31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 10

When you buy a house, you always have a list of requirements, right?  Things like: must have 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice sized yard, and a decent kitchen.  Our list was fairly broad, considering that we knew we were going to have buy a lemon and fix it up.  But one thing we knew we had to have: a garage.

If you look back at day 1, you'll notice that there's no garage.  There's a carport.  Have a look:

Ryan took a break from the inside to work on getting the garage all squared-away.  He framed it in first:

That's Ryan's employee, Will, working on our house. Hi Will!

Now it's all wrapped up in the black paper-stuff (that's the technical term for it.)  Actually, my husband is away on a missions trip in Guatemala right now so I can't ask him what the paper is actually called.  But it's necessary, that much I do know.  

After we had it framed in, we ordered a garage.  Which, by the way, was super hard to do!  I had no idea there were so many choices!  Did we want windows?  No windows?  How many windows?  An insulated door or a non-insulated door?  A wooden door or a fiber-glass door?  Ryan, the sweet guy that he is, left it up to me to choose.  So I did.  And, of course I picked the most expensive one: 

Ryan stepped in at this point and said, "ok.  you can choose one on THIS page of the brochure.  This is the cheap page."  Ya know how once you get an idea in your head any other thing looks mediocre?  Yeah.  That stinks.  And it took me a longer time than it should have to pick one out.  But, I have to say, I do like the one we ended up choosing.  Here she is:

I was able to keep the windows that I liked but we opted for a cheaper, fiber-glass option.  It's perfectly fine and achieves the look I wanted without the cost going through the roof.  It's also super quiet, which is handy for those napping kids.

Tomorrow we're gonna take a look at the house after the siding was all taken off! It made an immediate, awesome difference.

See y'all tomorrow!

Elita

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 9

Today we're gonna talk about really feminine things.  Things that make every woman's heart beat faster and makes her smile get wider.  Yep, you guessed it:  roofing and framing.

Ok, so those aren't feminine things at all.  They're not even fun things.  But, in a renovation, they're necessary.  And I can't remember a time in my life when I was ever so excited to see a new roof on a house.  Until I saw it on our dump of a house.

So here's the thing about a roof: it's like your protection from the elements.   If you're renovating and you have a bad roof...what's the point of renovating the inside?  If it rains, it could potentially ruin all that beautiful hard work on the inside.  So, you gotta get that roof taken care of FIRST.  And we did!

Luckily, we picked a beautiful non-rainy Vancouver week  to have the roofers come and work on the house.  This is one of the few things we did hire out.  NO REGRETS there!

Ryan took off the fascia boards before the roofers came.  (No idea what I'm talking about?  That's ok...I had no idea what they were either.  Look at the base of the roof-line and you'll notice that on the left there's half of a white board missing. But above the ladder the white board is there.  See it?  That white board is the fascia board.)

Anyways!  Ryan took them down before the roofers came.

Here she is half-way through the new roof being put on:

And here is an after picture of the roof all done!  Also, I don't know if this is true everywhere or just in British Columbia, but the roofers also put on the gutters and drain pipes.  Which seemed odd to me, but it was perfect! Unfortunately, as you see in the picture below, they were initially installed in black.  We ordered white.  So they replaced them one day, no problem-o.

Besides roofing, framing is the other thing that makes a woman's heart go pitter-patter.  So you can see in the above picture that our carport is now enclosed in black paper.  That's because we turned it into a garage.  Bam! Framed it in. Oh yes we did!  It's super small, mind you, but we could theoretically fit my Ford Flex in there.  If I didn't care about my kids opening their doors and hitting walls.  Or if I didn't care that I might have to crawl in through the sunroof.  Call me picky, but I do care about those things.  So our garage is used for storage at the moment.  And it's lovely.


Tomorrow I'll do a full-write up on the garage and I'll snap a quick pic to show you what it currently looks like.  I'll even try not to straighten it up so you can see it "for real" and not photo-shopped.

