The Craziest DIY You'll Ever See [On This Blog]

We bought an older home (built in 1956) and we knew we wanted to do some projects to it to get it up to date.  The house was in liveable condition, but we wanted to do some updates.  Thankfully, the previous owners updated several expensive things just a couple of years ago (roof, windows, water heater, cabinets, counters, bathrooms, and appliances), so we primarily wanted to do some cosmetic updates.  I spend a large amount of my day in the kitchen and knowing that James would be under my feet in the kitchen made me really want to update that area.  Here are some before pictures of the kitchen/dining room -

The pantry and random closet are pictured below.  The pantry was pretty much not functional since it was about 10 inches wide and 2 feet deep.  It did have some shelves in it, but we had already taken them out when this picture was taken.  And then the random closet was just plain scary.  There were no walls - you could just see the 2x4 studs.  There was no floor - there was a metal piece of something that was covering a hole in the floor - when we picked up the metal piece, you could see straight down to the dirt in the foundation of the house.  And the ceiling was questionable - there were parts where you could see the insulation from the attic.  This was the scary room.  I didn't store anything in there and I tried my best to not even open the door. 

See - No walls!  And the floor was a metal piece of something that was just covering a hole!

So - Those are the before pictures!  And this is what we (we = Ray and his dad) set out to do:

- Combine both the pantry and the unusable closet into one functional pantry

- Put new walls in the pantry

- Install electrical outlet and light in the pantry

- Install new shelves in the pantry

- Prime and paint the new pantry

- Scrape the dining room and kitchen ceiling (these two rooms had popcorn ceiling and the rest of our house has flat ceilings)

- Install new lighting in the kitchen over the sink and in the middle of the kitchen and patch up holes where the old lighting was

- Scrape, sand, and mud the ceiling (and repeat four times)

- Prime and paint the ceiling

- Scrape the walls in the kitchen (they had a popcorn texture on them) and sand the walls

- Prime and paint the walls in the kitchen

- Rip out the old tile, the 2 layers of vinyl under the tile, and the old sub-floor in the kitchen and entry

- Move some of the kitchen counters to get tile out from under there also.

- Install backer board for the new tile

- Put down lots of thin-set and put down new tile (uneven floor = need for lots of thin-set)

- Clean out the thin-set between the tiles

- Put grout down between the tiles

- Install all new toe-kicks under all the kitchen cabinets

- Install all new base molding and shoe molding in the kitchen and entry

- Prime and paint new toe-kicks, molding, and shoe molding in the kitchen and entry

- Install thresholds 

- Caulk.  Caulk covers a multitude of sins and is always the last thing to do in a huge project like this

And so Ray and his dad got started on the epic project on Labor Day weekend.  They started with the pantry-

 And there's the hole in the floor I was talking about-

The next day they started working on the ceiling and walls in the pantry.  Ray was still feeling pretty good about the project at this point-

 Yay for electricity in my pantry!

And then Ray started sanding.  And sanding.  And sanding some more.  Dry wall work is beastly work.  He is way more of a man than I am.  Oh right... that's a good thing since I'm not a man.  But anyway... drywall is awful.  We put up plastic to try to keep the dust away from the rest of the house, but you can only do so much.

Once Ray finished sanding, I primed and painted the pantry and then Ray hung the shelving.  We decided to go with adjustable shelving and I'm glad we did.  We got 5 shelves total, but we can always buy more in the future. 

After the pantry was almost complete, Ray worked on scraping the popcorn off the ceiling.  It was a mess!  

After the ceiling was scraped, Ray's dad came over and spent the weekend with Ray working on electrical projects.  They took the old florescent lights out of the kitchen and installed new incandescent recess lights.  This lighting completely changed the feel of the kitchen.  It went from cold and dim to feeling bright and warm.  I love my new lighting.  They also moved the florescent light that was over the sink to the inside of the pantry.  They installed more recessed incandescent lights over the sink and put them on a different switch so that I can have just those lights on by themselves (for a nice low light at night) if I want.  I LOVE my new lighting.

