Kitchen Drawers and Bedroom Floors

Even though we promised not to start any more projects until we finish the bathroom and bedroom, we just HAD to take a break from sanding the walls and ceiling.

Demolition is the greatest feeling - partly because you get to take things apart, but mostly because of the visual impact it has on a space (regardless of how little time/effort was required). Here are a couple shots of our kitchen after we removed another section of the floor and wall cabinets. These cabinets were removed in about 15 minutes and while it makes the room look "uglier," the illusion of progress is profound.

The eventual location of our fridge and dishwasher. The wall cabinets will eventually be painted and rehung in the same location.

The yellow tiles on the walls are the same cheap vinyl variety that were found in our bathroom.

Weeks of sanding plaster off the walls can really make you blind. No - not from the plaster dust falling into your eyes, but to "the way things are" in other areas of the house. Tools spread haphazardly about the spare bedroom, an array of wood trim and green board scraps on the kitchen floor, and a fine layer of plaster dust across everything.

We didn't really notice how bad it had gotten until white footprints started appearing in every room and hallway throughout the house. So Saturday night we decided to spend a half-hour and clean the floors in the master bedroom. We swept the majority of the dust into piles with a broom, and then wet-mopped the rest. The results were fantastic.

A Dusty Mess

Certain tasks carry with them a great sense of accomplishment. Tearing down old wallpaper is one example. Both the physicality of tearing the paper from a wall and the visual impact it has on the space is extremely satisfying.

Sanding walls is NOT one of those tasks.

Prepping our walls for paint is a highly tedious, repetitive, messy and time-consuming process. In addition, you can't really see the progress you are making. It almost feels as if you are making more work for yourself.

So yesterday we sanded. And spackled. And sanded again. The walls, the ceiling, the walls again. And there are still a few small spots that need more spackling and sanding.

But the end is in sight: we are almost ready to prime the walls in the living room and master bedroom. The bonus is that these are two of the largest rooms in the house. In theory, the other smaller rooms (the dining room and spare bedrooms) should pale in comparison, and we should be able to knock those out relatively quickly.

Beginning of the Bathroom

OK, enough about wallpaper for a while. Here are some photos from the beginning of our bathroom renovation.

The bathroom: before.

A pile of the pink plastic tiles we pulled off the wall. The tiles left a substantial layer of hard, dry adhesive behind on the plaster walls.

I own you, floor. Literally.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the hardwood floors from the hallway continued into the bathroom. We didn't bother pulling up the blue linoleum tiles, so we went right at the sub-flooring (fiberboard) with the crowbar.

Here's a shot with a good chunk of the old flooring removed and the tiles off the wall. Notice the lovely blue sink still attached to the wall. This was after we removed the medicine cabinet and toilet paper holder as well.