The House Work is done... At least for the time being...

My husband and I purchased our first home about 2 years ago come this February 27th, 2009.  The home was built in 1910, and while it has had some improvements over the years, it was still in need of some TLC.

It was in a bit of disrepair, with layers upon layers of wall paper that had been painted over time and again.  And of course, the awful purple and bright blue paint that was all over the home.  The sellers agreed to paint, but after moving in we began to realize that it would be much nicer to do a little destruction of our own to improve the overall appearance and correct some things that we didn't like.

The deconstruction started in June of 2007, and we have just finished with the three rooms that we had begun at that time.  So after a year and  4 months, we finally have a space that we love and we can finally call home.  Of course, there is still much to do, including a complete remodel of the kitchen, bathroom, and all the other rooms upstairs... but considering we have done all of the work on our own, it is a good start.  Here is a photo journey that will show you a bit of what the rooms did look, and how they look today.

The den was the first room that we started with.  We thought that because it was the smallest, we could always have the rest of the house finished by professionals if we found that the work was too much for us.  The messiest part was definitely the deconstruction... having been built in 1910, the walls were all old lath and plaster which was a mess when ripping down.  

Here is a view of the home from the outside.  Yes, we bought the home in February, so there was snow on the ground.



This was the den when we first saw the home.
 Notice the beautiful wall board and pale blue paint.  Behind the wall board was more lath and plaster, and behind that was  blown in insulation.  What a mess!  The first and easy fix was to paint over the pale blue to something a bit more reasonable.  We had most of the interior of the house painted in a light tan color with white trim before we moved in.  But then we decided we didn't really like the paint, and we wanted to have nice smooth walls, no more wall board, no more wall paper.  


So........




 ... we started ripping the wall board down, and couldn't stop... 













Then we started to put the pieces back together again.

  












Now, after months (and a year) of work, this is the finished product....
 

All the rooms were kind of worked on at the same time in different steps.  We removed the lath and plaster from the dining room and living room next.  Then insulated the outside walls, put up the sheet rock, taped, mudded and sanded, painted, did all the trim work... etc, etc.  Here are photos to show you the difference in the living room and dining room from when we first saw the home, to now.

The photos above are views of the living room and dining room from different angles.  In the first shot you can see the front door, which is no longer there.  We chose to take that door out because of the setup of the room and because we have another entrance way on the side of the house that enters into the dining room off through an enclosed porch.  The other two shots are taken from where the front door used to be looking into the living room and then on to the dining room.

These two photos are from after the rooms were painted and we had moved in.  











And now.... 





It has been a long journey, and there is never an end to housework... but for the winter, I plan on enjoying the beauty of the house before ripping more of it apart in the spring.

While we complained throughout the construction process, it was a learning experience, and I have to say, my husband is becoming quite the handy man :-).