We bought our house three years ago now. We knew that it needed some work. How much work, we had no idea! When we moved in we had to pretty much immediately gut the bathroom and redo the roof. Besides painting the rooms, we kind of took a very long break from making any more improvements. Part of the break was also having another baby,but now that baby is not such a baby anymore and things are piling up. I think now we are ready to start round two of home improvements. Here is a huge list of things we are looking to accomplish in the near future.
One of the things we knew we would change eventually was the flooring. When we moved in, the carpet was fairly new. I hated the color, but there was no way we were going to replace perfectly good carpeting for no reason. Well, after three years of heavy traffic and especially after these three rounds of stomach bugs, I think the time has finally come. To be honest these pictures are pretty embarrassing. We try not to wear shoes in the house and I vacuum every day, but with six people and two pets in a small house the carpet is disgusting and we've worn pretty good paths. So tonight we ordered the laminate flooring that we will use throughout the house. The only floor that will not be done is the bathroom. I'm hoping that not only will the floor look nicer but that it helps with the allergy and asthma problems I have been having. We may be laying flooring for months to come, but I'm sure it will be so worth it! So here are the gross before pictures!
Our traffic pattern is pretty obvious here.
Here is a spot that our cat and dog have dug up :(
Not to gross anyone out, but here is what happens to your carpet when someone feels the need to announce to both parents that they are going to throw up before trying to make it to the bathroom.
And here is a vomit stain courtesy of the cat!
Even the linoleum in the kitchen has ground in dirt and this is even after sweeping twice a day and washing at least weekly! Yuck!
Yeah it's a mess!
We will also be doing new trim. Whoever did the trim last did not care about matching or making sure that the trim covered the whole wall.
On top of the flooring and trim we've also been hard at work replacing rotten spots in the soffits and staining the carport as whoever built it did not use treated wood. We have put one coat of stain on and are now going to start the second coat. What a difference the white will make. It feels so much cleaner! I've been dreading this job for three years because it is so tedious and time consuming but having it done will feel great.
We are also changing the door on the shed where Rich works from a barn door red to a blue that matches our front door.
The ceiling fan in our kitchen is also broken. With the weather heating up, we decided it couldn't wait much longer to fix. And while we're at it why not just make more work and move the whole light fixture? Our kitchen isn't all that large and the position of the lights in the kitchen is so strange. We are going to attempt to center the ceiling fan on the kitchen window. This way we won't need the ugly light with the pull string anymore so we can just get rid of it.
The last job for now that we are considering is replacing the interior doors. We only have four interior doors and we have thought about sanding them down and adding a fresh coat of paint, but some of them have strange patches and holes in them. We'll see what we think of that down the road and if the finances will be available after all the other projects are finished.
I'm thrilled to see the house shaping up, and I enjoy the work of it, but I also know that it will probably be several months before all the jobs are completed. Hopefully I can be patient enough! So stay tuned for before and after pictures.
