Home Sweet Disaster Zone

It all started with a pink bathtub.....

No really, it did!! When Justin and I bought the house I figured we could get away with replacing the bathtub, adding drawer slides to the drawers in the kitchen, and painting the rooms. Dust myself off and woohoo the house is move in ready.

Boy-oh-boy was I wrong!
I had no idea that you could take a seemingly perfect house, totally destroy it and then make it perfect (but better) again. Can you tell I'm a first time fix-er-up home owner?

So let's start in the bathroom...

I knew going into it that we would have to replace the bathtub. Justin didn't quite fit in it and he wanted a shower instead. I rebelled against having just a shower but in the end decided the bathroom could be Justins baby project and I would be happy with however it came out.

This is the before picture. And shame on me for not taking better/more before pics. What kind of blogger am I anyways? (Truth? I don't really know. I just write what I feel, and what I want, and when I'm hungry I guess.)
As you can see on the right there is the above mentioned pink tub. It was itty bitty. Seriously when Justin sat in it he could stick his legs straight out in front of him but he had to sit up super straight. I thought it was funny, he did not. I really wanted to keep a tub because like twice a year I want to take a bath. As that one lady says "ain't no one got time for that". So we agreed to rip out the tub and put a shower in instead.

The tub removal happened when Kelly was up to visit so she got to document all of our hard work. The back of the tub backed up to the guest room closet which had to be demolished (partially) to get to all the plumbing. In the next few pics Kelly was crouching in the closet - Asian Level Photography. 

That might have been the first and only time I wore that shirt on an actual Friday. 

We hammered, and kicked, and yelled, and wiggled and finally got the tub out! 

And instead of removing all of the drywall and junk that had built up in the tub we just skillfully removed it. Psshhhhh yeah uh huh suuure. 

Ohhhhh look! In the next picture you can see what color we painted our room. Also a pain in the butt! Should have been an easy project but nooooooooooo the remodel Gods wanted to make sure we got to experience every hiccup we could. When we came home after buying the paint we started painting. So far so good. However, the next day when we did a few touch up spots and some more work around the trim it dried a totally different color. Even when the lights were off you could notice the difference. Thank goodness Kelly came up that weekend because I sure as heck did not want to repaint that whole room. I was grumpy! 

Back to the bathroom..... 

Look at Justin, all serious in his work gloves, face mask, and head lamp and I'm all la la la in my pajamas and muck boots. 

Yay! We did it. That's it right? We're done now? Yeah right!

So then the guys decide the pink marble vanity just wont do and we wouldn't be able to paint it so we might as well just buy a new one. Once we got a new vanity the pink toilet just wasn't going to work so we might as well get a new one of those too. You guys see where this is going right? 

So THEN the drywall wasn't in good enough shape and wouldn't mesh with all the new stuff we had so let's go ahead and rip the whole bathroom down to studs. Imagine my surprise, and horror, when I saw this.....

 

What was once a bathroom was no longer a bathroom.... It was just a room. A giant gaping hole of a room. I'm pretty sure this was when I had my first break down about the house. 

Ok, no big deal. They wanted to put green board up in the bathroom to better protect it. We went to Lowe's (they know us there now) and ordered the green board and shower to be delivered the next day. When the shower showed up it had a great big crack in one of the walls so Justin sent it back. Ah ha! They were out of showers! So guess what we got? A tub! I win!! I mean.... at least it's a bigger tub.... and it still has the ability for showers...... :) Yay a tub! 

Isn't it lovely. I swear just because we got it I'm going to make sure taking a bath is one of the first things I do. I'm sure it seems really strange that I'm so excited about a bath tub but since we moved home from Seattle all I've had is a little stand up shower. And in Seattle I had a bathtub/shower that I shared with 3 roommates so there was no time to hog the bathroom and take a bath.

This lovely light fixture also turned into a project. There wasn't a fan in the bathroom and for those of you that live with men you know that you need a fan in the bathroom. Sorry babe, those are the facts of life. 

Here are a couple pictures after the green board was hung, before it got mudded. I have to say I'm super impressed with myself. Before this home I had no idea what any of this meant. I'm catching on rather quickly. For those of you that are new to this too, green board is a type of mold resistant drywall used in moist places. And mud is.....well, basically mud. It's applied to cover all the seams and screw holes so the wall can have a nice even finish. HGTV here I come!

Al did all the mudding and sanding in the bathroom for us. He was a huge help in getting the bathroom back together. I didn't mind it being green, I was just so happy to see walls again. Al didn't get to play with us for too long tho because Tiffiney FINALLY had her baby girl Ryah. Tiff is the lovely lady that helped me get my table from Big Lots. Which I finally got by the way. She called corporate and they took care of the problem for me. I had a brand new table two days later. I'm sure Ryah will grow up with the same independence and gumption as her mother. Justin and I were lucky enough to be able to visit at the hospital. I love that my friends are having babies so I can snuggle them. 

Here she is, beautiful baby Ryah Jean Pollard. 

We even talked Justin into holding her!

annnddddd green board 

the tub :)

Since green board is, so very green you have to prime it before you can paint it. BORING! I just want to just right into the good stuff. But no, we primed first. 

Ok honestly, Justin did most of the priming. I was testing the rooms acoustics and trying out the new tub. annnnd drinking coffee. And documenting the steps? Ok, that's stretching it. 

