More Before and After shots..

This is the down stairs bathroom. The toilet is to the left of the picture. It is squished between the wall and the tub. Merritt couldn't even sit on the toilet because his legs wouldn't fit in the space unless he turned side ways. 

We tore out everything, and I mean everything! The tub, sink, ceiling, walls, siding, and flooring. The cubby is the old coat closet. Our plan is to put the toilet in that space and make more room in the bathroom for the tub and vanity. We also removed the walls that created a cubby for the fridge in the kitchen to put that space back into the bathroom. By making those two changes we have almost doubled the square footage in the bathroom. We cut out a new doorway which is seen to the right. The door on the left is the just an entry to the coat closet and the old bathroom door. We are going turn that space into the new closet and cover all the old door ways with drywall. 

  

This is what you originally saw when you walked into the home. In the midst of demolition you could see all the way to the sliding glass doors on the far end of the kitchen. That is through the bathroom as well. Eventually we will fix this.

This is the den or the downstairs bedroom. It had a barely standing closet that we tore out. We uncovered some water damage and a huge hole of lath and plaster that we will need to replace. This is also the only room with all the original detailing. The hardwood floors are in great shape. The large window has this beautiful dark trim and matching baseboards around the whole room. As the can see the plaster needs a lot of love. I have a feeling when the house is done this will be my favorite room. 

 

We cut a larger doorway from the entry into the living room. It makes the entry feel more open although it is not traditional to 1900s homes. I love that light from that window can now shine into the living room. This wall paper was the original in the living room when the home was built. This is the largest piece I was able to salvage. Its really pretty, too bad they covered it up with fake wood paneling.

KItchen Fresh Start

The final days of demolition have come. We are still doing little things here and there. The goal was to open up the space, create better flow throughout the downstairs and to take advantage of unused space by making it more functional. Honestly, once we were done ripping everything apart it felt way cleaner and nicer inside... If that's possible. It was really fun and took a lot of work. We didn't hire any help for the actual tear down, but had some help cleaning out all the debris.The kitchen before we started any work..

This is the same corner. Sink is in the garage waiting to be refinished and reused. We tore out all the cabinets as well as the plaster walls and window. You can also see the beginnings of our efforts to uncover the hard wood floors. The hardest part about the floors is the felt sub layer that we are scrapping by hand because it is so thick it can't be sanded off. 

This is the right corner of the kitchen. The pantry is located through the yellow door way to the right. You can also see the drop ceiling in the picture.

Drop ceiling gone. Terrible wall paper gone. Plastered walls gone. Pantry gone!

It's difficult to see in this picture but the flooring in the corner beyond the framing is completely slanted. It slants one inch down to the outside corner and tilts to both outside walls. There are multiple pitches going on it was crazy. If anyone can tell me the purpose of such a floor please let me know because we couldn't figure it out.

And The Hammer Comes Down

We began demolition on Friday. I was able to pop in and out to help, but most of the work was started by the general contractor, Jack AKA my dad. I did get to sledge hammer out a bunch of dry wall that was surrounding some beautiful brick. It was the old fireplace, but it is no longer safely usable. Currently the gas lines are all plumbed through it. We started in the living room. Its the heart of this house. It had a terrible drop ceiling that reminded me of elementary school and throwing pencils in the ceiling when the teacher wasn't looking. We tore it completely out including all of the lighting. The room was also wall to wall fake wood paneling. That came out as well. Underneath we found plaster walls and original wall paper from 1900. We plan to patch all the plaster because there is extensive water damage You'll see in some of the photos the lath and plaster construction. This is a traditional way of building up walls and ceilings in older homes. We plan to keep as much of it as possible. There were two built ins that we removed and are saving to reuse later on.

Saturday we really dug in. Merritt and Jack started early. They tore out a wall that closed off the entrance to the coat closet. It was a recent addition, done when the owner started renting out the upstairs. The bathroom needs to be completely reconfigured so everything came out, almost down to the framing (toilet, tub, sink, cupboards). In the afternoon some friends (saints really) Tyler and Sierra came to help. This is when the kitchen demo began. The kitchen required the most work in ripping it apart! We began by removing the washer and dryer and a wash sink at least 30 years old. We ripped out the wall separating the laundry room from the pantry, all of the shelving inside the pantry the drop ceiling came out, the many, many layers of wall coverings (paint, wall paper, paneling...) It was a productive day and honestly the house looks better now than before we tore it apart! The crap has been stripped away and the character can now shine through!

The left doorway is the kitchen the right is the den

so much better right?!

the wood paneling in this room was the same as in living room.

 Olivia was a great motivator!

The bathroom... gutted!

the view into the bathroom from the kitchen once we removed the wall.

Laundry room gutted..

pantry

1900s original flour dispenser.

Can the see the awesome brick wall paper below the wood paneling?

pantry gutted. 

This room was an add on so that window is an outdoor window although it is separating the laundry room from kitchen. The plan is to cut that out and create a breakfast bar here.

Tyler was avoiding being knocked in the head by debris

Our planning office

Our Beginnings...

Merritt and I just jumped into our first house flip. We started the house hunt 6 months ago in Moscow, Id and quickly realized our budget wasn't as big as our eyes. We looked at several homes and were not excited about any of them. They were all at the top of our budget, didn't fulfill half our 'must haves' and needed lots of updates. When my parents came to visit we set up a few appointments to see homes for sale. One was very exciting. It was anything but move in ready! It was in my ideal neighborhood and had great bones as the HGTV channel would say. I loved the idea of buying a fixer upper, but it required convincing the man in charge.. my husband.

Eventually he jumped on board. We closed on October 31st 2013, Halloween. For those of you that know Merritt the date was meaningful. Good omens so far...

We began right away and documenting the process is going to be part of our process. We hope to show our journey from the demolition to the last coat of paint as the realistic roller coaster that a renovation is!