Have a beautiful day and I'll see y'all tomorrow,

Elita

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 8

Yesterday we left off with the upstairs of our house pretty much torn apart.   Today we get to move downstairs to see what it looked like after the initial demo-process.

Do you see that toilet in the corner over there?  Spoiler alert: my oldest son's bed now sits in that exact spot.  I like to remind him from time to time that his room is actually a bathroom.  He doesn't think it's funny.  But hey, he's only 9.

Are you a visual learner?  I am.  So sometimes I need help along the way.  For those of you like me, here's a reminder of what that bathroom area looked like before:

Now moving onto the laundry room, which was actually to the right of that bathroom.  We found all sorts of goodies behind the dryer including, but not limited to, books, bugs, and dust:

Here's a picture before we took out the washer and dryer (which we sold, by the way!  For $600!).  It was the oddest little nook to shove a washer and dryer into:

This was the kitchen area:

Here's a before of the kitchen:

Honestly, the downstairs was such a mess, and the layout was so confusing, that it doesn't make much sense for me to do many before/afters.  So I'll just show you the torn apart pictures in order for you to get a feel of what we had to work with:

So there's the downstairs all torn apart and ready for something to get done!  

Come back tomorrow!  We're gonna talk framing and roofing. Girl-style. ;)

Cheers!

E

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 7

Today I am going to show lots of pictures without tons of explanation.  Hopefully the pictures can do the talking for me.   :)

But first I should be honest with you and tell you that these pictures were taken after about 3 days of working non-stop on the house.  Walls were removed, plumbing turned off, electrical wiring re-configured (so we could still have power without killing ourselves), and lots more you don't even want to know about (like getting those toilets out of the house and into the dumpster. GROSS). 

You may be wondering why, in the midst of the demo, are there still drapes on the walls?!  Well, that was my brilliant husband's idea.  He shut them every night so people couldn't see in and either get nosy or else try to steal power tools that were left on the job site.  And since we didn't care if they got dirty or not, I was fine with those cat-hair infested drapes to stay put.

This is what was once the master bedroom:

Old master and bathroom:

See those black spots on the floor?  That's no good. It's rotten floor and had to be torn out and replaced (eventually).

These are the other 2 bedrooms.  That bedroom on the left is the only room in the whole house that was left un-touched (except for paint color).  It's getting ready to go through another "mini-reno" process as we turn it into a nursery for baby #4!

Here's a random funny fact for ya:  as we took the walls down, we found out that they had been insulated with NEWSPAPER.  I mean, I am no construction guru (that's my husband), but even I was laughing at the discovery of newspaper in between all of the walls.  I wondered if those poor people froze during these Canadian winters!? Like I said, random.  But I thought maybe somebody would get a kick out of it.

Well that's about it for today!

Tomorrow we move downstairs so you can see what it looked like after Ryan and his guys got all of the walls removed.  Think....gross.

See y'all tomorrow!
Elita

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 6

I AM SO EXCITED!

Sorry, I didn't mean to yell.  I'm just so excited to finally begin showing the actual renovation process.

So here's how it happened:  on November 2nd we got possession of our dump house. We immediately went to town on the demo process.

(***First thing in a reno: you need a dumpster.  We got possession at 1:00 pm and had our dumpster delivered at 1:01 pm).

The first thing we did was rip up the carpets and the laminate flooring.  And yes, I did actually help with that.  I got to put on a mask (the previous owners had indoor cats and I'm allergic) and then pulled up most of the carpet and under-lay all by myself.  The guys had bigger and better things to do.  Like tear down walls and use power tools.  Every bit of the old house went into that dumpster.   And at the end of day 1 demo, here's what we ended up with:

[That stud in the white hat is my hubs.]

Just to remind you, here's what it looked like before from that same view:

So those walls are gone, the floors are gone and it's a full-on construction site!  

