Eight years ago my family moved into our current home. It was a dump. A fixer-upper. A mess. But that’s what we do. We move into crummy houses and make them nice. This has definitely been our worst house so far because of a few unexpected surprises.
- Like snakes. We had three snakes in the room I’m about to show you and seven snakes in the basement. I don’t know about you, but I think one snake is too many!
- Raccoons had been living (and pooping) in the attic, and when the weather was just right, you could smell it.
- There was a horrible smell in the backyard. We finally figured out it was an old concrete fish pond that was filled with who knows what.
- And the one acre yard was filled with debris – old junk the original owner had been collecting for years and years and years. It took TWO large dumpsters and a LOT of hard work to get it all cleaned up!
But I guess it was worth it. The house looks a lot better now – inside and out. I’ll eventually be showing you more of our improvements, but for today, I’d like to show you the family room/dining room. I wish I had better pictures but I didn’t know I’d eventually need them for a blog.
These photos were taken the day we moved in so everything was a mess.
This photo below was taken later. We didn’t normally have that much furniture in the room – we were redoing the living room and put the living room furniture temporarily in the family room.
The family room/dining room is on the back of the house and faces the west. The room is about 12×24 with the family room area on the south (left in the photo) and the dining room on the north (right in the photo). The walls were covered with knotty pine paneling and there were wooden beams about every five or six feet on the ceiling running from west to east. The ceiling had been wallpapered and the wallpaper had been painted. The painter got paint on the beams and some of the ceiling paper was peeling.
The room had seven wooden windows with panes. On the west wall, between the two sets of double windows, was a painting. We found out the back of the painting had a plan for extensive landscaping the original owners had planned and carried out. That was cool. But behind the painting was a hole where an air conditioning unit had been. That was not cool. By the way, the house had no air conditioning when we bought it.
The family room/dining room also had carpeting. We planned to leave the carpeting until we re-did the room but we quickly discovered the previous owner had allowed his new puppy to pee freely on the carpet, and under certain weather conditions, it smelled really bad! So we replaced the carpet. We hated spending the money for carpet we were going to eventually replace with a wood floor but we didn’t feel that we had a choice.
The room also had a very large fireplace on the east wall in the family room area. It was ugly, way too large for the room, and made with fake brick.
Here’s what it looks like now:
This is the view from the west windows.
This is the view from the south. We replaced one of the windows with this door and added a small deck (it’s more like a balcony – no exit).
Curtains and hardware for six extra wide windows was going to be expensive. We considered going without curtains since no one can see in but we decided to get them because they made the room look warmer and when it was really cold or really hot we could close them to make the room more comfortable. Because of all the windows, the room tends to be colder in winter and warmer in summer. Anyway, we found the curtains on clearance at Bed, Bath & Beyond for $10 per panel (still not cheap since we had to buy 12!) and David made the hardware out of plumbing fixtures.
What we did:
- Replaced the composite tile with wood flooring.
- Replaced the windows using sash kits.
- Removed the paneling and added insulation and installed sheetrock.
- Removed the beams and wallpaper/ceiling and installed new sheetrock.
- Put a new full glass door on north end of dining area (screened porch is on that end).
- Expanded opening between kitchen and dining room.
- Removed fireplace.
- Replaced window on south end of family room with full glass door and built deck outside.
- Removed arches and made openings square (fit the new look of the house – they were historic!).
- Installed new light fixture over table.
- Added mouldings.
- Painted.
A few things you can learn from our project:
- Large architectural details like fireplaces can be removed or rebuilt. If it doesn’t fit, you don’t have to live with it!
- If you need to replace your windows but don’t want to replace the whole window you might be able to use a sash kit. It’s much easier and usually cheaper. But don’t skimp on the kit. We purchased cheaper kits and you get what you pay for.
- When you’re remodeling a house, sometimes you have to do something twice – like replacing the carpet. It seems a waste but it was three years before we remodeled that room. The carpet that was in the room was unsanitary and had to be removed. The floor underneath was not useable. So we paid a little extra to be comfortable for the next 3 years. If we would have redone that room soon, we would have waited. But 3 years is a long time. So if you have to do something twice, that’s just the way it goes. Sometimes comfort is worth it.
- Beams, as long as they’re not structural, can be removed if you don’t like them.
- Paneling can be removed or painted.
So what do you think? Let me know if you have any questions about our project.
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You might also like:
Decorate Outside the Box
Transform Your Concrete Floor With “Flakes”
Decorating and Remodeling: Small Budget, Small House – Get Creative!
