re:locate

2012 brought some changes! i was accepted into the american film institute conservatory to study and practice production design for film! so that means i was going to move to los angeles, and we would have to finish the major renovations to the house as quickly and budget-minded as possible!

we decided to rent the house instead of sell it, because the market was down and we'd recently refinanced again to get a 3.99% fixed rate. it's hard to turn it over to renters after we've put so much blood, sweat and tears into it, but we have hope they'll take care of our baby... and anthony is still in charleston to keep an eye on it!

the big things that were left to finish were the loft and stair railings...

 

... and the master bathroom.  we got an ikea vanity and mirror, and selected white subway tile that we laid ourselves - which was extremely challenging and time-consuming and i will never DIY again. promise! 

sorry, i don't have any finished pics - we were in that much of a hurry to finish and move out! it was a whirlwind of final baseboards installed and last door hung, painting, tiling, grouting, caulking, plumbing hookup, cleanup and move out!

wish me luck in l.a.!

re:frame

gooood stuff! hooray for our framing crew! (click to view larger)

from the front door -


in the living room -


the new family room with future french doors -


the loft (standing on the new stair landing) -


and the master bedroom!


here are the outside views...




we're hitting a few snags, but framing should be complete by the middle of next week!

re:markable

wow. i am amazed and so excited at the transformation already after one day of framing and demo. it looks bigger and more open already! *really wishing i had a wideangle lens*

from the living room looking towards the new stair wall (and where the old stair used to be)...


from the front door looking towards the new open hall to the kitchen (formerly the stair):


where they've cut the floor for the new stair (loft above)...






new header for triple window in the dining room!


from the bottom of the new future stair looking up the exterior wall -


demo at the rear wall of the house where we need to add a concrete foundation (none currently exists)...


it's so cool! i'll probably have progress pics to post every night, so stay tuned! i think the new stair is going in tomorrow! here's another exclamation point for you!

re:move (more)

this weekend we scraped the popcorn off the ceilings!


it was a very easy task - much easier than we anticipated (finally! something easy!) - just very messy.


we just used a hose with a spray nozzle to spray the popcorn, let it soak in for a minute and then used a 12" scraper to scrape it off. easy as that! and now we have nice smooth ceilings, yay! the ceilings feel higher already. :)




so glad we decided to do this ourselves rather than hiring somebody - we got the entire house scraped in one day!

we also took out the sheetrock at the future loft:


i love how open it makes the stair and upstairs hall feel.

and we also started pulling up some of the old wood flooring in the kitchen, to get down to the subfloor - which clearly needs some patching and/or replacing (those are holes into the crawlspace)...




(by the way, we're doing this because there were so many layers of flooring in the kitchen (sheet vinyl on top of plywood on top of vinyl tile on top of t&g wood on top of diagonal 1x subfloor) that it was higher than the surrounding rooms, and we want the transition between rooms to be seamless.)

this week we should be getting pricing for the structural/foundation work at the back of the house, as well as another framing quote. hopefully we can move forward on those soon!