House Updates Part 2

Boy have things been busy around here! It has been awhile since the last house update, August 2021 to be exact! Though, I didn’t add it to my House updates tag 🤷‍♀️. This past March, I impulsively decided “now is the time to start tearing up carpet”. Without knowing for sure what was underneath, I decided to start somewhere small. I took out the carpet on the landing next to the garage door; why people carpet heavy traffic doorways will always boggle my mind. Unfortunately, underneath was only particle board. That meant my plan to DIY the stairs would not go as I had hoped. However, the fact that we were now seeing particle board everytime we went down the stairs, made us pull the trigger on finally starting some renovation projects.

The first plan being new flooring. We wanted new wood floors throughout the main level of the house and all of the stairs. The kitchen and dining already had wood flooring, but I wanted the whole level to be the same. We decided on vinyl planks from Lowes. Before putting the floors in, there were some things we knew needed to happen first. We started in the kitchen. This started at the very beginning of April.

Knowing we were wanting to add cabinets to the kitchen, we had to make a plan. How did we want the cabinets to go? We knew it was more productive to do this before putting new flooring in so that we didn’t waste time, money, and materials. This is what it looked like beforehand.

The only place we could add cabinets, without redoing plumbing or replacing windows, would be in front of where the banister is. With that in mind, we knew we would need to remove the banister and create a wall there instead. We didn’t want the back of the cabinets showing through on the other side.We needed to gather up some ‘fun tools’, also known as power tools. I talked to my older brother and we were able to go pickup everything we needed from him, instead of spending more money on all of that. Afterwards, we headed to the hardware store and bought supplies; wood, screws, drywall, drywall tape, and drywall mud. We brought everything home and immediately started the project by removing the first couple of rows of current flooring.

Things started to really get exciting when Chris busted out the jigsaw. Something about power tools makes people excited 😂. He sawed right through the top of the banister and was able to push the rest of it down.

After the banister was out, Chris got to work on putting the frame in for the wall. It was actually a quick process and I did get to put some screws in as well 😅. After the frame was in, he put the drywall in, and started taping and mudding.

We decided only the wall that was going to be visible (on the den side) once it was all said and done needed to be drywalled. Once the wall was in it was time to buy some cabinets! Chris and my brother headed to Home Depot (research prices as they were cheaper for the same exact cabinets Lowes carries). They bought 2 cabinets and a butcher block countertop. While they were there, I removed more of the flooring so that they could immediately bring it all in when they got back.

The window is too low to allow us to put cabinets all the way to the wall, but that doesn’t bother us. Plus, there is an outlet there too. It gives me the little spot I need for my recycling bin.

Once the cabinets were secured in place, I started painting. It took 2 coats of paint and a coat of polyurethane to get them looking awesome! My brother’s cat, Catra, also found out that she loves to be on this new counter and jumped right into my paint lid, leaving paw prints everywhere 😂. Luckily we hadn’t removed the plastic yet.

When the cabinets were dry, Chris put the hardware on. I did have to order butcher block stain to be delivered because apparently it isn’t sold in stores near us, which was fine as there was still plenty to get done. We added in some sliding cabinet inserts to better utilize the space in 2 of the cabinets; one in the new cabinet and another in an older one by the stove.

I decided I wanted to go with black trim throughout the house. I painted the window trim in the kitchen and then started taping off and painting the window trim in the dining and livingrooms. We bought new baseboards so that they would all match. I had to paint all 12 of those as well.

I took out some of my frustrations on the current vinyl flooring (kitchen and dining room) by ripping it up and literally throwing it all out of the diningroom window. Harrison (he is 3) got a kick out of it and helped with the smaller pieces. It felt good getting that done before the flooring guy was set to come the following week (which then got postponed another week after that). I also wound up ripping the carpet off one set of stairs so that I could paint the walls properly. To which we then decided to go ahead and tear up the livingroom carpet to save the floor guy some time. Let me just say, if you ever want to know how much dirt and dust you live with….rip up the carpet and the padding underneath, yuck!

And finally, the new flooring came in and we got it installed!

It was time to put furniture in it’s place! Lets start with the livingroom. I tried to keep cost minimal when searching for furniture pieces. I did wind up getting 2 accent chairs off of amazon for a good price. I couldn’t find the bookshelf or lamp that I wanted second hand so I did get the lamp and a round rug at Target. I then ordered an unfinished bookshelf from Home Depot for about $36. I already had wood stain so I decided to use that on it to match the other wall shelves we had. I did find this brown suede chaise lounge chair on Facebook marketplace and wound up getting it for nearly half the cost it was listed for! Woohoo!