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Thank you for this!!! It’s very inspiring to see your before and after photos and they give me hope that our long-term DIY in our house will be beautiful! Over this Christmas break we broke the tiles out of the bathroom, replaced them with new nicer tiles, painted, put in a new shower, and are re-doing the floor. It’s the first time I’ve ever done any home DIY so it’s been very eye-opening! After 20 years of marriage we are finally in our own house and able to make things how we want them to be, as time and money allow. It will be a long-term, little bit at a time project to redo our whole house. But seeing what gorgeous results are possible helps me keep the end result in mind while the house looks like a building site! Congratulations on your beautiful house!!
Laurie recently posted…Plannerisms planners start today!!!
Laurie – how fun! I love remodeling and it’s so satisfying to see something go from ugly to gorgeous. And it’s even more fun to transform a room into exactly what you want!!! So excited for you to get to do that.
Patty
It looks gorgeous, I love how you have redone everything. That old carpet=yuck! The hardwood flooring is so much better.
Amanda recently posted…What I’m Reading-December 2012
Amanda, thanks! We are definitely wood floor people! The only carpet in our home is in the upstairs bedroom and the basement bedroom. Everything else is wood. When we bought this house, the previous owner had installed cheap tile over the hardwoods in the living room and kitchen. It was horrible! We didn’t waste any time ripping that out. Fortunately the floors underneath weren’t too bad. We had to live with them for a while before we could redo them. But we preferred the old wood than that tile!
Patty
It looks gorgeous, I love how you have redone everything. That old carpet=yuck! The hardwood flooring is so much better.
Amanda recently posted…What I’m Reading-December 2012
I forgot how bad it was before the remodel
We forgot too. When Dad was reviewing the article with me, we were both shocked at what it used to look like. It’s much better!
It looks fabulous! And I’ve been needing to get new curtains but couldn’t find any I like. I’ll be heading to Bed, Bath, and Beyond this weekend. Thanks.
misssrobin recently posted…Living in the First Person, Present Tense
We’ve purchased curtains there several times. They have a pretty large selection and the prices aren’t bad, especially if you catch them on sale or clearance like we always do. Good luck! Hope you find exactly what you’re looking for at exactly the right price!
OMG, this looks sooooo nice!!! Very inspiring, I must say!
Jotje recently posted…Time Management e-book with each copy of Leonie Dawson’s 2013 Workbook/Planner!
Thank you! We had forgotten how awful it was before we remodeled it. Looking at the photos was kind of fun & a good reminder of how much work we’ve done on this house!
I must admit a soft spot for knotty pine paneling… But I know it’s no longer a popular choice!
I’m interested in the sash kits. I just spent dozens of hours restoring old window sash in one of my properties, most were in decent condition and just needed maintenance (new putty, some wood filler, primer, paint) but would be handy to be able to replace if they turned out to need more. Will check them out on google or at the lumber yard next time I’m there (assuming they carry them).
The room looks great! I love the deck/balcony!
The knotty pine paneling did not nice with the woodsy view from the windows. But it didn’t go with the rest of the house. It’s like the family room/dining room was a cabin and the rest was a contemporary home. My husband is all about having everything go together. In fact, he added a second story to the house (pictures of that later). Our neighbors were worried it wouldn’t look right but after it was done, they said it looked like it had been there forever. One of his pet peeves is additions that don’t match the rest of the house!
The sash kits were a lot cheaper and easier than replacing (restoring wasn’t an option for us) the windows. But don’t get the cheapest ones! We got ours at Home Depot. I looked on-line but they’re aren’t listed. They might be a special order item. But you shouldn’t have any trouble finding them.
We LOVE the deck/balcony. We sit out there all the time! Well, except for a few weeks during hedge apple season. We have a bunch of hedge apple trees and a couple of them drop the hedge apples onto the deck. We don’t want to be sitting there if that happens! Actually, the last couple of years, David has trimmed the branches so we haven’t had as many fall on the deck. That’s helped a lot.
What a lovely change! For me, this year is all about finishing projects that have been unfinished for so long and possibly looking into redoing our kitchen and floors. It’s a big project, and one we keep putting off due to the expense. But it’s time. If you find yourself in NY, you’re more than welcome to stop in and lend a hand.
. Some people have a real knack for seeing how things can be done — I wish I had that eye. Living in a townhouse, there are only so many changes we can make. Inside we can do just about anything, so long as we don’t change the structure. Outside has to look the same as every other unit in our community. Blech.
If we were in NY, we’d definitely stop in. My husband is awesome at seeing what a room can be and then making it happen.
Kitchen remodels are tough! We did that several years ago. David set up a make-shift kitchen in the garage complete with a microwave, George Foreman and toaster. We washed dishes in the laundry room sink in the basement. And the refrigerator was in the entry (we also had a spare one in the garage). We did a lot of grilling those weeks and somehow I managed to cook every single day. But by the end, though, we were really glad to have it done. That make-shift kitchen was getting old!
Good luck with your project. I hope you can get it done quickly and budget-friendly. I’d love to see photos!