***Money-saving tip***

We opted to keep the old fridge and kept it plugged in for the guys.  They kept their water bottles and their lunches in there.  It turned out to be a smart idea because in the end, we probably saved a lot of money by Ryan bringing leftovers everyday rather than running out to grab a quick lunch.  We also saved the microwave for heating up food.  After the reno was done, we sold the microwave and moved the fridge into the garage where I now use it to keep all of my extras.  (Because when you have 3 growing boys, one fridge just doesn't seem to cut it.).

Sadly, I don't have more pictures of the end of our 1st day in the house.  I think I was too exhausted to think about anything but sleep.  But don't you worry!  Come back tomorrow for pictures of the rest of the upstairs.

Have a beautiful day,

E 

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation: Day 5

Today we move to the downstairs of our soon-to-be-not-a-dump-house.  Is that too many dashes?  It felt appropriate as I was typing.

Anyways, let's get this tour started and let's head downstairs...


When you get to the bottom of these stairs, the layout gets insane. Insane, I tell ya!  When you turn left, it opens to a weird mud room, bathroom, and laundry room. But if you turn right, it's a suite.  A suite that you rent out.  For money.  As in, a whole other kitchen is down there.  As in, someone else lives under you and shares your laundry room and could technically come right on up your stairs and get in your fridge if you weren't home.


I've learned, since moving here, that suites are very common.  LOTS (if not, most) people have them because housing costs are so expensive.


But I'm from the south.  Sharing a house sounds...well, it sounds kinda weird to me.   BUT honestly, I would have been willing to have a suite in the right house with the right renters.  This house was just too small for us to keep a suite, what with us having 3 boys and now a 4th kid on the way.  We basically have our own army to house and feed.

Let's see some pictures:

Suite to the right.  Garage/mudroom to the left.

This is the mud room/storage room.  We actually weren't entirely sure what they used it for.

"Hallway" going to the "laundry room".  Can you see it back in there?  A dryer shoved in the corner.

Downstairs bathroom (shared between the owners and renters.):

 Here is the actual suite.  It was a 1-bedroom suite with a kitchen and a little living room.

Here's the kitchen:

Money-Making Tip:

Once again, we sold the appliances from this kitchen.  We didn't get much $ (because, hey, they were OLD), but again...anything helps in a reno.  Selling appliances (and anything else salvageable around the house, like light fixtures) really helped with purchasing the newer appliances (which we bought for cash at a local refurbishing place. More on that later!)

On to the bedroom in the suite:

It's a little weird seeing all of these pictures because it's easy for me to forget what the original layout looked like.  It's so different now!  And I cannot wait to show you!

Come back tomorrow for the beginning of the demolition process.  By the end of day 6, you'll see the floors all gone and a lot of the walls gone to get an open-concept feel. 

Thanks again for stopping by!

See y'all tomorrow,

E

31 Days to a Complete Home Renovation : Day 4

Update (August 2018): I have a new and easier to navigate website: www.elitafriesen.com  Come visit me over there for our newest renovation!

As you may remember from yesterday, we are in the middle of touring the before pictures of our ugly little Canadian house.  But before I get on with the rest of the upstairs, I thought it would be fun to give you a little SNEAK PEEK to the end of the project.

SO, here is the before and after of the outside of our house:

I literally just went outside and took this bottom picture of our house.  On my old iphone.  So excuse the cloudy-streaky things coming off of the windows.  But if you can get past my poor photography skills, then I think you'll see what I see: an ugly little house turned into a pretty-cute little house. (But let's face it, it wouldn't have taken much to make it better, right?)

On to today! 

Let's finish touring the upstairs of the house.

Here is the living room:

Looking down the stairs to the front door:

Hallway to the 3 upstairs bedrooms and 1 bathroom:

Bathroom:

Bedroom #1:

Bedroom #2:

Master Bedroom:

{If you're anything like me, you're aching for things to start coming down.  Like that carpet.  It's just begging to get ripped out!  Or those curtains that are too short.  Somebody please just rip 'em down!}

Tomorrow we'll move downstairs and see the layout.  And day 6 will be the first day of demo!  Can I get an amen?!

See y'all tomorrow,

E