Another week, more progress

Demo is pretty much complete and now things are moving forward in the paint, plumbing, and electrical departments.

Kitchen cabinets were donated to Habitat for Humanity.

Upstairs trim was painted.

We painted Clara's room.

We got a good look at a window in the basement that had been covered up and was leaking lots of water (yuck!).

And we chose a lot more paint colors. It is handy to ask Home Depot for their color book if you can't find colors chips that you like. In looking through the book, I found so much similarity in the colors we used in Bexley with those we have chosen for Ridgewood. Many are just lighter or darker shades of colors we have used in the past, and a few are the exact same.

This week, kitchen rough-in is happening. 

Meanwhile downstairs

The crew was busy downstairs installing new joists in the kitchen to straighten the walls and ceiling and removing lots of wallpaper. They made great progress this week!

 Here's where the wallpaper had been:

And this shows where they removed it all today:

And here's more of the hallway from before the paper was removed:

And after:

We're also converting two small master closets into one larger one and adding a pocket door. They got the wall and door framed as well. They removed separate closet heaters that each closet had, which probably made for some cozy clothes during the winter!

The attic...

The previous owners left a lot of stuff in the attic, so over the last few weeks we've been trying to spend extra time cleaning out many boxes of papers, clothes, and random things stashed up there for 50 years!

 Most of the boxes and bags used to store things have disintegrated, leaving piles of plastic flecks amongst the contents.

We haven't found any lost treasures yet, but  we have come across a few interesting things, like a Life magazine from a week after JFK was assassinated.

And some parts to a Polaroid camera.

And some call notes from 1958.

Another cool find was Life from a few weeks after Neil walked on the moon in 1969! We set this aside to keep.

After filling 20 contractor-sized trash bags, we're probably 65% done...

Blueprints

Here are the as-is plans for the house.

And here are the proposed plans. Most changes at this point are concentrated in the kitchen, master closet, and basement.

One week in

After one day of demo, here's how the kitchen was looking.

And after a week, here's the same view.

Looking back towards the dining room:

Lots of red tile and concrete were removed too, making room for travertine in the kitchen, hallway, and entry way.

Carpet was removed from the upstairs hallway floors and two bedrooms. The wood floors underneath are going to be refinished.

We found a weird coloring on the floor in Spencer's bedroom. No idea what this is about, but sanding and staining will hopefully take care of it.

And the bright red carpet is gone!

And here's how things are looking for floors, walls, curtains, etc. for the first floor. Lots of soothing neutrals, blues, and textures.

Lots of "before" pictures

We've taken lots of pictures throughout the process of purchasing the house and planning the renovations. Here are some of the more shocking ones - because there's so much wallpaper - and some of the encouraging ones, because there's also lots of hardwood floors and built-ins.

Entryway

Living Room

Office

Kitchen

Dining Room

Stairs

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #3

Bedroom #4

Bathrooms

Basement

Back in the day, someone used to throw great parties down there with the built-in radio!