Mommy's Helper

I'm Back

The girls and I made it back home on Tuesday night. I'm currently sorting through pictures. I'll post some in future. Three weeks of vacation makes for a lot of photos to look through. Here is a family picture. I put a smaller, closer version of this picture on the sidebar. This is for all of you (Kirsten) who think there aren't enough pictures of me on this blog.

Last, but not least -- The Bathroom

The bathroom was probably the worst room in the house when we bought it. It is a very large bathroom, washer/dryer hookups are in the bathroom. But there was no shower, just a claw-foot bathtub, there wasn't a single cabinet or shelf in the whole room. Everything was just nasty. The tub, sink, and toilet in the first picture are just where they were when we bought it. The floor was disgusting, too.










Complete change. Ray tiled the floor. He added a shower, shelves, cabinets, a new sink and toilet. He added a light over the sink. Also he fixed up the washer/dryer area with a much nicer vent and hookups. Once again, we painted. We made the whole house neutral colors. These pictures are taken from basically the same position as the pictures above.












That's pretty much the whole house. Ray did a great job with it. Now the real test is to see what other people think. Anyone in the market for a house?

The "Other House" Part III -- Kitchen and Back Entry

We'll start this one with the back entry. The first photo, on the left, is looking from the original back door into the kitchen. On the right is the finished version looking from the kitchen towards the new back door. There are stairs down to the basement from just inside the back door, the shelf you can see is over the stairs. I'm not putting any pictures of the basement on-- it basically just holds the furnace and water heater.












I like this next picture because it shows the work in progress. Ray took out the walls in the back and re-built everything. The area you can see contains the back entry and what became the pantry and closet for the back bedroom. Where the wall is still in place is the back bedroom.
The kitchen wasn't in great shape, either. The stove was disgusting and the fridge still had food in it--leaving an unpleasant odor throughout the house since the electricity was turned off. In these pictures you can see the counter and cabinets. On the right you can see the doorway to the bathroom. On the left you can see the doorways to the back bedroom and the tiny random room.









This picture shows the other side of the kitchen. The windows were bad throughout the house. You can also see the old flooring.
Here is the kitchen now. First looking from the back entry. We put in completely new cabinets and counter-tops. Also, next to the stove we added cabinets and counter-tops -- it was a weird area, too skinny for typical base cabinets, but Ray made it all work. Originally there was nothing next the stove but some pipes that looked really bad. On the right you can see the new pantry doors replacing the old random room. Ray also put in some very nice tile. He did a great job on the floor. I really like the way the kitchen turned out. It is a nice-sized kitchen, there is a space for a table next to the windows and we maximized cupboard and counter space. The pantry is a good size, too. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning the stove and Ray scrubbed down the fridge (I couldn't clean that one, the smell was too bad).

The "Other House" Part II -- Living Room and Bedrooms

The story of the living room and front bedroom:
The previous owner, for some unknown reason, decided to make this small two-bedroom house a small one-bedroom house by removing a wall. In the first two pictures you can see how it looked when we bought it. First looking at the living room, then at the bedroom area, with the wall missing. It made a very large living room, for no good reason, and certainly didn't help the value of the house any. Also, the windows through the whole house were awful. When Ray took off the trim on one of them, the window fell out. That's how well they were put it.










So Ray put the wall back in. It was really a good thing because the guy had done some weird things with electrical wires and such when he took the wall out. These next two pictures are of the living room now. First looking from the kitchen doorway towards the front door, then looking back towards the kitchen/bedroom doors. Along with the new wall and windows, we painted and put in carpet.













Now the bedrooms. On the right I have a picture of the front bedroom, the one that was created again when Ray put the wall back in. It has a very small closet, as you can see, we couldn't find a way to make that bigger. But it also has direct access to the bathroom -- the bathroom has another door from the kitchen. On the left is a picture of the back bedroom. I don't have a before picture because when we bought it it was just an empty room with a small window and no closet. Ray really changed things in the back. There was a very odd room in the house that was too small for a room, really, but bigger than a closet -- very poorly used space. Ray split it and created a nice walk-in closet for the back bedroom (you can see the mirrored closet doors in the picture) and a good-size pantry for the kitchen. We painted and added carpet to both bedrooms, as well.

The "Other House" -- Outside

We're heading off to visit family this weekend and I won't be around for a while. I'm going to try setting up some posts to show up occasionally while I'm gone, so there will still be something for you to see if you check my blog. However, I probably won't be on much so you'll have to wait until I'm back to learn about my travels.

I believe most of you know about the other house. If not, here is the brief story. Ray was going crazy because he didn't have a project to spend all his spare time on. So we bought a house that needed some serious work. Ten months later it is a whole different place.

This is the first installment of pictures. (Some of these may look familiar if you recall our Christmas letter.) On the left is how it looked when we bought it. On the right is how it looks now.
Front:
New siding, new windows, added the rock on the front.


North side







Back:
Ray tore out most of the back section of the house and re-built the walls.

South side

Tough work

Walking will just wear you right out. I found Ruby like this after noticing that it got very quiet.

Cora has almost figured out how to pull herself up. Ruby is getting close, too. My shelf of globes will not be safe much longer. So far they always come to this side of the crib, but I don't expect my luck to hold out forever.