Turning a House Into a Home (Alternate title: It Took a Village)
In the 6 weeks before the Family Reunion, I was off the grid for the biggest project I've ever been involved in: home renovation. Like I mention before, Mick and Laura bought a pretty run down home next to my parents and it needed serious attention. They hard manly grunt work was put in by the guys: Uncle Steve, Cousin Will, Mick, Dad, Uncle's friend Dave (tile work) and the neighbor boy was asked to get on a ladder to paint the top of a 20 ft wall. I was in a category all my own, which I will call "really homely chick who always wore the same tacky paint clothes all the time and was kinda bossy." Laura, her mom Pam, and aunt Debbie worked on the house a lot too, doing the detail work like cleaning and lining shelves and helping me paint. Mom and Mallory put in overtime watching the grandkids so that we wouldn't have little ones underfoot.
We worked too hard and fast to get good before/after photos so please forgive the poor quality of these from my phone (Note: iPhone upgrade coming in Feb 2013). If you click on the photo, you can view it better.
Here is the Master Bedroom, before and after (now "Studio Taupe" by Behr)
The kitchen. Oh the kitchen. Those cabinets deserved the makeover because it was screaming "built in the early 90's" before that. Laura chose black with distressed edges and I took off.
*In the most humble way possible* I love it.
This view shows even more of a change. They hired someone to repaint/surface the tile which I think turned out beautifully. Notice also that all the hardware was changed out for a black iron look. Luckily, the old flourescents lights were taken out and Uncle installed new can lights to make sure the kitchen wouldn't be to dark for the cavelings (This is the nickname I came up with for Mick and Laura throughout this whole process. Whenever asked what finish would be best, the common response was usually dark!)
The black continues on the built-in hutch. Laura's chose wallpaper for the back of it, giving the whole thing a modern feel which contrasted nicely to the Tuscan feel of the new tile flooring. Laura's mom did the wallpaper install and then used the rest for lining the cabinets. Kitchen paint color is "Roasted Almond" by Behr, with extra brown added. We wished we had gone a little tanner-- if I had to do it over again, I would have chosen "Classic Taupe."
The bathrooms. Do you have any idea what goes into tiling a bathroom? Well now I do. Except I just observed for 5 minutes while Uncle and his friend Dave did INCREDIBLE work in the bathroom. As you can see in the left picture, the ceiling over the shower was really low, making the space seem really tight. They raised the ceiling and brought the tile all the way to the top, and including the mosaic accent strip. The walls (that you can't see) were painted "Antique White" by Behr.
Main Bath.
Master Bath.
There used to be a wall between the dining room and family room. Not anymore. Will and Uncle smashed it down one day while I was there. Uncle wouldn't let me take the picture until I made sure it looked like he was working...
Speaking of posing.
The new view into the family room.
The family room was soooo dingy. They had shutters on the sliding doors, bad carpet and outdated lighting. Our crew knocked down the shutters, got laminate flooring (dark!) and added a fan. I painted the mantle black and the walls are "Wheat Bread" by Behr. Now, it's my favorite room. See Sophie there in the bottom right hand corner? She loved to visit-- you know--whenever Micky wasn't around to tell me no.
Maura's room was ga-ross. The original walls on the left look blue but they were white. The original light was so terrible that it radiated blue. We painted "Gray Timber Wolf" in her room. It was supposed to be Tommy's color but ended up being a purplish hue so we chose "Gray Area" (not pictured) for him, which was a dark Charcoal gray. If I get a photo later I will post it. You can't see it here, but all the bedrooms got new carpeting as well. It's the softest carpet I have ever felt.
A closer look at the kitchen tile.
We had a rule that nothing gets thrown away until it's cleared for removal. Well Uncle left a "firm" note to the person who threw the square piece of wood away. He thought my Dad did it but-- it was me! (whoopsie!)
Just because I spent so much time here, I am making you look at this again.
I *heart* the red accents.
I realize now that I forgot to get photos of the front living room which has the 20 ft wall I mentioned earlier. That whole wall also is now a warm gray, while the rest of the walls in that room and the hallway are a light "Chocolate Froth".
The whole process was even more awesome than I realized it would be. I saw Uncle tear down walls, replace doors, locks, door trim and baseboards, and walk the endless steps it took to go outside to cut each tile. He was looking quite svelte the last time I saw him. I saw Mick climb in the attic, go up ladders, paint ceilings.... and so exhausted I though he would collapse. Will taught Mick how to change out the electrical outlets when they changed the whole house from tan to white. Dad did everything asked of him and more, including spray painting vents, cleaning shutters, and painting baseboards. In fact my whole family was part of the painting process (even if I DID have to bite my tongue and fix it later. JUST KIDDING. Kinda.).
There was a phrase that was the theme of the project. Well, there were 2 actually. I kept saying, "We're all making sacrifices, Audrey," like Ellen said in Christmas Vacation because we were all so stressed. But my family. My family kept saying, "We didn't come here to paint. Oh wait. We DID come here to paint." By week 6 I had quite had it with the joke. My family is a lot like Letterman-- we don't let anything go, and will say something until it gets funny again. This one is not there yet.
I've decided that I will paint walls again in a heartbeat but I hate HATE doing doorjambs. All 12 of them needed 2 coats of white paint. Boring! But-- I did it. It's done and they have moved in and made it their home. I did have some fun early on when the pantry needed to be painted quickly before something went in the next day, so I got 6 cans of spray paint, covered myself in garbage bags, and went to town-- all the while feeling like a very unclever graffiti artist. It looks great, even if I am still coughing out white chunks. Ewwwww that was gross, no I'm not.
For 3 out of 6 weeks we didn't have running water and for 4 out of 6 there were no toilets in the house. Thank GOD my folks lived next door! The whole thing would have taken twice the time (and twice the tears!)
I hope Mick and Laura love their new space. And I hope they forget that I have a key :)
What do you say, could we have a new show on TLC "The LaBarbera House Flippers?"
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