Friday, November 14, 2014

Renovating the Tardis

We have been SOOOOOO busy for the last few months! We've been working on renovating a little rental house, AND we have a new house for ourselves. Today, I'm posting before and after pics for the rental.

Here's what it looks like from the outside. I love this little neighborhood with all the old trees.



We've been calling it the Tardis because it looks a lot smaller on the outside than it feels on the inside. It actually has 3 bedrooms!

The living room and hall



The kitchen really didn't need any work, but it was just so cramped and the layout was all wrong.



The angle on the first pic makes the kitchen look ok, but you can see in the next one just how tiny the space was. That little bar stuck way out into the walkway. The refrigerator was supposed to be right beside the stove, so there wasn't even room to open a fridge door all the way.



Dining area. The kitchen/dining floors were ceramic tile. The living, hall, and bedrooms were peel and stick vinyl planks.



Bathroom before. There were ceramic tile floors in here too. The bathroom was the only room where we didn't replace the flooring.



We ripped out the pantry closet and bar, all the cabinets, and the tile. Some during photos....Savannah and Scarlett had fun helping break up the tile.




That was a LOT of work! All that was left was sheetrock and concrete. We replaced the flooring in the entire house (except the bathroom) with wood look tile, and it is gorgeous! We actually hired someone to put down the new tile, because neither one of us has tried it before.

Kitchen - after



All the plumbing stayed in the same place (sink, washer, and dryer). The fridge also stayed in the same place, but we put a cabinet style pantry in the spot where the stove was. We moved the stove where the old pantry closet was, had a vent put in, and installed a brand new range hood that is now vented to the outside.



The cabinets are all new...bare wood stock cabinets that I painted white. Jon hung the cabinets on the sink side. I did the pantry cabinet, and I built the fridge cabinet beside it. We replaced the old formica countertops with a very dark granite. I wish I'd gotten pics from more angles, but we were literally finishing up the kitchen as our new tenants were moving in!

I made these floating shelves, and I think they turned out great. And I love the white subway tile backsplash!



The dining area is now open to the kitchen. The window was just a little too low to fit a standard stock cabinet under it, but the kitchen really needed more counter space. So I built the white cabinet to fit below the window. That was my first attempt at making cabinet doors, but it turned out ok. Ignore the hole in the ceiling over the stove...we didn't have time to patch that yet. And that hanging light fixture is gone now...Jon replaced the dining and kitchen lights with white spotlight style fixtures.


I made this island too, and I really like it. It's counter height and the top is granite, so it can be used as workspace. It also functions as the dining table (there's plenty of space for barstools).



We kept the bathroom vanity cabinet but replaced the countertop with the same granite that's in the kitchen. There's also a new sink and faucet. And we replaced the old tiny mirror with a large one from home depot.



That's it! It turned out great, but it was a LOT of work....especially since our own house sold in the middle of renovating this one. There was quite a few more things we intended to do the the Tardis - redo the bedroom closets and build a deck out back - but when ours sold, we had to put all that on hold. Now I'm trying to get unpacked and situated in our new house, and there are plenty of projects to do here!