A Shout-Out to Brad

It has been brought to my attention that a picture of my neighbor Brad hasn't been added to our blog yet. So, this is the official Shout-out to Brad Engelberg! Him and his wife Holly (and their 4 boys) live next to us, and we are SOOOO blessed to have a contractor living next door! Brad was the one who mudded the drywall on the dining room ceiling, he has helped us diagnose a mysterious bathroom leak early on a Saturday morning, and without his help, our new fridge would still be sitting in our garage! We're also very thankful to Holly, for lending him to us, often last minute, when we get stuck on something. It's so nice to have neighbors we like!! Thank you guys!

Making Room

Part of the kitchen project that needed to be done ASAP was that the new fridge needed to be brought in from the garage before it started freezing at night. We got an INCREDIBLE deal on it, and so bought it when we could in cash. It was a model that the original price was $1400. Lowes had it on sale for $1200. The open-box, display model was on clearance for $900. There was a dent in the side (which would be hidden by the wall), so the manager marked it down to $700. We had $590 in our remodel cash account, and I talked to the manager on duty about our desire to pay for our kitchen remodel in cash, and not incur any more debt than we already have (and are working hard to pay off!). I told him how much we had, and he said SOLD! So, the first thing we had to do was make room for it in the kitchen, so we could get it out of the garage before it froze :-)

This is the area we had to work with. The old fridge was shorter and smaller than the new one, so we knew that we were going to have to tear out cabinets to make a spot.

It would have been easier to tear out the cabinets with a chainsaw and sledgehammer, like they do on tv, but we had already determined that we were going to try to make the best use out of old cabinets, and use them in other places in the house- namely the playroom, basement, and future mudroom. Thus, everything had to be removed carefully! Unfortunately, like so many other things in this house, things were not done correctly! Cabinets are supposed to be screwed into the wall! Instead, they were nailed in with 3 inch nails, which had to be pried out, one at a time.

Then of course, because nothing can be too easy, the cabinet got stuck when we were taking them out! The back of the cabinets, and the shelves, had to be removed so that the cabinet could be taken out!


Meet our layers of flooring. Of course- why wouldn't there be layers in the kitchen too?! There is 70s rolled out vinyl, on top of 50's snakeskin looking floor tiles that we're PRETTY SURE contain asbestos, and below that is the original hardwood which we already refinished in the rest of the downstairs.

Now that the cabinets in the area are all torn out, note the doorway which we found behind there! Apparently, our downstairs half bath used to be the pantry- accessible from the kitchen. When the doorway into it from the front hallway was put in, this doorway was closed over. We wish we could figure out how to use it to create a coat closet (which was combined with the pantry to create the bathroom), but that may take some more finagling!

And, after much tugging and heavy lifting from Jeff and our neighbor Brad (thank you!!), the new digital fridge is in our kitchen, just in time for the freeze overnight tonight! Until we get the floor torn out next weekend, we're not going to put in any cabinets at this time. This also allows us to move the food from one fridge to the other too. But for now, it's nice to have 2 fridges, and I'm SUPER excited about the new one (it is all digital inside, and even has a drawer that flash thaws frozen meat). YAY for the new fridge!!

Let's tear some stuff down!

We knew the first time that we came through the house, that the kitchen we going to be one of the first things that we would redo! It was circa 1970s and in desperate need up some updating! I will say now, that our budget for the entire room is $4000. A year-end bonus will allow us to pay for the room in cash, if we can keep it under that amount. For those of you who have built, or remodeled a kitchen, I'm sure that you know that the average price for a LOW RANGE kitchen is $25,000. Thus, this will provide a huge challange to my deal- seeking abilities :-)

We had a few people comment on the beams running across the ceiling. Please note, for those of you who haven't seen them, that they are made out of FOAM. You will note in the picture, Meg easily sticking a fork into them...

We promised her when we moved in, that when it came time to tear out the beams, that she would be allowed to pull them down. Well, it was about that time... :-)

After we took out the frosted ceiling tiles, there were, once again, many LAYERS underneath. Besides the frosted ceiling panels and foam beams, there were shop lights, then fiberboard ceiling panels, then the original plaster, then the lathe, and finally the floor joists of the second floor, as well as the plumbing running to the upstairs bathroom (convenient for running that second bathroom up to the secret room!)

The Secret Room

We've had many requests to put up a post about the secret room :-). A brief recap of the story of how we discovered it: We removed some of the ceiling tiles in the kitchen the month after we moved into the house, to see if the same 10 foot ceilings were in the kitchen that were in the rest of the house. While looking up, I noticed a window that I originally thought was Teddy's room. Then, I realized that the curtains were different! We went outside around the house, and verified that there was indeed a window on the west side of the house that we had never noticed. Our neighbor brought over his ladder and climbed up to look into the window (mainly to make sure there were no dead bodies, or anything creepy in there!), and verified that there was a full room in there! So, Jeff took the sawsall and cut into the wall in Teddy's closet. Sure enough, there was the "secret room" . Completely walled over, but still complete with trim, curtains on the windows, and even an old wooden bed frame!



There was also a fair amount of construction debris in there, including a door frame, and lots of other stuff. There was also a capped off radiator pipe in there as well- showing that heating used to run up into the room.

The back part of the room was seperated by a half wall, and in the corner there were hooks on the walls, and even some old windows.

The plan is now to take down the half wall, make a real entry into the room from the bedroom (instead of climbing through the hole Jeff cut in the closet!). Then, we will switch rooms with the boys and make that the master bedroom instead :-). While we have the ceiling torn out in the kitchen, we will have a plumber run plumbing up into the secret room, and it will become a master bath (something we had given up on having when we bought this house!). Instead now, we'll have a 10x10 bathroom (and hopefully even enough room for a whirlpool tub :-)!

Tah - Dah!!

Let's try to do this in true HGTV fashion...
Before- this formal dining room, once stately, had been hidden under layers and years of cosmetic "improvements". 2 layers of paneling, and 8 layers of wallpaper, large draping curtains which hid the original woodwork, and drop ceilings which lowered the 10 foot ceiling height down to 8 feet...



A hidden pocket door was kept shut for decades, pinned behind the wall by layers of carpeting and flooring. All of which hid the original hardwood floors from when the house was first built...

After: The plaster walls were patched and restored, and painted with a granite textured paint in a dark brick color. An updated, but historic looking iron light fixture replaced the 70s fixture. Crown molding was added around the top of the room to draw the eye upwards and accentuate the high ceilings. The wooden floors were sanded and refinished to their original glory, and the 10 inch baseboard and quarter-round was added around the room, as it would have been when first assembled from the Sears kit.

Though artwork and wall sconces still need to be added, it is still a far cry from the wallpapered, carpeted, crop ceilinged room we found when we moved in!