Well, my girlfriend and I bought our first place together..

Closed on 9/11/09, started working on it right away...literally an hour after closing. I'll update this thread with all the work we are doing. Most of it is our own doing, some family coming from time to time to help out. I have to have everything (or most of it) completed by the 26th so that we can move out of our apartment.

The condo is 2 br, 1 bath ranch style with a basement. It's about 1000 sq ft with a 1 car garage and a small patio. It needs some work; the people that lived there before A) had bad taste and B) didn't know how to do anything but attempted anyways.

Here are some pics.

 

I love demolition pics!


Nice floors!

Can't wait to see the progress.

 

More pics
No more yellow ceilings





Goodbye blue!









Ripped apart the stairs, removed ALL carpet, going to put stairs back together this weekend







New bathroom color and toilet so far




Getting ready to paint doors

 

I love breaking stuff!

The floors, basement and patio sold the place. It's a pretty rare find in a condo AND at the price/incentives/low condo dues it was just a no brainer on this place.

 

Pardon the pics, not bringing the D40 into that place until it's finished.

 

I was going to say you have to remove the jail bars, but you were all over that!

What are you going to do to update the cabinets? Replace? Paint?

 

Damn, that's a lot of progress in less than a week.

Looks like most things needed are just cosmetic and you already tackled most of it. The bathroom tilework looked like it was in great shape so the paint really made a big difference. Did you replace the floor in the bathroom or was that already done?

I've never heard of a condo with a basement, but then again we just don't have basements here. Congrats on the place and good job with the progress. It will pay off in more ways than one.

 

For now, just leaving them as is and replacing the handles. I have a laundry room in the basement which would make a perfect 2nd bathroom so I'm saving up for that for now. I should be replacing the cabinets beginning of next summer or so.

Thanks!

it's mostly cosmetic, other than the stairs which were almost like glued together, it was terrible:



The only thing we've done to the bathroom so far was paint the walls and ceilings and the new toilet went in today. We'll replace the mirror and the medicine cabinet and leave that as is for now. The tiles are in decent shape to last for a while.

We got a lot done since Friday, but we still have a lot to go. I have some pictures from when we were there while the previous owner lived their with their furniture , I'll make sure to take some nice before/after photos

 

Swapped the round toilet for an oval?

My house has the round, but in the Master, there is 'barely' enough room in the lou for the door to swing open, and I fear if I put an oval in there the door wouldn't open. They should have put a pocket door in, but didn't.

 

I'm pretty sure that's a round toilet. I have the same one in my bathroom. It's a Kohler toilet.

 

It's a round toilet. I don't like how oval toilets look in smaller bathrooms. If I had some more room in there, I would have done an oval one but round is fine.

Yup, it's a Kohler. It flushes great, got a 10 on flush performance and it's quiet. Works for me

 

awesome progress

when i saw the roll of construction paper i was going to ask where else do you need to install wood floors, then i realized that you used it to cover the floors...

and are those rolls of contact paper or wallpaper?

 

It's a combination of paper I got from Home Depot and very old wall paper that just was laying around. We wanted to cover up the floors as much as possible during this whole thing. Tonight, I have to get ready for the couch to be delivered. Need to find a place for it......

 

Started painting some doors and the closet shelves today. Also put a 3rd coat of paint in the kitchen and dining room so we put the fridge back. Took the paper off the floor and took a quick pic, put some wallpaper back on the floor for safety reason afterward.

Also had the carpet guy come out and make a quote, need to get the br's done before next weekend..






Once the remodel is done, I'm taking this damn camera apart and cleaning it.

 

Impressive improvements in a relatively short amount of time. Condo has a lot of potential. In the future you can replace the ceiling fans, lighting, and cupboards and it will make a dramatic difference. When I remodeled my home, even minor stuff like switching out all the white plastic handles on the cabinets and drawers to brushed chrome was a huge upgrade. I really enjoyed renovating the fans, repairing the gutters, renovating all my lighting (I even installed 2 crystal chandeliers hehe, swarovski FTW) and refurbishing my hardwood floor. I hated painting so much though LOL.

 

^I'm definitely sick of painting. I'm sick of having to wash it out of my hair

I will be installing white ceiling fans in the bedrooms, living room and dining room. The place has hard wired fire detectors in the middle of the room, so hopefully the swap will be pretty easy (I ripped them all out already). That will make a big difference.


It will officially be a week at about noon today! I have a LOT of work to do this weekend but hopefully it'll start to wrap up pretty soon. My couch is getting delivered today and I don't want to leave it in the garage for too long......

 

Lookin good! Place a ton of potential. Looks like its on a nice, quiet street too. If you get a condo here, its in a complex and I just can't deal with that.

I love the flooring. I think I want to get something like that, not quite as dark though for my house. And the more I see it, the more I like it. Are you planning on keeping the stained wood moldings or painting them?

 

Thanks! I can't wait until it's finished.

We looked at a lot of condos that were in a complex that were more "apartment" style, neighbors to the left, right, top and bottom. Here we only share one wall with 2 neighbors which I'm personally about

I'm planning on keeping the stained moldings in the dining room and the living room, but bedrooms will have white moldings and all the doors and door frames will be white. I really like white, especially in smaller places, it makes it seem much larger.

 

Finding space was my biggest problem for new furniture/appliances. Especially with the old ones sitting around waiting to go to the dump.

 

^ It went in the garage

 

Looks great so far, very nice job

 

10 days into the project and I'm already forgetting what the place looked like

Here is an update:

Put the steps back together, used ply wood, gained about 1/2" stepping "real estate" and reinforced it from the back:




Painted 11 doors this weekend. 2 layers of primer and 1 layer of paint, they turned out pretty good. I had 2 painting sections, primer outside, painting inside:



Nice comparison:

Drying in the garage

Front door is no longer a nasty dirty yellow...


