Home

So from Christmas to the beginning of April we were in a constant state of running back and forth from work to the old house to the new house.  Cleaning, painting, building, and the list goes on.  We were able to move in Easter Monday.  We still have stuff at the other house and the goal is in the next two weeks to get everything out of the old house and put out the For Sale sign.  I promise to share pictures and show you the progress in future posts, but this was on my heart and I wanted to share.

I am sitting on the couch watching Married at First Sight: the First Year and listening to a combination of screaming and giggling coming from Kiff's room as Alex is getting him ready for bed.  I look at the floor with Kiff's toys scattered about, remnants of an afternoon spent lounging on the couch fighting what appears to the beginning of a cold.  Then it hits me, Kiff is the fourth generation of giggles and tears that is happening within these walls.  Alex's grandfather played in this house, followed by Alex's dad, then Alex and Erica, and now Kiff.  It's very bittersweet to realize all of this.  This house just feels like home and it's so good to finally be home.

Fireplaces

In the previous post I told you we have four fireplaces, four mantels, and five chimneys.  I am very excited about having mantels to decorate each season once we move.  Let me break it down for you:

The living room has a working wood stove insert in the fireplace.  The stove has a mantel as well.  The living room also has a brick area with a mantel that I have been told was previously a wood stove of some type as well.  That makes two mantels and one fireplace in the living room.

The front room which will be a bedroom, previously a den, also has a chimney with a fireplace and mantel.  We believe this one is probably a working fireplace, but we will have it closed off before we move since it will one day be a child's room.

The master bedroom, the original living room of the house, also has a fireplace.  This fireplace had about a foot and half of leaves and dirt when we removed the front cover.  This fireplace also has a mantel.

The most exciting find of our renovation was a fireplace.   Remember this hallway closet connecting the bathroom to the master bedroom.  We were hoping when we took down this wall it would present us with the back side of the chimney from the fireplace in the bedroom.  We wanted the exposed brick to be a focal point in our master bathroom.

So Alex and Dad got to work demoing.  

This little cubby had housed shoes before we bought the house.  

It didn't take Dad very long to realize what was going on behind this cubby.  It was screwed into the brick.  So they kept at it.

Then we found it -- another fireplace (and more original wood)! 

We were SO excited!  We reworked our original design for our master bathroom and closet so we could incorporate the fireplace into our bathroom.  How awesome is that?  A fireplace in our master bathroom and bedroom.  We decided to run electric through the fireplaces and close the chimney.  We will have electric logs in both the bathroom and the bedroom.  

Another exciting component our of master bath is the tub.  Some of y'all will be totally grossed out by this and that's completely okay.  I couldn't be more excited.  Next to the house in the cow pasture was a clawfoot tub being used as a water trough.  I told Alex I wanted it in our bathroom.  We emptied the water and checked the condition, which was actually fairly good seeing as how it had been outside as a water trough for who knows how many years.  

The tub after we moved it to Alex's Papaw's house.  

Rusted Bottom 

Rusted feet we found in Papaw's shed.

We sent the tub and feet off to be sandblasted and primed.  We then decided to paint the tub white and the feet black (although I preferred chrome feet).

The tub after a coat of paint

Me inside the tub - the inside isn't perfect, but it'll be a perfect fit in our imperfect home.

The picture below is the area for the master bathroom, closet and guest bathroom after the walls were taken down.  The tub in the picture is the original tub that we moved to the guest bathroom (the wall on the front right of the picture).  The front left side of the picture (where the ladder is) was closed off for the master closet.  And about halfway through that wood board on the right side of the picture is where we put a wall up.  For a better idea, check out the picture below.  

 

 The bathroom after we framed up everything.  This is the view from the master bedroom.  The back left corner is where the toilet will go (we still don't have a working toilet in the house).  The left front of the picture is where our double 60-inch vanity will go.  The half wall is where Alex's walk-in shower is.   The fireplace is to the right of this picture followed by the closet and the clawfoot tub will sit perpendicular to the wall to the right with a chandelier above it.

Alex's walk-in marble shower - he loves it!

