Before and After

Now that the rental project is complete on the inside it is fun for me to reflect on the before pictures and see how far we came with the progress. The thing that I am most proud of is the hardwood floors. The floors were 1950's oak and have never been redone. There were lots of dents, dings, and years of filth on them. I wanted to bring them back to life. There is only one hardwood floor person in Pocatello, and he was too busy to do our project, so we decided to tackle it ourselves. It was hard work! We sanded and sanded and got dust everywhere. Once the phases of sanding were done I got to put the stain on and then the polyurethane. I am so proud of how they turned out. The blisters I developed on my knees were worth it.

Sanding hardwood floors

Staining hardwood floors

Bedroom #1 floors before

Bedroom #1 after

Bedroom #2 Floors before

Bedroom #2 after

I also enjoyed learning how to tile. My Mom is so talented and I'm glad she could teach me!  I did the kitchen subway tile back splash and the tile floors in the kitchen. We had a flipper come and give us pointers on refinishing hardwood floors because he has done that himself. While he was there he asked who we had hired to do the back splash in the kitchen and wanted their number to hire them for his projects. I got a good laugh, and he was surprised when I told him it was me. 

Kate was great at helping me get the spacers out the next morning after the floors had a night to dry.
 Look at those straight lines!

There was so much work to be done on the walls in the house. At some point someone put this sunflower texturing on thick in the living room and the hallway. We tried to texture over it but the sunflower still showed through. We had to manually scrape the walls. It was so difficult and time consuming. But thank goodness the sunflowers are gone!
I told Joe that I never want him to buy me any sunflowers ever again.

The dreaded sunflower texturing in the living room and hallway

Entry Before

Entry After- We also had an electrician put in a ceiling fan light

What was left of this kitchen was a rust bucket. This was what was left of the original 1950's kitchen. I was so happy to see it go. The kitchen has a very small footprint and so to maximize space and have it flow better we had to have a plummer and an electrician come in and move things around.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen after

Kitchen After

 

Hallway after

Stairwell After

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the stairway to the backyard and the unfinished basement before we did work. The back door was boarded up, the walls had some holes, there was no stair railing. There was no half wall on the left, just a dangerous edge. It was a creepy stair well before. I know it doesn't look too exciting, but I worked hard on it and needed to add this to the post.

We completed the remodel in just under 3 months. It was hard work! All the vent covers, light switch face plates and outlets got switched out to new ones as well as all the door nobs were replaced. When we were all done it felt like this place was brand new.

Good thing our kids were good sports most of the time...

Usually Harvey wanted to be working right by my side, If He wasn't by me then he was causing trouble

My favorite picture of my little helper. He loved watching me work. He always had to have a tool in his hand. (The floor his feet is on I was about to install, but just put a fresh coat of paint on the stairs) 

Now this spring we get to work on the yard that has been totally neglected! Wish us luck!