fixing up the floors

We were excited when we found we had nice maple floors under the icky dark green carpet in most of the floor.

But nothing could prepare us for how AMAZING they would look sanded--HOLY COW!! I was totally prepared to stain them a dark espresso or chocolate to match the oak stair treads--but when I saw these beautiful blonde colors and the character, E and I both decided we had to keep them.

Of course the kitchen had "new" laminate, so the old ones had been scrapped--they put in some beautiful new wood to match up--and it looks great (and smells great) too!

The dining room here hasn't been sanded--but the parlor behind it has, and the maple at the bottom is the kitchen.  Gives you an idea of the old and the new and the work that went into it.  A little patching up but only very minor damage and what a huge asset to the place!  WOOT!

prepping the bedrooms

Starting to finish up the smaller projects, especially in the bedrooms.  The ceiling above Amara's room that was water-stained from an old roof leak was all torn out and replaced.

And the 4th upstairs bedroom--one of the few rooms in the house we barely touched, got a nice new coat of ceiling and wall paint, before the new carpeting went down.

cleaning up the electric

finally framing

starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this living room wall.  Still a mess, but it has to be structurally inspected at this point before we close it up.

We can put the siding back on, get it all squared up, new drainage and dry as a bone (we hope!) very soon :)

The basement

Though we're not doing much in the basement--not now, and likely not much ever, we have been down there a fair amount lately.

A good bit has been redone/updated--

others have not.

Character is one thing the place isn't short on.  It's a combination of poured concrete (though, not what you'd see today in new builds) flagstone or fieldstone...

some brick--a few old chimneys or what is left of them...

(My partner in crime for the day)

And even though it's make-shift mortar and in need of tuck-pointing, it's solid.  

The biggest part of the basement is below the kitchen--and for sure where an old cellar entrance used to be--at least dad can stand up down there!

kitchen down to the joists

It was "determined"--i use the word lightly, that the subfloor was so uneven (it had been shimmed and sleepered several times with previous flooring attempts) that it was easier to put in the new hardwood by ripping out ALL of the old.

So we did.  We found the old back porch foundation--which explains more and more the old layout to us and why some things are so goofy.

I think these fellas really like to rip things out...

This is the view from the laundry to the north wall of the kitchen--I like that you can see the basement underneath too.

And over to the bay window--had to keep the girlies out of here for a bit.  Even though it's solid, it's a balancing act, even for the grown ups!