House Renovations: Week 3

We are in our 3rd week of working on the house and things are changing.  Slowly, but surely, the 3 of us are making some progress.  It may not go really fast, but we are getting there and taking all these progress pics will be fun to go back and look at later.  That’s when the progress will really be seen.  These will be major Before and Afters one day.

My parents are troopers and we are spending about 3 or 4 days a week over there, usually 4 to 5 hours at a time.  I don’t think I mentioned this before, but my dad is quite experienced at renovations.  My dad is a retired Pastor and pastored since my sister and I were born. They were well-loved (and still are) by our small congregation.

But back in their younger years, they bought rental houses and fixed them up and had several at a time that they kept for years and rented out.  He finally sold all of them, getting tired of keeping them up.  So, even though it’s been probably 25 years or so since my dad has done any major renovations, it’s in his blood and he is quite capable of getting the job done.  He did a lot of the building on my first house back in 1985.  I’m so grateful to still have them with me on this one.  This just might be my last house!  I do believe I’ll be quite happy in this one for years to come.

Mom and I worked at pulling up the carpet in the living room this week and got that job done.  She’s been working on removing all the staples from the floor.

Piles of carpet and carpet pad are everywhere.  We will probably rent a dumpster after we tear everything out and just dump it all at once and have them come back and pick it up.

We finished getting out all this carpet as well as that stairway going up so it’s all down to the plywood now.

Dad was taking a break.

This one is down to the bare wood now too.  The only carpet left is in the 3 upstairs bedrooms and that will come out later this week.

These are the tools I used to get out all the staples and tackstrips.  Tedious work, but it goes pretty fast.

I ripped out the foyer stairs and got them all cleaned up too.

Down to the bare wood.

Another big feat this week was getting out most of those nasty cabinets.  When I say nasty, I mean nasty. You won’t believe how grody those things were in the back.  Apparently, this house had a major roach infestation at some point.  Thankfully, we have only seen dead bugs, 100’s of dead roaches and no live ones, so maybe at some point, someone actually sprayed in here to get rid of them.

My dad worked hard figuring out how to pull out the LONG nails (not screws) that were holding these cabinet in the studs.  He finally got it working and managed to get every cabinet off the wall, with some help from mom and I.

Working smart, by having a paint can underneath to rest the cabinets on, we got them down and out of the house.

And let me tell you, it was GROSS what was behind those cabinets. Every single one of them had major dead roaches behind them.  Stuck to the walls, stuck to the ends and backs of the cabinets.  It was SO GROSS!!  I am SO glad I didn’t decide to keep these cabinets.  The fronts and sides are solid wood, but they are pretty trashed anyway with particle board shelves and they are nasty greasy too, but I’m going to recycle the best ones down in the laundryroom.  They are definitely not nice cabinets at all.  Very beat up.

If I had not taken them down, all this filth would have been hidden back there forever and that would make me sick.  Look at all the roach poop left behind.  We will leave the lower cabinets in place for now, cause it is nice to have a working sink in here.  We won’t get to the kitchen cabinets until later in the summer.

Dead carcasses and roach poop! Have you ever seen anything more disgusting in your life?  I don’t think I have.  Who lives like this?? I can’t imagine not caring about your home any more than this, to let roaches take over.  If I need to, I will get the place sprayed again for bugs, but so far, no live ones have been spotted.

We got all of one side down and had one more section to work on the next day.  We left a bucket propped up to hold it in place since it was loosened from the wall.  That stove hood was a greasy mess too!

The entire backsplash, tops of the cabinets and the ceiling fan in here are covered in a layer of grease.  YUCK!  Grease and roach poop.  What a nice combo. 🙂

This whole side of cabinets are down and out of there.  YAY!  Major accomplishment.

Dad was pretty happy to get all of this down and outta here!

We slid them down the back stairs and used a dolly to move them around.  Mom and I washed them down with soap and water to get the worst of the bugs and poop off them.

Using the shop vac and soap and water, they look a little better.  Mom is the clean up lady.  She’s the bomb with a shop vac and broom.  She goes around cleaning up the stuff left behind.  We will save the best ones and use them down in my large laundry room area for storage.  I’ll decide that part later, but we took those inside that doorway there to the downstairs storage room.

After getting all of the YUCK off first.  YUCK, I’ll say it again.  SO disgusting. Those roaches had a regular roach motel going behind there.

So, it was time to get back to the board and batten.  We finished the top 2 rows of that around the room and we’ll finish up the battens later this week.  It’s going to look SO good.

Dad and daughter hands.  He still likes to hammer those nails into a stud. My manicures are not at the top of the list these days.

I took my nail set and drove them in.

Hammer and nail set.

And now all those holes need is a little caulk and they will be ready to paint.  I’ll get the nail gun back out to pop in those battens.  Love my nail gun!

If I can’t afford to get a new stove at the end of this kitchen reno, I can use the one that is there for awhile.

The top looks bad, apparently the folks who lived here cooked some major meals on top of the stove and heated up that back burner all the time.  It’s gross too!  I can clean it up and use it for awhile though if I have to.  And surprisingly, inside the oven is really clean.  Guess they didn’t bake.

There’s an old refrigerator left too, which really comes in handy while we are over here working.  So glad to have it!  And if I can’t get the stainless steel fridge of my dreams, I’ll use this one until I can afford one.  This one will end up in the garage eventually. I love having an extra fridge for overflow.

So, that’s the end of week 3 of the house reno!  We are making some big progress.  We should soon be ready to start painting trim.  That will be the next big job on the list.  After the rest of the carpet comes out, we will get ready to prime the stained trim with oil-based primer. Then 2 coats of trim paint.  Then, we’ll be ready to paint the walls.  I will be so excited to see the trim and walls get painted.  That’s going to be a HUGE change!

In fact, I think I will have a blogger party! So many of you have offered to come and help, so stay tuned, I think I’ll take you up on that.  I’ll announce a Saturday in the next few weeks and if you’d like to come out and help us paint, I would love that.  We’ll feed you something and have a fun painting party.  Anyone in the area who’d like to join us, let me know! 

Today is a fun day! So excited to be invited by Shaw Floors to a special day of touring the HGTV Green Home down south of Atlanta, in Serenbe.  Hoping I get to take pics inside to share with all of you, I know this will be a very special event!

The lucky winner of the $100 Lowes giftcard giveaway is here!   And pssstt!  There will be another $100 giveaway this month too, so stay tuned for that. 

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