First things first...

 When we bought the house, we knew it was going to be a while before we could afford to do the kitchen remodel. I love to cook and I have a pretty definite idea of what I want. This... is definitely not it.

So although the kitchen wasn't a priority, something had to be done because I just couldn't live with this. It was bad. I couldn't make up my mind if i wanted to pull my hair out or take a hit of acid every time I walked in this room.

We took down the border along the soffit. That in itself was a big improvement. Then we painted the cabinets. Again - big improvement.It was almost livable by this time.

A trip to Lowe's or Home Depot revealed that a can of appliance paint can be a girl's best friend. That olive green wall oven HAD to go. The refrigerator taking up half a room had to go as well but what to do with it?

At the same time, we were taking out the hallway wall and the bar that was attached to it.

My best friend and her husband had looked at the house when we did. Luckily for us, her husband had a phobia of buying a home and we got our offer in first. Or maybe.. not so luckily. Anyway.. she loved the green and white tile and wanted what we took down so we took it down very carefully.

In taking down the wall and the bar, we learned something that would leave us scratching our heads and pretty much set the tone for the rest of the remodel. We gave up the head-scratching and wondering "why" after a couple of months.

There was a light on the bar. When we took the wall down, we cut the power that was going to that light. We later went outside to open the garage door. Hit the button - nothing happened because there was now no power to the garage. Don't ask me. I have no idea but the entire house was wired strangely. Oh joy! I hate electrical work! 


It's amazing what a little paint can do. We still have the ugly tile and countertops to deal with but at least we're not giving new meaning to the phrase "Go Green." It took a coat of primer and 2 coats of white paint to cover up that green and then we put a couple coats of sealer over top of that. At least I no longer had the desire to try hard drugs.
We took out the hallway wall, took down the green striped wallpaper and put up drywall.
We created a door from the kitchen into the tiny bedroom and turned it into a utility
room. We also cut a hole in this wall and stuffed the refrigerator through it. All
we see from the kitchen are the refrigerator doors, the rest of it is in the utility
room. We all thought Trace was crazy when she came up with this idea but it turned out well and it gets the refrigerator out of the way.

We
knew we wanted to put hardwood floors in the house but we also knew we'd never be able to afford to have them done at one time. We came up with a viable second option
though - recycled floors. It was not necessarily our intention to go green but it
was economical. These floors are from a 100-yr old farmhouse in Wisconsin. We found
them on eBay. It's 3/4" maple. The guy took them up, took the nails out and delivered
it for about $1 a square foot. Installing them was not necessarily fun but the improvement was definitely noticeable.

We took everything out of the front part of the house and moved it to the back part of the house. We lived on fast food and anything that could be put in the microwave for 3 weeks while we were finishing the floors.

Sanding the floors was a pain in the ass. They had different finishes and different heights because they had been in different rooms. We sanded them in a weekend. We worked round the clock but the guy at the rental place made the mistake of saying there was no way we could do it in a weekend.
I gave up around 2am Monday morning. Trace woke me up at 5am. She had been falling asleep on her trips up and down the floor. I got up and finished it in the next 3 or 4 hours and we got it back to the rental place on time and we were finished.
Pffftttt.... This guy had apparently never ran across two very determined women.
We had a timeline... we were trying to get this finished by Thanksgiving.

Now we just need to get them stained and get a million coats of polyurethane on them, let them harden for 2 weeks and we can move furniture back in.
Our friend, Pat, came over to help. We actually still had friends at this time. They weren't afraid to come for dinner. A note to anyone who tries to take on the task of remodeling an old house - demolition is fun for everyone! Construction is not so much fun. You will have more friends than you know during the demolition phase but they will gradually thin out as you move to the construction phase. We couldn't even bribe them with dinner and I'm a great cook! I can't say I blame them though.
So these two are the twisted sisters of wood floors. Pat with a rubber glove and an
evil gleam in her eyes... I was a little worried for Tracy's safety. It took me
forever to convince Pat that floor stain didn't make a good self-tanner. I think
she finally believed me.

The three of us stained the floors and then went gambling at the track. We couldn't
put another coat on for 4 - 6 hours. What else are we gonna do?

The floors turned out beautifully but the green and white tile was still driving me crazy. A quick Google search yielded a temporary fix. If you use a good, oil-based primer - you can paint ANYTHING - just don't try to clean up the roller or brush. It will be ruined one you are finished so plan on tossing it. You'll make a bigger mess trying to clean it.

We used Zinsser oil-based primer and it sets up as hard as enamel. We chose Gold #3 from the family of colors we'd been using for the walls and painted the tile.
We then went to Michael's and bought a paint pen and went along the "grout" lines and put two coats of marine sealer over it.

We did the same thing with the countertop. We primed it and let it harden. We chose
Gold #4, bought a couple packages of gold flakes to mix in the paint. We put 2 or
3 coats of paint on the counter and then 3 coats of marine sealer over top of the
paint. It has been over 2 years and it still looks good.

The backsplash was uneven where it connected to the wall so we took a rounded shoe
mold and attached it to the top to even it out. It is painted in the same family
of Gold colors we've been using although it looks white.

You can see a little of what we did to the ceiling in the photo on the left above
this one. The ceilings are only 8 feet. The ceiling fans made the ceiling feel even
lower. We painted 24 inches of the ceiling the same color as the walls and then
painted the center of the ceiling a shade lighter (Gold #2). This brings the eye
up and makes the ceilings look higher.

We later added case molding along the paint line to create the illusion of a tray
ceiling. It makes the room feel much more spacious.