my lil project

So, after realizing how long it is going to take us to make this house a "livable" space, I decided for my own sanity to get at least one room finished. Therefore, I focused all my efforts on the smallest room in the house, the half bath. As you can see, it was once a dungeon of red and dark blue. I thought I would brighten up the small space and finally have something finished!

I painted primer on every surface and painted the trim and ceiling white twice.

All primed and ready to go...

Brad and I both decided that we needed a light/bright color for the tiny room to lighten it up esp bc there is no window. So we decided on a sage green, thank God that this green was decent bc I bought a gallon of it. ha.

Here is the final product...I still have some decorating to do bc I just threw things I already had into the bathroom but you get the idea! Yay! One room done. :)

Our first HELPER!!!

This past weekend we had our first "demo" helper. Nicki, Brad's sister was generous enough to help Brad demo the bathroom on Saturday. It was definitely a dirty job. There were multiple layers and really dusty. It took ten trips to the dumpster to clean up after demolishing the plaster in half of the bathroom. Thanks Nicki for helping!

Brad's so proud of his plumbing work. I'm glad he got it fixed otherwise I wouldn't have water/plumbing when I move in.

On Sunday, Brad and I took down all of the boards that you see on the walls. Just half of the bathroom to go. I hope we get most of it done before I have to move in on Sunday, so that I have a place to shower. ha. ????

Day 2 & 3

Days 2 and 3 didn't seem as productive as day 1. Each day Brad and I would get to the house around 6:30pm and work until about 11pm. This made for late nights and early mornings. Needless to say, I think Brad and I will be worn out if we keep this up.

However, we have made some decisions regarding what we are going to do to the house and what is feasible. I think the consensus is that we will gut the master bedroom and the upstairs bathroom. And then just prime and paint the rest of the house.

Last night, I started priming the living room. I borrowed an airless paint gun/machine from a friend and spent an hour trying to figure out how it works. I never got it working and resorted to rolling on the primer the old fashion way. We bought a primer called Killz that claims it will remove any odor still remaining in the wall (ie: smoke smell) I guess we will see how it works when we get into the house tonight.

While I was covering the walls (and myself) with primer Brad was up in the master bedroom taking off molding so that eventually we can demolish the walls. Three of the four walls in the master (after demolition) will have exposed brick. We are trying to decide if we want to leave one wall exposed... hmmm? decisions, decisions.

If anyone was wondering how Maya was reacting to all the happenings...she is doing great! She just follows us around like our shadow and will watch us work. She is definitely getting a work out (same with us) going up and down the steps countless times throughout the night. I do however, think she will really enjoy the new house, especially since her old house was the size of our new living room. ha.

the living room all taped up and covered for painting of walls and ceilings

at the end of the night, priming the half bath's door. seriously, who paints a tiny half bath dark blue and red????
notice my white hands, I didn't have any paint thinner last night and so I showed up to work with white hands and feet. classy.

brad is so proud of his high tech mask...he is ready to demolish!

in the four hours of work, brad got a wall and a half of trim off. I think this is going to be a very long process. notice the three+ layers of wall paper with paint over the top layer. I think all the previous owners didn't want to hassle with doing things right.

not too excited about the nights progress. oh well, some nights will be successful and some will just be ok.

stay tuned for more updates!

EXTREME Home Makeover- Kristen & Brad style

So...for those of you that didn't know, Brad and I closed on our first house in Denver this past Friday (June 12, 2009) but because we closed a week early we allowed the tenant (the owner's mother) a couple extra days to move out. Therefore, Brad and I did not get to start work on our house until Sunday evening. Believe me, we got right to work. We have a lot to do and thought it would be cool to document our progress on the series of tubes (aka: the internet). So if you would like to follow our progress we should be updating the blog frequently.

to view more of the "before" pictures visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/bwhoffman/Gilpin#


Home Makeover: Day 1 (6hours of work)

When we finally got into the house, the tenant definitely did not leave it squeaky clean. She left a lot of cool stuff but she mostly left alot of crappy things too. So, to start our project off right, we had to get rid of all her smokey things (yep, folks she was a smoker, another hurdle/project for us-get out the smoke smell). We tossed out carpet rugs, a couch, and all the window coverings. Just doing that already helped with the smoke smell. Then we opened as many of the windows that we could. That itself was a project because most were either sealed or painted shut but Brad did a great job and got most of them open.

our next project was to rip out the carpet on the stairs and in the hallway on the second floor. The two pics above are the "before" pics of the two stairways going up to the second floor.

Brad and I were both super excited to see fairly decent wood floor under the crummy carpet. Yes!

yes, I did a lot of tossing things off the balcony. :)

the end result.

next project, bathroom.

we had to rip out the ceiling, floor and wall paper. fun stuff.

almost done with the ceiling. now what to do with the globs of glue still left on the ceiling boards?

Brad was nice enough to finish gutting the bathroom floor while I went downstairs to clean out the fridge. We still have some sticky tile on the floor but all in all it's a whole lot better than where we began.

This is where we left it last night. I think we accomplished alot for the first day renovation. Although, it seems like there are endless things still left to do.

Stay tuned to see what we demolish next. :)