Alright! On to the paint. Meet - Vintage Gray 

I swear I helped with this part. I was just....taking a break....and documenting. 

Starting to dry!

Painting Selfie! 

Once the paint dried it was time to put down the linoleum. We called our handy dandy friend Ben for that! Ben said we needed to put some Lue On (err.....type of wood/board/I don't even know if I spelled it right) down before we could adhere the flooring down. So he did :) And Justin and I went away for the weekend. To Ann Arbor. To shoot the lovely wedding of Caleb and Lauren. It was wonderful. On the way home we stopped at Ikea and Olga's. Justin had never ever been to Ikea before and he loved it. We spent a good chunk of the day there. Then on the way home we stopped in Flint and saw Lisa and her brand new baby Riley! 

She's the most adorable, and precious, and sleepiest baby ever! And then she tooted on me, and even that was cute! I really wanted to bring her home with me but her mother wouldn't let me. Gosh Lisa, taking all the fun out of it! :) It was great tho, we got to spend an hour or so there and she slept the whole time. I rock at being an aunt! LOL

Even better - Lisa called me later to ask if I would be her Godmother!!!!! I get to be that perfect little princesses Godmother! How amazing! And not to be competitive or anything but Nick, if you're reading, I am so going to be the best Godparent ever! 

And of course, Justin, looking all cute as he holds the super cute baby. Ah. :) I'm swooning. 

Snap out of it Megan! Back to the bathroom.....

When we got home the bathroom looked like this...

Ben got the floor down, did the baseboards and crown molding, and trim! He also got the vanity in place. 

Justin and Ron (his father) stuccoed the ceiling to cover up some imperfections and years of pink paint. It turned out really nice. 

New vanity, floor, walls, and trim. It's finally starting to look like a bathroom again!! The plumber should be coming over sometime this week to hook the water back up. 

Now let's wander over to the kitchen. The kitchen was another room that shouldn't have been quite as much work as it turned in to. But, I'm learning, anytime you want to do one thing to a house you have to do 4 other things before you can make that happen. All I really wanted to do in here was replace the sink (it was yucky and I felt weird about using it), add some drawer slides to the drawers (they were heavy and had no support) and build a little extra counter space on the opposing wall. 

Here is the before. And again I really should have taken more pictures of this. 

So there was this weird little pantry space in that corner. It wasn't functional at all. The stair well is in that same wall so for some reason they built stair shaped shelves. It was odd. Away that goes. We ended up boarding it up because I wanted to build some counters in that corner. 

This is after Russ added some more electrical outlets for me so I could have heaps of counter space. I really wanted to put something in that closet before they covered it. In case someone ever opens the wall up again. I was thinking a bottle of wine. Justin was thinking plastic skeleton. We couldn't agree so we didn't put anything in there. Then someone said a newspaper! DUH! Well too late now I guess. 

So we called Ben again, I kinda sorta explained what I was thinking and he went to  work. He's seriously so awesome. I told him what I wanted and he totally got it. 

We didn't go all the way to the door because the door is actually cut out of the corner of the room. I think it would have made walking in awkward. I don't want awkward, I want functional! 

My lovely counter tops I found at Lowe's but of course they had just been discontinued. Luckily we found the pieces we needed at the Lowe's in Petoskey and they brought them over for us. 

This counter top I was going to leave as is but when we pulled the sink out to replace it we found out that part of the counter had rotted because of a slow leak. Super. New counters for that one too! Then Ben actually had to re-build the drawers to make the slides fit. I'm so glad I just get to be the imagineer and I don't actually have to do any of this crazy stuff. 

See - no more counter :(

And everything is so dang dusty! Justin wants to start moving stuff in and I'm all - pssshhh I don't want to re-clean everything we own. 

Here it is as we get all the new counters on. You can see the second structure Ben built in the bottom corner. 

Once the cabinets were built I got the pleasure of staining them. After I stained them I decided who needs to go tanning when you can just smother yourself in Summer Oak. :) 

Night and day difference. It matches the rest of the kitchen perfectly. 

Ooohhhhh Aaahhhhh! You can even see my awesome cook top stove in there. I'm way excited to use that. 

All we have left to do in the kitchen is finish up the electrical, get my double oven in place and put the pass through hole in the wall. Oh, and paint. 

On to the basement.....

All we've done to the basement so far is framed in the bathroom. Well I shouldn't say it like it was a little job. See for yourself:

The space under the stairs was a really strange area so we decided to use it for a little half bath. There is just going to be a toilet and sink. With some shelves for storage of course. I should work for Ikea, I'm getting pretty good at building storage into everything :) Ben is going to drywall this soon and Steve is working on the electrical hook ups for this and my washer & dryer. (Those are going to be right on the other side of the wall in the "utility room".) 

Next up we have to pull some paneling down to open up the basement some more and build a bar. After all this construction I'm going to need a drink! Thank God for our awesome friends!! 

I suppose that should be enough update to hold you guys over for a while longer. I'll keep you posted as rooms finally start getting put back together. I was beginning to worry that winter would never end and our house would never be finished. But since it's 43 degrees out today I might have a shimmer of hope yet. 

Thanks for stopping by. I can't wait to have you all over someday. 

TagLine*HouseWarmingPaaaaartay!