The Before and After of our DIY Home Renovation
In our first post, we discussed how we found and bought our house. Now we’re moving into some of the good stuff, the renovation transformation. A lot has happened in the past 14 years, and I could fill a book with projects and stories. If you’d like before and afters of our home renovation, then this is the post for you! We will share more of the nitty-gritty details in due time.
No Time to Waste
When I say we got right to work, there is no exaggeration. Here I am taking the first strike with a sledgehammer approximately 20 minutes after we signed all the paperwork.
We took 8 months to complete the home renovation to the original portion of the house. The house was gutted to the studs and added an addition onto the back portion of the house over the kitchen. We took a 3(ish) bedroom, 2 bath house and made it a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath. Most of the work we did ourselves, along with the help of a few hearty friends and family.
The New Neighbors
One of the funniest parts of the renovation of this house was the curiosity of the neighbors. They’d seen this house go through some rough patches over the years before we purchased it. We were told that a group of them considered buying it and knocking it down at one point because of the various vermin they knew were living here.
People would walk by slowly, peaking in the front door to see what was going on now. If we happen to be outside and say hello, we sometimes would get some stories or warnings about what they had seen here before.
“Did you know there was a hole in the basement wall?”
“Did you see the leaky roof on the second floor?”
All out of concern, so I was thankful these caring people were our new neighbors. However, while what they shared may be true, it didn’t matter because most of the house was being replaced in one way or another.
What We’ve Done
Behold the magic of transformation starting with the before and after of our front room.
The New Living Room
We created one open room here in what originally was a living room and a bedroom. The stairs were moved to the corner of the room.
While I had hoped there was some original hardwood under that beige carpet, we were not so lucky. A history of leaks and water damage had left large patches ruined or removed. So, the entire house got new pine hardwood floors. We salvaged a small amount of the original flooring to use in our downstairs half bath.
The before of this space was the bedroom on the first floor that became part of the living room. Not sure a bed would have even fit in this space, to be honest.
And remember the curtain in the picture above? The one found in the trash by the previous owner (story in the first post)? It survived the reno and as a moment my husband had our friend set this adorable pillow. The recycled treasure lives on!
Let’s do some more
Here’s another view of the front room, that also includes a look into our second renovation. After the dust settled for a few years (about 5 to be exact) we added on to the back side of the house. This addition expanded our kitchen, and added an open living space, and a mudroom which you may have seen in this post or if you follow our social media.
Dining Room Upgrades
We wanted to keep the open concept going throughout the whole house, however, the original house was divided into a front and back section. There were also a set of stairs to the basement that didn’t give a lot of options for change, so we had to maintain a bit of the dining room area as it was. The dining room before and after wasn’t so much of the structure, but it was a facelift.
And remember the bathrooms I had pegged for destruction in the first post? One was on the first floor, right off the dining room. Forget about the fact it was atrocious, who has a full bath off of their dining room? It was totally in the wrong spot.
We changed the space into a half bath (that is soon to be upgraded already!) and an office nook.
Filled With Meaning
We tried to be conscious of what materials we used to build, and how we created a space that included items that have both quality and meaning to us. We DID NOT use the 6 ceiling fans that came with the house that looked to be circa 1980. Even though much of the house ended up in a dumpster, we did repurpose some of the wood in different projects.
In an unexpected turn of events, we had to replace the ceiling/floor joists for the entire 2nd floor (a story for another time), and the wood we removed was old but beautiful. Rory made both the kitchen table and the desktop in the office nook from the wood that was built into the original portion of the house.
The New Kitchen
The kitchen made a small pit stop at lackluster that was not worthy of a picture. We tried to paint the horrible cabinets to improve the look, and we made storage additions the best we could. It was truly the least functional space ever.
While we were renovating the first time, we knew the plan was to add on to fix the kitchen. We installed a beam in the ceiling when we took the roof off to add the second floor that would later allow us to have the beautiful open line from the old part of the house to the new part.
There will be more time to talk about our kitchen design later, but I wanted to mention that it was one of the most fun parts of our home renovation. We had an architect to help with the structural requirements and drawings for the building permits, but we designed the layout and finishes completely on our own.
The Outside
The exterior also was a part of our home renovation. It got fresh siding and paint color chosen to honor the numerous squirrels that had once been living in our walls. While demo-ing the wall above in the first renovation, I recall standing on a ladder pulling a nest out of the upper portion of the wall along with corn cobs and various other food remnants. I was convinced the resident was going to leap out at my face at any point. Thankfully, they moved out and I didn’t have to wrestle an angry squirrel off of my face.
The back of the house had a 2 part transformation, as well. The first renovation added a second story to the back of the house creating a master suite. In part deux, we made the house bigger. I’ll be the first to admit the addition paint color needs a change. It was one of those things you don’t realize until it is done after you’ve been looking at it for a while.
The End?
There is still a lot on our “honey-do” list for this house. There are some unfinished projects, some fresh ideas, and some “let’s redo this part”s. Stay tuned as we highlight what’s up next for our Life on Lincoln.
