Under Construction (Again... or... Still.)

So, here's what else we've been up to lately!


Back Story:
For Christmas this year, Mom and Dad Himes gave Jared and I both LL Bean gift certificates. We decided to pool them to buy - for the first time in our married, adult life - an actual nice set of lovely, matching sheets and bedding.

But when our beautiful new quilt and shams arrived a couple weeks ago, I just couldn't bring myself to put them on our bed with the entire rest of our bedroom still looking so... "blah"... and, frankly, bad.

So, I decided I'd paint.

I bought everything to make the chalk paint - to transform our dressers - and all the other paint I would need for the walls and closet doors. I was set.

So, on a Monday morning, I went up to wipe down the awful fake wood paneling walls and begin. But when I got up there... and really started thinking about it... I hate the fake wood paneling. And even painted.. they would have looked better... but it would still be dated, undesirable, fake.wood.paneling.

And I would still be unahppy.

(Not to mention that it would be a whole lot of time and effort to basically just cover up a still existing issue/problem.)

So, I texted Jared. And asked him if it would be ok.... if I ripped it off.

And in a move that I'm sure he's regretted many times (ha) - he gave me the ok.


So here is where we begin....

Before I started anything, I snapped a few pictures. Just to remember how truly sad/neglected/lame/forgotten/embarrassing our bedroom really was. (It's definitely like the most neglected room in our house. Because honestly, it's the one room no one really goes in or spends time in, ya know? Besides us. And we've got more important things to think about. So it's just always gotten pushed to the back burner.)


But here she is. In all her "Before" glory....

So.... yea. It was time to be rid of the paneling.




And by the time Jared got home that night.... we were!

And then all on his own, with no persuasion by me at all... Jared decided the ceiling tiles needed to go, too.

Yes. That's foil.

So then Jared had to remove the light fixture (mounted on the wall) to get the last little bit of paneling off... and he decided he was going to put in a new light switch and outlet and get rid of the super dated old light... and that led to all of the plaster just being removed from this small part of the wall....

There. To the right. You can see all the exposed lath and the new outlet box and light switch.

And, so I don't know if you've ever had much experience with 100 year old PLASTER or not.... but... it gets messy. And... it was basically like walking into a dust storm every time we entered our room.

The carpet was covered, revolting, and beyond saving.

It was next to go.

 Boom.

And after we swept the big stuff up. 

It's painted (as expected.. both other bedrooms were painted hardwood as well). But we're still fine with it. Our bed will cover most of the floor area up anyway. We can worry about it later.

And at least it's cleaner than that nasty carpet was.

And speaking of nasty carpet.... 

 Ka-chow.

These are our stairs.

 

And upstairs hallway.

And since it was also like 50 years old, embarrassingly ugly, and absolutely disgustingly dirty (with years and years of.. whatever... ground into it.. and then now topped off with plaster dust....)

It made the list. 

It had to go. 

 Look at that hardwood under there! Yessss

 Meanwhile this is the kind of stuff I do (Snapchat truly hilarious updates to my sister and Emily) while Jared does the heavy lifting/hard work.. Haha.

 Oh yea. Nails and Staples GALORE.

No more snapchatting. It was time for me to help again.

And after some pliers & screwdrivers, pulling, prying, scraping, washing, 

and plain old fashioned elbow grease....

 We now have carpet-free stairs!

 I still have to wash them with Murphy's Oil Soap and try to shine them up a bit more... maybe work on some spots here and there... I don't have a set-in-stone plan yet...

but that will wait until after we are all completely finished with the mudding/sanding/dusty MESS in our bedroom.

Which bring me back to where this all started.


Our bedroom.


As of this morning, it looks like this:

 All the large holes have been patched with drywall

 And the mudding process  has begun

A few more coats - over anything questionable - and to help blend the new drywall in with the textured original plaster walls... and it will be time to start the priming/painting process.

On our walls, our ceiling, our baseboards, our closet doors, and our dressers.


...And then it's onto the hallway - walls and baseboards.


(Oh. And Jared had to take a break from this project to replace a bathtub pipe over the weekend. And since the bathroom is REALLY the room we WANT to be working on... and planned to start on next month!.. it is taking all our willpower not to just completely start demolition in there right now, too.   ...one room at a time, one room at a time.. it'll be your turn soon, you horrible little bathroom....)

....You feelin' tired yet? ;)