BEFORE & AFTERS: PART II

Here are some before and afters of the living room/dining room;

 Most of the work on these two rooms was cosmetic.  We pulled the carpet and refinished the floors including patching in a couple of areas mentioned in previous posts.  We drywalled the ceilings, added crown moulding, switched out the lighting and installed windows and trim.  One major change was that we opened up the back wall of the dining room to create a bigger kitchen area- my next post will be finished shots of the kitchen.

We met with the agent on Wednesday and the house will be on the market/MLS as early as Tuesday morning.  I will post the listing as soon as it’s up for anyone who is looking for a beautifully updated home in the Nashville area!

BEFORE & AFTERS: PART I

To start off I would like to concede that I am a horrible blogger!  The house is 99.9% complete and should be listed on Wednesday- I have to finish the backsplash in the kitchen and CC is in the process of adding some interior decorations.  I plan to post some before & afters of every room over the next 5 days so we will start with the exterior front and weird 2^nd floor. 

As mentioned, we put on a new roof and painted the siding due to asbestos concerns.  I ripped out the old front porch flooring, jacked up the frame more than 8” to level and put down new planks & stairs.  To cover up the holes left by the old vinyl shutters I made board and batten shutters out of cedar and stained them to match the front door/hardwood floors, guest room built in dresser, etc. (Minwax Golden Pecan).  I didn’t want to put on a railing so I made some flower boxes out of left over cedar and stained it to match everything else.  CC was the landscape architect and put in a giant flower bed to line the front walk- she also laid out a design to go in front of the porch together with my mom & sister.  My dad plumbed and painted the gas lantern in addition to wiring the front porch light and making cedar caps for the fence.  Here is a before and some afters;

Regretfully, we spent very little time on the 2^nd floor because I considered it “useless space” from the very beginning.  I spent about an hour repatching the horrible drywall work and we primed/painted it a neutral color.  Afterwards I laid inexpensive carpet/pad and my dad did some minor trim work to finish the space off.  I decided to stage the area with my guitars and, after everything was assembled, found out that it was pretty nice!  Even though the ceiling height is in issue I can totally see people eventually using it as a kid’s playroom, kid’s bedroom, hobby room, etc...  In retrospect, I wish I would have spent more time on this area.  Here are some before and afters;

CC is hosting a Girls Night tomorrow so I plan to post some more interior shots once everything is cleaned up.  As mentioned, our agent is coming by on Wednesday and we hope to have the property listed as soon as next week.  In the meantime, I am in the middle of a side project in the hills of Tennessee.  Long story short, I was contracted to build a half bath and 2 closets in a house that was built in 1884!  I have been splitting time between this project and final touchups so hopefully everything is wrapped up next week.     

FINISHING THE FLOORS AND WORKING ON THE OUTSIDE

The floors are done with the exception of some shoe moulding that needs to be tacked down.  Here are some pictures;

Also, all of the appliances are installed and the countertops are coming on Wednesday.  Here are some shots- please note that I will be installing a glass tile backsplash once the countertops are down which explains the unfinished/unpainted drywall under most of the cabinets;

The second floor has been patched and should be ready for paint on Monday followed by carpet on Tuesday/Wednesday. I will post some updated pics as soon as it is primed. 

Yesterday I started working on the back deck- the framing & joists are in great shape however the railing and flooring needed to be replaced.  On Friday I ripped everything off and put down about 30% of the floor when some insanely painful back spasms ended my day- I woke up fine this morning and actually ran the East Nashville Tomato Festival 5K with CC.  I put down the rest of the floor and most of the railing today while CC & the landscaper cleared out the jungle in the backyard.  Here are some pictures although the carport is in the middle of being painted the same color as the house (I wanted to tear down the damn carport but CC and my parents made me keep it);

Tomorrow CC is planning to build out the front flower beds while I finish the railing & stairs of the deck.  We moved in a small amount of living room furniture tonight and are planning to host our first dinner tomorrow! 

FINALLY A REAL UPDATE!

