Renovating 407: The Creative

I was thinking yesterday I should have called it The Updating of 407. Because that is what most of it has been. My dad had to put tar on the dryer vent on the roof the other day, it was raining into my torn up shower. When they put up the new roof, right before I bought the house, they missed that whole spot. Good thing I still had the shower torn up. More on that later.

In this renovation/updating of my house, there are many things I have done that I never thought I would be able to do. My dad and I found a rhythm and what worked best on this ceiling to scrape off the popcorn from 3 bedrooms, a hallway and the living area, in the least amount of time. Still was a neck breaking job but well worth it when you look at it. And we only painted over what was left, thinking the imperfections from the scraping look quite cool.

My dad and I tried to redo all the electric and light outlets ourselves but ran into an issue in the master bedroom when one outlet wouldn’t work. It all worked out in the end having to call an electrician because he also put in light/fan boxes in 4 rooms for us. We then installed the fans ourselves. And my dad also removed a florescent light from the den and we installed a fan in there. He did a great job patching that ceiling to match what was already there too.

After I (and whoever helped me) removed all the carpet, padding and nail strips, my parents then tiled 2 bathrooms, the hallway, the laundry closet, the living area, the kitchen and the den. I love them so much. I ended up having to go back and fill in the nail strip holes in the 3 bedrooms with a self leveler because Home Depot was going to charge like $200 to do that. The cement stuff was like $20. I wanted to tile the whole house so that is why I had removed all the old nail strips. My son wanted carpet in the bedrooms.

I cut 4 pieces of conduit (3 of which came out of the closets, they were the poles) to use for curtain rods. In 2 of the bedrooms, I even used pipe pieces to make the brackets. Cheapest and sturdiest curtain rods I have ever had. I just can’t figure out the best way to hold a drawer knob in the end of them without having to buy a dowel big enough to fit inside.

In the kitchen, I decided to use napkins as curtain. Napkins that I already had. (I love my farmhouse lights so much.)

I think my most creative endeavor, was the big vent under the furnace closet. A new vent cover is not a pretty price, but it also had to become DIY after we put in the new baseboards because a vent wouldn’t fit. So after a lot of playing around, a little cheap molding and some decorative metal from Michael’s later…

My den was once a garage. It was built as a 2 car garage house and the previous owners converted half into another room. Thank goodness they had that done professionally. The room was more like a lanai and it had this particle board closet that I think was kind of like their pantry. It came down really easy, with no damage to the wall at all. It left the electrical box exposed though. And it did have patches of duct tape on it that made it look really old and gross for being in such a used room inside the house. So we built a frame around the whole unit and hinged this cabinet door (free from my brother) to the frame (nothing is touching the electric box itself). And viola. (It doesn’t shut tight either so it doesn’t get hot in there.)

And isn’t that poster the coolest? My mom had gone to that restaurant and they were giving away the posters. I like the tractor in a watercolor effect.

That’s all for today folks. Hopefully tomorrow I have a new project to share.

Sharing the vent cover at The Creative Corner Link Party