We're Homeowners!

We are excited to start the adventure of home ownership. We have so many plans, and are ready to make it our own.

Our home was built in 1920. It is 4 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, small detached garage and .35 of an acre. I'll be sketching out floor plans to share later.

The first project that we began was to correct an issue with flow. One of the bedrooms is on the first floor, and to access it you would have to go through three other rooms. This is because it used to be a sort of in-law apartment, with its own bathroom. We would like to turn this room into our master bedroom, but we don't want to have to go through the entire downstairs. SO, before we move in, we need to put a door in the living room to the bedroom.


Here are few shots of the progress on this project so far.

Before Demolition



Of course, with any old house, what is behind the walls is always a mystery. We found a lot of that during the demolition stage of this process! This project also required moving an outlet, which was more interesting than I hoped. We're pretty sure the previous owner was an electrician, and given his love of outlets, there will likely be a seperate post on electric. (*Of course, any electrical work requries a licened contractor*)

trying to break through the wall, plaster lat behind sheetrock

So, after getting through sheetrock and breaking the lat behind it, we disovered that this wall was at one point an exterior wall. We knew this, because that wall was still there.

we finally made it through

Coming from the other side wasn't quite as difficult, but still was nothing to scoff at. In the photo below, you can see on the bedroom side the exterior wall, followed by two layers of sheetrock. Interestlingly, each layer of sheetrock had its own (maybe two) layer of wallpaper on it. I'll post another shot I got later, which shows one of the layers of wallpaper - a Japanese motif of sorts.

side view of the wall... so much to go through!

This is where we left the project at the end of the first weekend. Not much left to do, but still some work.

all framed out, just a few things left to do!

Notice the goopy looking area next to the new switch box. Although there is a stud flush on the right side of the door frame, about two inches away is yet another stud. We foolishly thought that there would be the typical spacing between studs and drilled a hole smack in the middle of the second stud. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to fill the hole and try again, a few inches over.

We should finish this project this weekend, so I hope to post the results and a few other photos soon. Stay tuned!