History of the house

So through out this blog you are going to see pictures of our house and our attempts to fix it up. Here is a little background on it. Our house was built in 1949, yep it's old enough to be our grandparent. The first owner lived in it for a few years and then the Cooke's moved in the mid 1950s. They remained in this house until 2008ish. It stayed on the market (sold by owner) until Jeremy and I moved in July 2010 (after being married a month). Most of the work done in this house was done by non professionals (let's just say Mike Holmes would have a field day over here 'making it right'). Some of the work we will be doing is out of a need, others will be want. (You will learn to hate my wallpaper just as much as I do.)

I went to college for Interior Architecture at UNCG (Go Spartans!) So I do have the education, just not the practice. I haven't actually gotten paid to do what I went to school for. When the economy turns around give me a call, I'll be waiting! Jeremy also went to school for Architecture technology. In other words I come from the conceptual, idea making side of design, and Jeremy figures out how to make it happen. We are an amazing team together.

Back to the house, the original house use to be a 2 bed, one bath house with a kitchen and living room. An addition was made, we are guessing around the 1950s/1960. The Cooke's had 3 boys so they needed room to grow. The addition is two bedrooms which are now the master bedroom, and a bonus room, and a second bathroom. One of the original bedrooms was turned into a den before we moved in and now we have turned it into our dining room. The flow through our house is great, the only thing that is awkward is you have to go through the office to get to the bonus room.

Take down the walls

Before winter kicked into gear, Jeremy worked hard to turn our unusable mud room into a porch. When we bought the house it was where the washer and dryer connections were. The walls had windows on all three sides, the final side was the exterior of the original house. We found water damage under the ugliest linoleum that was peeling anyways. Here are some pictures of the work in progress.

Our before with the leaky windows and vinyl siding.

A cool pic of my husband kicking through the wall.

If anyone needs a 5 gallon bucket we've got a couple to spare. These were just hanging around under the house. We believe the previous owners were hoarders. This is just some of the proof.

Making wood panelling work

Our home is over 60 years old. Instead of drywall we have panelling and it's everywhere. We discussed our options and we would either have to work with the panelling or find a way to take it down and put up drywall. Putting up drywall would be great but then the questions arise of "Should we lay it on top of the panelling and how does that effect the trim already in place?" So we are going to make the most of it and keep the panelling, plus painting is A LOT cheaper then buying drywall for the whole house. Here are some before pictures of our dinning room.

Looking into the kitchen

Facing the master bedroom. If you look on the left you can see our alien. The previous owners had something on the wall that literally left a mark.

My mom helped me paint. You can already see the difference of how bright this room is becoming. I also had fun and highlighted the alien.

First Post

As part of the blog I am going to show my work through clients and my own renovation to my house. My husband, Jeremy, and I bought a house that is over 60 years old and in need of some serious TLC. Expect to see lots of before pictures featuring floral wall paper and wood panelling.