Thursday, August 28, 2014

12 Things Destroyed Whilst Remodeling My House


  1. Wall, due to hammering & pry bar
  2. Ugly tile counter top, due to awesome power of the almighty team of sawzall & pry bar
  3. Ugly tile back splash, due to pry bar
  4. Huge and unwieldly kitchen island, due to screw driver-ing & pry bar
  5. Ugliest little closet in Texas, due to pry bar
  6. Filthiest pantry in Texas, due to pry bar
  7. (borrowed) Palm Sander, due to concrete dust
  8. Vacuum cleaner, due to concrete dust (which it turns out is a real pain in the *** to clean up)
  9. (borrowed) Dremel tool, due to being a piece of worthless ****
  10. Reciprocating saw blades (3), due to concrete
  11. Masonry bit, due to concrete (seriously? that's what you're designed for, your only job is to drill through concrete)
  12. Screw extraction bits, due to screw (again, that's your ONLY JOB)
The hero so far is the pry bar. I love that thing.

And the villain? Clearly concrete and concrete dust. The concrete counter top looks amazing now, but it's a tool killer.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

House Rehab 2: Demolition

Ahh, demolition, just saying that out loud makes my inner 10-year-old smile.

We needed to remove:

  • tile counter top
  • tile back splash
  • breakfast bar
  • half wall
  • kitchen sink + plumbing
  • kitchen cabinets
  • granite counter top
  • kitchen island
  • carpets
  • vinyl tile


Disassembling the island

More island disassembly

Wall demolition


Sawzall + counter top = no more counter top

Cabinets with doors removed, ready for the sink to come out

Cabinets, free from counter top and plumbing

Ready for large item pickup

One closet, free from carpet

Friday, August 15, 2014

New House Rehab 1: The Planning

We just purchased a new house in the south side of San Antonio, built in 1925 it has gorgeous bones, but that's been muddled by years of deferred maintenance and ...interesting... remodeling choices.


Original kitchen design

Original kitchen design - note the island, and bar mounted on half wall
Black paint over longleaf pine floors? A tragedy!

The way timing worked was this:
A two week period where the previous owners rented the property from us while they moved out
Followed by a two week period for us to do work on the interior of the house before our furniture arrives (and we get kicked out of our temporary housing situation)

Which translates into a two week planning period followed by a two week work-our-rears-off period, followed by move into the house.

Planning Stage
Of all the things we want to eventually do to this house, we prioritized these three projects to be done in our two weeks of work:

  1. The (largely original) wood floors need to be refinished, if only to remove the black paint on the main living areas.
  2. The kitchen needs to be reorganized and rebuilt.
  3. The master bedroom needs to be inhabitable
Floors:
Given our time frame and the extent of the damage to the floors, we decided to pay for professionals to take care of them for us.

Kitchen:
After some reading and pricing out our options we decided that in the kitchen, we will remove:
  • Tile counter top
  • Tile back splash
  • Breakfast bar
  • Lights that used to illuminate the breakfast bar
  • Half wall supporting the breakfast bar
  • Kitchen cabinets
  • Kitchen sink
  • Kitchen island


We will install:
  • Refurbished cabinets (in a straight line instead of L-shaped)
  • A concrete countertop
  • White paint on the cabinets
  • A dishwasher (in the new dishwasher -sized mounting spot we will create)
  • A new undermount-style stainless steel sink and chrome faucet
  • Paint the walls and trim
  • New appliances (white) - the house came with exactly zero appliances.
Master bedroom: mostly just cleanup and repainting. Perhaps new doors on the closet (though we're thinking of eventually removing the closet altogether to create room for the (currently cramped) bathroom.