Instead of replacing the nasty old heaters, I sanded them down, used spray paint to primer and paint them a semi gloss....turned out pretty good!



Put the closets back together last night after the moldings were painted. Made a world of difference with just painting the walls and the shelves. I also decided to stain the actual round bar that the clothes hang on:




This was a linen closet in the bedroom, I was kicked out of the main one, so I had to turn this into my closet....well at least part closet.


Have these heat controls, they were a nasty yellow, took them off, covered them up and painted them:



All of the moldings are being primered/painted.


Tonight, the molding is going into the 2nd bedroom and I am going to attempt to put together my shelf between the dining room/living room, need to get that done. I'm going to the store to pick out a piece of wood for it, need it like 50" by 7" to make a good divider. Also, picked up the paint for the non-finished part of the basement to paint the cinder blocks white and going to paint the floors gray in that area to have a nice fresh basement.

So far we're making good timing for our move in date this upcoming Saturday. It's been tiring but super fun. It's cool to see the transition.

 

lookin good!!

 

Doing very well! Looking forward to following your progress.

 

I like the color choices you're making -- especially painting those hideous bone-colored plastic heat control boxes.

 

good stuff, keep it goin..

 

Thanks. We are trying to go as neutral as possible, keep it simple and contemporary, and just improve the look. Everything that they had in there was extremely outdated and the improvements they did make were done like *&^%. It's amazing what some spray paint can do

Thank you, we should be done with most of it by the end of this week, then I'll post some after shots...I can't wait to see what they will look like.

It's tough doing all this with having no prior experience in any remodeling....I've had a lot of really good help though.

 

Wow. Just wow. I really wanted to do all that when I got my place. Unfortunately, I was under a big time crunch and was only able to paint walls, touch up baseboards and steam the carpets. And clean. And clean some more. And clean some more.

Its looking fantastic. The doors turned out great! Good call on repainting the yellowed (or maybe they were like that when new) heating controls. What did you use on those, btw. I've got a few fairly yellowed pieces in my house I'd like to fix up. Doorbell housing, breaker panel. All plastic stuff.

Its looking really good. I can't wait to see finished pics with furniture and stuff.

 

^ I got some primer and some spray paint (semi-gloss) from Home Depot, primered 2ce, 2 coats of paint..it turns out nice. I just did my A/C covers last night.
I don't have a final pic, but just the beginning:

 

UPDATE!!!

I'm very excited about what we got done last night. We put in the moldings in the second bedroom (they were missing all together when we moved in). And we put together the shelf that used to have the jail bars

Bedroom with moldings: the room is pretty much ready for carpeting, just needs a few spots touched up and another coat of paint on the entry way moldings.



I gotta give props to my uncle, the man is amazing with this stuff.

Jail bars:

Smoothed out the edges with a sander




Ready to stain





Finished! Although I may put another coat of stain in a few spots. The damn wood filler kind of stands out...I haven't seen it since last night though.



Now for the BEFORE/AFTER

 

 

Looks a lot better without those bars, but I would have painted the new piece white instead of staining it. JMO

 

Thanks!

That was an option, for sure...but the stain will actually match up to the moldings in the living/room dining room perfectly, which match up to the floor.



Just reserved a Budget Truck for Saturday Got the 24' so I can just make one trip.

That means I have to get everything finished/cleaned up by end of day Friday.

 

Congratulations! Such hard, huge work in such a short period of time. Are you pulling 12 hours days working on this, and how many people are working at one time? You're just moving along! Great thread....I really enjoy before/afters!

 

Thanks! It'll be 2 weeks on Friday and we have to move in Saturday so there's still a lot of work.

I work until 4 and go straight there after work, unless I have to go to Home Depot first. It's mostly my girlfriend, her father and myself. He works second shift so he paints before work and I get there about 2 hours after him. Someone is there at least 5-6 hours a day working on it...some days I forget to eat... but it's all worth it.

I'll have some really nice before/after shots in a few weeks when all the furniture is in, everything is hung and I finish changing all the damn light switches and plus

 

Lol. I replaced every single switch and outlet in my house with Lutron satin colors to match the room (which means when someone decides to paint a room again, I will probably be required to re-coordinate), plus added oil-rubbed bronze switchplates around them.

It was expensive but it's a cool detail.

 

I hate the outlets...I hate them a lot. I also must have been carrying an electric current when I got into my car last night, I started it and the radio, dome light and cig lighter are now all inoperable. I hope it's just a fuse.

 

You worked on live outlets?

 

No, I went to the fuse box first. But I as adjusting one towards the end of the evening and

 

Eh, its only 110. You'll be fine.

I got real lucky on the outlets and switches. All deco switches, although one of them is bad but thankfully I have a spare from where I replaced a switch with a timer. I do love those Lutron Satin colors though. I'm going to do them in my game room.

Thanks for the tips on the plastic painting. That made a huge difference! That yellowish/bone color just looks dingy IMO. So, you just used regular old semi gloss paint? Not special plastic paint or anything? I'm planning on doing this with a few plastic pieces (breaker panel cover and doorbell cover) here in a few weeks when I get an actual day off.

I really like that shelf too! It turned out great! It would have been better white if you were going to get rid of the stained moldings. But since you're keeping them, I think the stained shelf is the better way to go.

One more question. I notice in your early pictures that theres borders up in a few of the rooms. Were they just the wallpaper borders? And how did you remove them? And after you did, did you have to do any kind of texture repair? There's a really horrible banner and some really bad sponge painting in my laundry room that has got to go, but I'm concerned about damaging the drywall when I remove the border.