The Down & Dirty of DIY
The Down & Dirty of DIY
The week before Alex left for work in Wilmington he started a remodel project on our house. By he really I mean they. He and four guys worked A LOT on remodeling our bedroom and bathroom.
Basically what happened was they turned what was Ella’s room into a master, reversed two closets, built a walk-in closet, completely gutted our bathroom, reconfigured the bathroom, framed it out, put up new drywall and put most of it back together. The result will be wonderful and I am very happy. We are living in that ugly in between time right now.
More tools…
And a backyard that looks more like what happens after a tornado. Actually, if you look closely you will see nice piles/mountains of debris organized into 1. Drywall 2. Old wood paneling 3. Trim moulding
This is what paneling looks like when it ISN’T on MY WALLS!
This is what will be my new vanity area. I will show you the afters later. Right now it just has the old counter top cut down and put into place. See that sink? Yea, thats not connected. No sink in the bathroom right now. See that mirror? I thought it was a nice touch but thats not permanent either. Like my new light fixtures though? We are putting in a skylight tube over the vanity for some natural light. Yea, I like that idea too.
This is to the left of the above picture. In the back is the toilet. Separate and a little more private. Then there is the shower. We have recessed lighting in there as well. I am also working on a custom cabinet for that area. It is in my head. I need to draw it out so we can build it.
Ok see the hole on the left? That is the doorway to the bathroom. See the collection of tools on the right? Those are in my new walk in closet. Behind that wall in the middle is where the vanity is going to be. Is this helping?
In other DIY news… This is the new picture window over my kitchen sink. If I had bought it new I would have needed to do it special order. Not cheap. I found this window brand spanking new, double paned energy star window for 40.00 at the Habitat for Humanity Home Store/ReStore in Pittsboro, NC. It had been there 2 months so I got it for 26.00. Umm yea. Good deal.
This is my new faucet. On my new sink. I love my new faucet. It has a pull down sprayer built in. Happy girl.
Want to hear the cool part? Remember this post about the blow in insulation? Well adding the blow in insulation in our attic and replacing the windows in the house saved us (drumroll please…) 45% on our heating costs this past winter! We dropped down from about $780 for the winter to a little over 400 for our heating gas bill this year. We recouped about 80% of the money we spent replacing those windows (all but 1 from the Home Store) and adding that insulation in one winter. Talk about motivating. We may have an outdated 1960 brick ranch but we are turning it into something I am very proud of. And we are doing it ourselves. I am getting a working bathroom sink this weekend. I love my man.