here or there and they called it good.  If I expected to wash things in this room it needed to be clean.

I found some paint from the previous house that I had leftover and decided to use it.  I also covered some shelves I had in contact paper (better to resist water and dust) and replaced the ones already there.  My handy husband re attached the cabinets to the wall correctly with screws in the stud (that's what she said!) and to finish it off I added a lamp, a window valance and a few decorative items to make the space seem cohesive. 

I know it is only a laundry room, but I want it to feel pretty and clean.  I am quite pleased with the transformation. I would like to make a runner to cover the top of the washer and dryer to keep them cleaner and to avoid scratching, but that requires me not only finding my sewing machine, but learning how to use it!!

 Now if I can only find the rug my mom bought me for the floor!!!

Here Kitty Kitty Kitty...

Mission: Eliminate cat pee odor from house
But first! Find out where cat pee odor is coming from

Before we moved anything, and I mean anything, in to our new house we had to get rid of the overwhelming stench of cat pee that almost knocked you out when you walked in the front door. First of all, I did not want any of our stuff absorbing the odor and second I didn't want my dog or my cat to decide it was ok to urinate in the house which most likely would have happened. Most people would not have bought this house for that reason alone, but not us.  We threw caution to the wind and armed ourselves with a gallon of Killz, gloves and masks and went in!  And by we I do mean my husband (there was no way in hell I was going to touch cat pee covered anything).

The culprit, you ask?  You guessed it!  The awesomely 80's wool carpet in the living room.  As if it wasn't ugly enough, the odor of cat pee coming up from it made it that much less attractive. 

Have you ever smelled wool carpet before?  It's gross, gross all by itself...the added element of cat pee was just a bonus!

And in case you are wondering, yes we do still have those fantastic pink drapes up in the living room until the installer comes to install our new window coverings (thanks mamma!)

My husband tore out the carpet, the tack strips and popped out the staples in the floor and sealed the floor with Killz to rid the smell.  So this is what it looks like now...

After we pulled the carpet out the smell was gone.  Thank goodness it was only in this one room, however after cleaning the rest of the house that night I do wonder how many cats this lady had.  There was cat litter in every single room and cat claw marks were found on every single door inside and out.  There was even cat hair stuck to the backsplash in the kitchen! 

Someone keep telling me it will all be worth it....it will.....right????


I will leave you today with a nice little photo of the carpet after it was removed.  Hopefully you have already eaten for the day

The American Dream

We did it!  We bought a house!! 

Don't we look excited?!  This was the first night we had keys and we were both so tired we could barely finish our beers!!

We are now the proud owners of a 1970's ranch style home. The house has "good bones" as they all say, but boy does it need some updating!  About 85% of the house is covered in wallpaper.  There are nasty popcorn ceilings throughout the entire house, wood paneling, and random walls and closets where it seems there should be none among many other awesome discoveries that will be discussed later.  Talk about work!!  With my husband's awesome construction ability and my eye for design we have the makings of something beautiful...eventually. 

The move was long and difficult.  It felt like we were never going to be able to actually get all of our precious things from one house to the other.  In fact, it took us almost a week to totally "move in".  At one point we considred just tossing half our crap and moving on...there comes a point in a move when your "precious nick nack" becomes a piece of crap you could care less about.

Do I look nervous or what?!  That UHaul truck was HUUUUGE!!!

We have lived in the house for almost two weeks now and there are projects started all over the house.  I know everyone tells you to start one project and finish it before you move to the next, but there is so much to do and I can only strip wallpaper for so long before I want to do something else!

Stay tuned for renovations and transformations....hopefully!!