After the new lighting was installed, it was time for more sanding.  And more sanding.  And more sanding.  Ray stayed up several nights past midnight sanding.  I would just cook dinner in the crock pot because there was no room or clean place to cook otherwise.  Ray worked so so hard.  He would come home from work, spend a few minutes with James, get a quick bite to eat, and then mud and sand for over six hours straight.  He did this for about a week.  This is what the house looked like in the sanding phase-

Finally done with sanding and now painting!

And when Ray works really hard on a project like this, he becomes obsessive. Here he is stalking the ceiling with a lamp and a roller - hunting down the slightest imperfection and attempting to hide it as fast as possible.

After Ray painted the ceiling, he painted the walls in the dining room and the kitchen.  I don't have any pictures of him painting the walls, but we went with Liveable Green by Sherwin Williams.  You can see the green in the next picture.  

After the painting was complete, it was time for the last (and probably most difficult stage) - the tile.  He spent a whole day and a half just taking the old stuff out.  We wanted to replace the tile for several reasons: 1 - It was installed improperly to begin with and for that reason, about 25% of the tiles were cracked. 2 - The grout looked horrible (it was coming up and it was stained and I could never get it clean). 3 - The tile in the entry and the kitchen didn't match and I wanted them to match. 4 - It was just gross.  No matter how much I scrubbed and cleaned, I couldn't get it clean.  I didn't even like walking on the tile, so I knew I didn't want James crawling, laying, or scooting on it. 

After he got the tile out, he still had to take out 2 layers of vinyl.

And then he had to take out the sub-floor

And then they had to move the cabinets in the middle of the kitchen out of the kitchen and they had to move all of the appliances out too.

Here's the hole where the dishwasher was.  Pictured below is a very dirty floor and two very very hard workers!

 Since they had to move the cabinets, I got to take a picture of what the walls looked like before Ray scraped, sanded, and painted them.  I don't know who thought that white popcorn textured walls were cool, but they must have been crazy.  I prefer the green all day long.  And especially with a child who I know will get the walls dirty... how was I supposed to clean the popcorn?  Glad I don't have to worry about that!  Anyway... the popcorn is covered up again behind the cabinets and hopefully I will never have to see it in the future. 

Next, it was time for the backer board.  You are supposed to put this down so that your tile does not crack.  You can't just put layers of floor on top of one another like the previous owners did.  

 And then it was finally time for the tile to go down!  Yay!  And the work began-

And the appliances spent time in the dining room-

So this became my best friend-

And then I became a slacker taking pictures.  But here's Ray doing some finishing touches in the entry-

And the final product!  Here are the after shots!  

 The function of the pantry is a constant source of debate between Ray and me.  I call it a pantry.  He calls it a tool closet.  Currently, it is holding both kitchen items and tools.  I guess we're both right and wrong. 

 My aunt gave me these drawings of bugs.  I wasn't really convinced when she gave them to me that I'd like them, but since she's an interior decorator and I love all her work, so I trusted her and gave it a shot.  Now I love the bugs on my wall! 

I'm beyond thankful for the numerous days that Ray and his dad put in this project.  They worked and worked and worked and worked.  We would never be able to do something like this if we had to pay someone to do it.  I'm so proud of my talented husband and his dad!  And James LOVES his floor!  He scoots around on it, drools on it, and plays in the kitchen on a daily basis.  

My favorite outcomes of this project: 

- I feel like the kitchen is actually clean and I don't mind sitting on the floor or even letting James lick the floor (yes, he's been known to do that).  

- I love the lighting.  Everything is so bright and the lights feel so warm.  

- The pantry is welcoming and functional!  Gone are the days of the scary closets without walls and holes in the floor.  Even if it functions more as a tool closet than a pantry, I'm glad it's not wasted space and that it's not scary. 

We won't be doing a project like this for a very long time, but I'm glad that we did it and it's done.  We finished in early December.  Oh - and if you're wondering - sorry, but Ray is not for hire ;)