underestimating renovations

Did you know that older houses require a lot of work? Apparently, I put this fact out of my head until now, thinking that I could do a huge chuck of the renovations in just a few weekends. Without any prior experience, and without knowledgeable carpenters at my disposal. YOU TRICKED ME, HGTV! YOU MADE IT LOOK SO EFFORTLESS!

My dad and Andrea (plus Cookie, and Bella) came to help on Sunday. My dad and his multiple power tools helped with many projects that we could not have done easily, anytime soon. We replaced some drywall, replaced and placed new baseboards, removed a cabinet in the guest bath, removed vinyl tiles, and I did a lot of caulking around everything.

If you take a close look at this photo, notice on either side of the glass door the baseboard is not on the floor. Instead they had placed a strip of carpet on the walls with the baseboard on top of the carpet strip. This took many hours to correct, but my dad mastered it all.

Living Room: Before

In the guest bathroom, there was a cabinet on the top right wall directly in front of you as you walked in. We took this out and now the bathroom looks three times larger.

There is still much more to be done.

starting the renovations

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 10:40 pm and is filed under our house, photos.

2 Responses to “underestimating renovations”

rachel
7:43 am on September 11th, 2007
I totally KNow what you mean. Our house is from the 1920s and every renovation has taken forever. I wanted to remove wallpaper from our dining room (a VERY small room) and I thought it would take me a few weeks at most. i was tackling that renovation for abou THREE months. There were about 4 layers of wallpaper on the wall, i bet some put up in the 40s or 50s… it was insane.

it’s starting to look great though!
elysa
3:29 pm on September 12th, 2007
I am impressed that sounds like quite the adventure.

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