Let’s see… this bathroom project was started a couple years ago shortly after the holidays. Next is a shot looking into the bathroom from the entrance. There is a long counter and oak cabinets with some ugly lights on the wall. Wallpaper covered all the walls except where the shower tiles are. The linoleum always looked dirty no matter how hard we tried to clean it.

Here another before shot. Notice the beautiful brown toilet.

The wallpaper came off fairly quickly with no major issues. I can’t handle the idea of ever painting over the stuff.

The shower tiles ended up staying. They were in excellent shape and matched the final colors we had planned.

The cabinets had to go. A pedestil sink would soon replace them. There were a couple layers of linoleum and the original tile which was in decent shape but cut out in a few spots and it would have been a terrible time getting all the linoleum adhesive removed. The small hole in the floor is a laundry chute down to the basement laundyroom. I ended up moving this to the right a foot or so as part of the plan for a small piece of furniture to act as a laundry chute opening. The all metal tub was in great shape and also stayed.

The next photo was after fairly significant progress was made. I must have been on a roll and forgot to take pictures. The subfloor is now covered with some plywood by this point and the trim work is completed. The plaster walls have a little orange peel texture on them now. The trimwork and wainscoting were by farm my favorite part of the project. The wainscoting is made from birch plywood covering the walls, MDF for the plate rail and horizontal pieces, and fir for the vertical pieces that create the rectangle sections. Crown moulding was also added around the room too balance out the wainscoting. Everything was puttied and primed to prevent any little nooks and crannies from trapping moisture.

I’ll finish up the bathroom project in the next posting. Thanks for checking it out.

Basically we wanted a kitchen makeover, but didn’t want to spend a fortune. Things we really wanted were:
-recessed halogen lighting
-granite countertops
-new flooring
-hanging pot rack
-white painted cabinetry

In order to make room for the hanging pot rack, I removed the faux hood over the range. It was an awkward cupboard with doors that opened at an angle. The faux hood easily came loose from the wall and the project was started.

Next, all the cupboard doors needed to get removed for painting. I wanted to do a nice spray job on them rather than brushing. I needed a new compressor and spray gun for this. I figured I was saving money over having someone else come spray them.

I used my garage as the spray booth and outfitted the covered patio with hooks to hang all the doors to dry. I sprayed on a couple coats of oil based stain blocking primer followed by a couple coats of hi-gloss white oil based paint. It went on pretty decent but my twin hot dog tank Ridgid compressor was sure getting a workout. I used this compressor combined with a Harbor Freight HVLP conversion gun. I needed to thin down the paint with some Penatrol to get a smooth finish.

I also sprayed the cabinets inside. You can see the halogens are now installed. I removed all the old recessed florescent lighting and framed/drywalled the ceiling smooth again so the halogens could now occupy the old recessed areas. The kitchen is pretty small so I used six 4” halogen floods.

I painted the cabinets in two phases, first the overhead cabinets. Then the lower cabinets after the countertops were installed. The kitchen still needed to be functional during the whole makeover so I had to do things in weekend size chunks. Here is the granite tiles I installed and the beveled edge subway tiles going in as a backsplash up the wall all the way where the hanging potrack would go. I butted the granite tiles against each other without a groutline to give the look of continous granite. I filled the joints with clear silicone wiped clean afterwards so it looks like no grout but still keeps water from going between the tiles. It actually turned pretty good. The paint on the walls is also done at this point. We also added brushed nickel knobs and pulls and replaced all the old brass hinges with brushed nickel ones.

I took some time out to build a custom high power rocket for a big event in Black Rock, Nevada.

Here are a couple pictures after the kitchen is put back together. All the trim, windows, door jambs and doors entering the kitchen were also repainted to match. I replace the old pendant light at the far end of the kitchen with a new one from schoolhouse electric
I guess I don’t have a picture of the kitchen after installing the flooring. I tore up the old linoleum to see what kind of wood flooring was under there. The floors were fir of a few different widths, while the rest of the house was oak flooring. I decided to go ahead and lay plywood over the floor and install espresso colored marmolium.

I think after it was all done, we had spent around $1000 to update the kitchen.

Here’s a before picture of the garage.

After the perimeter of the yard was fenced I also enclosed the area behind the garage to make a dog run with dog door access to the garage. As you can see, he was letting everyone know this was his yard.

This was a pretty quick build with the help of my dad and brother. It took about two full days to knock it out.

The first two pictures are from the street showing the front and a view down the street. The street is all cape cod style homes from the 40’s.

After entering the front door, the fireplace really stood out. I really like the trimwork.

Looking back into the dining room from the fireplace. The arch and coved ceilings were a nice touch.

The kitchen was in need of an update! I’ll try to post the progress in chronological order…the kitchen was the first project on the list

A small hallway area on the main floor. Nearly every room had wallpaper

The downstairs bathroom was also at the top of the list.

The stairwell heading upstairs needed some work, I wonder what’s under all that carpet?!

An upstairs bedroom with a dormer window. Those dormer add a nice open feel to the room and let in nice light.

The basement is what really sold me on the house. It is the full footprint of the house with decent ceiling height. There is a main room shown here with a fireplace and also a laundry room, utility room and small workshop (see my workshop post on lumberjocks under the username ‘freitag’)

Out back is a covered patio and detached garage. Another first project was to build a 6’ cedar fence to keep the dog in.

The back of the house has a popout upstairs for the top of the stairwell and bathroom.

That’s about it for the tour. This was the start of three years of projects so far and I don’t see any end in sight yet. That’s OK, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself otherwise….plus I need an excuse to buy more tools.

can’t seem to get the picture sized right to show the whole house…. I’ll have to work on that…