The Tour...Before

This task of remodeling a 1937 house to make it our own home has been an adventure to say the least.  Let me show you around.  All of these pictures were taking prior to the auction, before we purchased the house.  This place was a mess.

The kitchen

The front room - this is becoming a bedroom.

Front bedroom - this room is becoming Kiff's room.

Front bedroom again.  Before we began renovations, you had to go through this room to get to the front room (2nd picture).  We took about 3.5 feet from this room to make a hallway and new front door. 

Original bathroom - We were able to keep these built-ins in tact and we hope to rebuild them back in the house in the dining room.  

Double vanity in the original bathroom, shower at the end.  

Tub followed by two, yes TWO, toilets.  So weird.  We kept this  tub and moved it to the guest bathroom. 

This is the hallway behind the tub in the previous picture - it allowed you to get from  the living room, through the bathroom, to this hallway-type closet, into the master bedroom (below), into the kitchen, and back to the living room.  

The master bathroom - this room smelled like cat urine, so the carpet was the first to go, followed by the weird wallpaper paneling. Again, junk everywhere.

This was/will be the dining room (which was originally a back porch I believe.  This is the only room in the house that had drywall as the original walls and ceiling.  

Dining room again.  

Dining room again with a door to outside.  The door on the right goes to the old well room.  

I don't have any before the purchase pictures of the living room, laundry room, or the pantry.  

One of the first things we did after buying the house was pull up the carpet in both bedrooms.  Under the red carpet we found GORGEOUS hard wood floors.  So we got really excited and pulled up the green cat urine smelling carpet to find vinyl floors.  So we pulled up a corner of the vinyl and found hardwood there as well.  This turned out to be more challenging than we thought.  Alex just finished 10+ hours getting the black tar-like substance under the vinyl off the hardwood floors, but it will most definitely be worth it in the end. 

The floors under the red carpet - beautiful!

The front two bedrooms had 2 inch plank horizontal pine walls and ceilings.  We decided to pull the strange wallpaper paneling down in the master bedroom and we found studs - no pine planks.  This was a huge disappointment.  Well one day while I was home with Kiff, Alex decided to go ahead and pull down all the paneling, because we were going to replace with sheetrock.  He called me and told me to come over.  I gathered Kiff and we went to the house only to find 3/4 of the room had the same plank walls and ceiling as the other rooms.  The portion we originally pulled off had been a doorway, which was why there was no planks.  

Our very first peek into our room where we were hopeful we would have plank walls!

Part of this door frame is where we cut into and had our feelings hurt.  

Above the fireplace in our room - finding more original wood.  There are 4 fire places in the house, four mantels, and five chimneys.  

Pulling down the tile ceiling to find original plank ceilings.  

Ceiling tiles and paneling gone.  

Semi 360 view of the room - don't get dizzy.  

We assume this to be Kiff's (the first one) handwriting on the walls.  I wanted to leave some of this exposed and put a frame around it, but we got a bit paint happy and painted over it.  I'm glad we have this picture!

After removing the ceiling tiles in the living room and kitchen - the tiles that are in this picture are holding up the insulation from the attic - there was a wall there previously.  We built a faux beam to match another one in the living room.  

 So this post has become a bit longer than intended (it was just supposed to be the tour remember), so I'm going to stop myself here.  Stay tuned for one of the more exciting moments in our renovation coming up next!

The Olde Homestead

I've decided this blog needed some updating.  I toyed with switching over to Wordpress, but my familiarity with Blogspot kept me around.  Be on the lookout for more updates to come.  Last May, after several months of waiting and anticipating, we were able to purchase Alex's great-grandmother's (Grannie Greer) home.

I took this right after we signed the papers for the house.

The front of our house - May 2014. 

With the help of my (Georgina) parents, we have been able to do the majority of the remodeling ourselves.  My mom has done all the painting.  She has stripped, primed, and painted every wall, ceiling, trim, and cabinet in every room in the house.  Having a carpenter as a dad (both of us) has proved to be extremely helpful.  Dad has helped with the ceilings, walls, floors, really everything.  He has also helped teach Alex more things about construction.  I can't wait to show you more.  Stay tuned for a tour!