seeing progress

So... Brad and I have had our house for three weeks now. I can't believe it has been that long, because I honestly thought (going into this project) that it wouldn't take this long to renovate. Boy, I was totally wrong. Everything we do takes three times as long as we think it will take. I guess these are the things you learn while renovating a house?
However, this past week, Brad's dad, Stan, came to help us with the house. We decided to focus on the main bathroom and do a total makeover. We are super glad that he was willing to come and help us because we definitely needed someone with experience. He has basically renovated his whole house and came to help with tons of tools, tips, and hard work. Thanks Stan!!!

the day Stan arrived-full of energy and ready to go.

Stan, tearing down the glue pieces on the ceiling.
Brad got to take a couple days off of work to help out his father.

Brad, under the kitchen sink.
Before, Brad and Stan got to work on the bathroom, Stan had the great idea of feeding 250 ft of electrical wiring from the basement, through the kitchen, through the demo'd bathroom wall and up to the attic crawl space so that when we want to add more electrical to the house we have enough power (and cord). What a smart idea, we would have never thought of that.

Stan, building the new wall.
We originally thought that we would keep the tile around the bathtub but since we are building a wall at the end of the tub the tile that we would have put on the new wall would differ from the old tile. Therefore, we decided to tear down all the original tile and put up all matching tile in the bathroom.

Brad (very excitedly) using his brand new power drill. :)

YAY!!!! I finally have finished painting the main floor- which included, the living room, dining room, half bath, and foyer. I will post before and after pics of the rooms after we get furniture in them.

During the day on the 4th of July (Saturday), my friends Brian and Mary came over and helped me tear down wall paper in the master bedroom. In the process, I think we saw at least 7 different layers of wallpaper. I guess that was everyone's solution....wallpaper over the old stuff. We are going to break the horrible cycle!

Then on Sunday, we decided, that it was now or never to expose brick on one wall in the master bedroom. So I went to town on the wall. It was a dirty dirty job but I think it will turn out to be a pretty cool accent wall in the end.

I still have the top two feet to do...but what do you think of it so far? It has to still be cleaned and sealed.

Brad's father left Sunday morning after helping us for a week. Brad had to finish putting up about 6 pieces of sheetrock all by himself on Sunday. It took a long time, but by midnight Sunday night, Brad was finally nailing in the last screws! Congrats Brad!!! Yay!!! We are so close to finally having a bathroom (which means, no more traveing to Brad's house to take showers!!!)

Success!!

Here it is, the last two pieces of sheetrock Brad finished last night. They def were difficult pieces because he had to measure and cut accurately all the spots where the faucets went. He measured accurately the very first time...I'm so proud of my guy!!! Good job Brad!!!