Renovating and life updates!

First of all, let me start by saying I'm sorry for not posting sooner.  Life has been flying by these past few weeks.  I can't say that anything huge has happened, but in general, regular life events keep me busy.  In the first week of March, I made Fastnachts for Fastnacht day.  I enjoy doing this each year.  It's not that I actually make them to celebrate fat Tuesday...it's just that I absolutely love donuts, and its fun to have a family tradition. 

 

 

 

The way I see it, if you're going to get out the fryer, get it running, and use a huge container or oil, you may as well fry everything in sight.  So I also made apple fritters.  Dan really enjoys them. 

 

Aside from donuts, Dan has been working VERY hard on the house.  I mentioned a few of the big projects he was working on in the last few months...furnace, kitchen and mudroom floors, and re-plumbing the house.  After finishing those things, he started in on the next big job...resurfacing walls. 

Just to give you an idea of the changes that have been made, I'm posting before and after photos. 

This is the downstairs bathroom before.  There was a large heart-shaped tub rather than a shower.  Besides the fact that the tub didn't work, it hadn't been plumbed properly.  In fact, the pipes had been duct taped together, and in one place, an old vacuum hose had been used rather than pvc pipe. 

 

 

Dan installed a new shower instead.  It's hooked up and fully functioning. 

 

 

 

In the dining room, wallpaper was falling down, and there were several holes in the lath and plaster.

 

 

 

Dan has started patching, and mudding all the holes. 

 

This one is hard to see, but the staircase on the left is the one that goes upstairs.  Some years back, a former owner changed the stairway to be a narrow, low ceiling with a sharp turn.  So sharp in fact that the plywood Dan bought for the floors in the upstairs bathroom wouldn't fit up them.  So you'll see the change Dan did to the staircase opening in the next picture.

He took the ceiling up (not pictured) so it's much higher and more open now.  He widened the doorway, so now large items can be moved easily upstairs.  I also just have to mention that I love the banister posts he built...they fit the Victorian style of the house much better than having none.

 

This is the upstairs bathroom before.  I took down all the wallpaper last summer, and now....

 

Dan removed the hideous purple tiles on the walls and the peel-and-stick tiles on the floor and redid it.

 

He resurfaced the walls, put in a newer shower surround, and removed the toilet (we'll be putting in the new one this week).

 

What a hard worker!  I'm very proud of all the work he does.  Dan is trying hard to finish the house before the baby comes in May.  This week, my father-in-law is coming to stay with us for a few weeks, and will be helping with the renovation projects.  We've already purchased all the drywall needed to complete the upstairs...and that's the goal for the next two weeks. 

 

Be expecting to see some more photos soon! 

 

Fixer Upper No Longer!

I've been meaning to put my final pictures of our renovation project up, but kept on forgetting.  Though we no longer live in Baltimore, I like to look through these pictures as a reminder of the work we did, and also the fun we had decorating this fixer upper and making it a home. 

 

Of course, most of the work that was done can't be seen in these pictures...like completely replacing the radiators in the house, re-plumbing the whole plumbing system, and putting in new sheet rock.  

But the differences you CAN see in these pictures (like the paint colors, added closet, re-done hardwood floors) are well worth it. 

 

I will post the before picture, and directly underneath that, the "after", finished product. 

 

This is the front porch, before.

 

And this is after.  As you can see, we didn't do too much with it.  Replaced the window, put a security door on, and re-stained the wood door. 

 



The Front of the house before.  

After.  We painted the whole foundation of the house a darker color.

 



 

 

This is the dining room/stairway view before.

 

 

 And after.  We did a lot of paint scraping in here and then re-mudded the whole room (as well as the licing room).  After re-painting, we pulled up the nasty carpet (which had served as a paint drop cloth) and sanded and varnished the hardwoods.  Also, there was no light fixture before.  So we purchased the cute, old-looking lamp fixture and installed it. 

 

 

 

The Living room before.

 

 

The living room after.

 

 

View of the living room/Dining room before

 

 

And after

 

 

The kitchen before

 

 

The kitchen after

 

 

The master bedroom before

 

 

The master bedroom after.  This room, though it was the biggest room, had no closet.  So Dan made a large walk-in closet by shortening the room next to this one. 

 

Basically everything else, we kept the same.  

 

The middle room before.

 

 

The middle room after.  Yes, we picked a crazy color for the walls...it was the only paint we had, and we didn't feel like going and buying more since this room wasn't being used very much. 

 

The bathroom before.

 

 

The bathroom after.

Dan completely re-configured the set-up of this bathroom.  So he had to re-direct pipes and stuff.  And he built the vanity, medicine cabinet, and large shelf on the left as well. 

 

 

 

And THAT was our house in Baltimore.  It was fun to watch it come together.  I must confess, I didn't do much of the hard work; just the painting and sanding, pulling up carpet and things like that.  Dan is the mastermind behind all of our renovation projects. 

 

 

 

Soon, I'll begin posting a new renovation project pictures.  We purchased a house in New York and are going to be working this next year, fixing it up as well.  So stay tuned to my blog for more fixer upper pictures!