The kitchen is about 80% complete although the remaining 20% will consist of installed countertops and delivered appliances.  Just to refresh everyone’s memory, here are some initial photos of the space followed by some “work in progress” pictures over the last few weeks and the current ones at the end;

The appliances will be delivered on Monday (stainless steel Frigidaire) and the countertops will be installed during the middle of next week (Ubatuba granite).  I will be spending a day this week completing small touchups in the space and installing a TV on the far wall of the laundry room- you’ll notice that we ran cable and electric near the ceiling because this feature was a huge hit when we added it to my sisters kitchen remodel last year.  Also, in the previous post I mentioned the random sink & cabinet that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen- I built this cabinet to go in between the washer & dryer.  Since space is so tight in the new laundry closet, I needed to custom make a cabinet and found a sink that would work with the footprint.  The cabinet came out perfectly however I found out that I used the wrong height measurement off the appliance manufacturer’s website so I now need to take it apart and cut it down about 6 inches!

I am REALLY happy with how the kitchen is turning out- I have to look at old pictures just to remember how small and outdated it looked when we started the project.  Every decision regarding this aspect of the project has been a group effort- from my decision to add the laundry closet to my dad’s cabinet layout to CC’s decorative choices on tile & paint- even YOUR blog poll decision to enlarge the doorway- it is turning out better than I expected.  The “laundry room” probably surprises me most because it was a giant waste of space when we moved in and I can see it now becoming the main congregation point of the house.  I also second guessed myself on taking out that window above the old sink but, with all of the new lightning and the open floor plan, I now forget that it was ever even there!

Most of the remaining flooring sanded out better than the master bedroom.  In addition, the new patches that we installed should match up really well once everything is stained.  The one area of concern continues to be the dining room- there was some kind of vinyl tile installed under the carpet and we had to sand & scrape almost all of it up by hand.  While the tile eventually came up, it left behind noticeable hexagonal outlines that may stand out once we apply the finish.  I hope to stain later this week and I will have a giant area rug on hand as a contingency!  Here is a picture- the giant dog came with the house and refuses to leave;

We tied up some loose ends in the bathroom by grouting the floor, putting down the toe strips, installing a mirror and completing some painting/staining touchups.  Here are some updated pictures;

Not much has been done in the guest room since it is pretty much completed except for staining the floors- my dad put a coat of poly on the built in and we finally hung a door;

As mentioned in the previous post, we decided to paint the existing siding.  While this decision saved us some money, the main motivation was based on the fact that there are asbestos shingles underneath the vinyl and we did not want to deal with city inspectors, EPA storm troopers, etc. if someone drove by while the exterior was exposed.  I had never heard of vinyl siding being painted however a neighborhood painter/handyman assured me that it could be done.  It turned out great and allowed us to go with a color that is much darker than anything we could have achieved with standard (affordable) vinyl siding.  I forgot to take finished pictures during the daylight so here is the same shots taken while the painters were working;

Also, we decided to keep the front door.  Since EVERYONE who visited the house commented on the existing door, my dad & I sanded it down, stained it to match the floors and put on about 25 coats of high gloss poly.  Here are some pictures although it looks 100x better in the daylight;

Here are the new art deco vents that CC picked out- the picture is one on tile however we are using the same ones on the hardwood;

My parents spent some time turning the basement crawl space into a functional workshop.  We relocated the old kitchen cabinets and the makeshift dining room shelf into the space and moved all of our tool/supplies downstairs.  My dad put in lights and my mom painted the block to make it usable- I currently have my router table and saws taking up most of the floor space so I will post some pictures once everything is cleaned up. 

Lastly, here is what a daily “task list” looks like at Project NashVegas;

Needless to say, we are entering the home stretch!  I plan to spend the next week staining the floors, taking care of touchups, painting/finishing that weird 2^nd floor area and installing new floor boards to the deck & front porch.  We have a landscaper coming on Monday to clean up the backyard and CC plans to plant flowers, bushes, etc. over the course of the next week.  While I won’t be able to hit my 06 August goal, we should have the house done by the middle of the month.