If you missed reading all the comments on the last post–go do it now. They have so many good ideas!
I wish I had something gorgeous to show you, but we are taking this remodel slowly. We are on schedule, but I purposefully made it a long one, so I could still keep up with laundry, the children, and housework (somewhat) while we did quite a bit ourselves.
Here are some photos of before, during and current.
The first before and After of my dining room. I can’t believe I tore this room up! And only a few months after I finished it. But the after is going to be so much more functional for us.
Here’s a before view with the hutches in place.
I used a garden sprayer to spray the popcorn ceiling and then scraped it onto the paper floor. The paper floor never adhered to the vinyl well, so I was able to roll it up in one sheet and carry the mess out.
Paper floor all rolled up. Buh bye! At this point I hollered for Heidi to help me carry it out. She also helped roll it so it wouldn’t tear down the middle.
When the floor was cleaned up, Darren sawzalled the laundry room down, just cutting through the nails and preserving the wood. We reused all the wood to frame the new wall and arched door.
Here’s the arched door all framed in.
Here’s a view of our old kitchen before we started tearing it down.
Here’s another before from a different angle
Here’s a view of the pantry studs left in the opening and plumbing sticking up from our old sink area. It was time to call for professionals to move the plumbing and gas lines that were in the walls.
On the other side of the room, the kitchen cabinets and peninsula are out. And I took the wallpaper down last Saturday.
The plumbing and gas line are gone. The vinyl floor is gone too. We’ll be taking up the residual glue this week. And to the right you can see stacks of boxes. That’s the new hand scraped wood floor getting used to the climate of the house. We still need to do electrical, plumbing, drywall and paint before it can go down. The bucket in the middle is to catch the drips from the second floor air conditioner. The plumber will reroute that when he comes back.
Just for fun here’s a before and current of the view from the formal living room.
This is a HUGE project. We are moving walls, relocating pluming and electrical. We thought about it and planned for months before digging in. I’ll share how we planned it a little later this week. And how we know if we are on schedule–and how we stay on budget, which is the hardest part of all.
ANglea you never cease to amaze me!you rre-model was so bautiful so I’m sur eit was hard to tear down! I think I read previously that your faux floor wasn’t workign very well in your dining room? I have ruined white carpet in my entire upstairs and we have no money to purchase normal flooring but I am wondering if I could do the leather faux floor-do you think it would hold up for a family of 6 for awhile?We aren’t the easiest on stuff…..
I also had to tear out our carpet downstairs as it flooded and was ruined an dhave been trying ot decide what to do with it as well..so tired of ugly concrete.I think if anything I should just paint it! About how much did you pay for doing just the dining room? When you put the cloth in your daughters room with the polyurethane finish was that cheaper or the paper one?Thanks for any help!
Hi Janeeen, The leather floor did great over wood subfloor. We did it over particle board but plywood subfloor would be even better. It cost me about $15 to do the dining room, but I already had paper ($10) and polyurethane ($30) left over from previous paper floors and only purchased a gallon of glue ($10) and some stain. The poly is the most expensive part. The cloth cover cost a lot more because it soaked up the poly and I used several gallons. Plus the cloth became very rough textured and wasn’t pleasant. It was better than the subfloor and a fun experiment but we were happy to carpet over it. I have several posts on my blog about how to do the faux paper floors: http://groceryshrink.com/2010/05/illustrated-guide-to-faux-leather-floors.html
and http://groceryshrink.com/2013/05/faux-leather-floor-update.html
PS. I’ve never done the paper over concrete. If your floor is in good condition, I recommend concrete stain first. If not, you might consider carpet tiles. We got ours for $1 a square foot at Big Bob’s and have seen them other places.
That old kitchen has to be one of the worst layouts I’ve even seen. How you managed to do what you do in that space is amazing! Can’t wait to see how the final kitchen comes out.
I had a kitchen flood in a house I owned (4 months after I moved in). Complete gut job. Doing dishes in the bathtub is not fun! 🙂
Renee, I agree. It was a terrible layout! I enjoy cooking in my attic and running two flights of stairs for ingredients more.
It’ll be so worth all the dust and inconvenience in the end! Good job staying on schedule and on budget!
I think you are so brave for taking on such a project! And I think it’s even more awesome that you’re doing it with peace!