We have always been crafters but we are also new homeowners and have taken a stab at renovating a 1947 house.
In September of 2017, Thure and I decided to pull the trigger on buying a house. We were going stir crazy in our small bungalow apartment and needed a project. Milwaukee Wisconsin in a great place to buy a home with most homes being cheaper to own than to rent.
We did what everyone else does, met with a realtor about our wishlist, met with a mortgage lender for a real idea of a budget and went off. One day, I found this little house and said..."I think this is it." It was a house that needed work but was completely livable. Something that was a good place for us to put our personal touches on.
Front
Living Room Facing Kitchen
Living room
Kitchen
Kitchen Facing Living Room
Basement Rec Room
Basement workshop
Three Season Room
Third Bedroom
Second Bedroom
Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom facing stairs
This house had everything we were looking for in a house.
Three Bedrooms
1.5 Bathrooms
Finished basement
Large "Gaming" Space
Main floor laundry
Attached Garage
Livable home with room to put our own touches on it
Three months later and after a lot of negotiating, we are the proud owners of a 1940's Cape Cod. This is when the fun started. We started from the top and worked our way down. January of 2018 we made the attic an insane office. We went through a ton of hurdles to get this project started because our attic is ANYTHING but square or level, but eventually we got to a really cool space
Visualizing the space. Desk is 3 feet deep and goes for about 35 feet
Putting up a level for the table top to sit
The floor drops about 1 inch from one end of the room to the other
Leveling the cabinets with shims
Putting down the first layer of table top.
Eos the cat always helping
First layer of table top in place
Gluing the table for the Red Oak top
Installing the Oak
Staining the Oak
Painting the cabinets
Moved in the computers from the main level
Unpacked part of my craft corner
Started building the bookshelves
Painted the Bookshelves
Painted the walls blue, Hung Shelving and a projector
Filled the shelves with Legos
Painted the remaining white walls gray and added alexa controlled lights to the ceiling
Always helping
Fixed my craft corner with a paint rack
This project, like all in the house, is still a work in progress. We have trim to finish up and other little nonsense, but it is by far the coolest room in the house.
We then worked out way to the Main Floor, starting with the bedrooms. We had the plushest carpet installed and repainted both rooms. After the bedrooms were completed we started fixing up the main living room. This room ALWAYS made us feel like we were hanging out at our grandparents house. the walls were robins egg blue and puke green, our furniture didn't fit, the crown molding was painted to match the wall, there was a weird reception desk where a walkway should of been, and the flooring was just awful.
One day I came home from work, looked at Thure in the living room and just ripped the top off the reception desk. It was liberating and started off a three month process of redoing the entire main floor. Unlike the attic, we wanted this space to be traditional and beautiful. We looked for a long time for inspiration and found that plate rail wainscoting was the way to go. We also realized that I take all the pictures making it seem like I do none of the work. I honestly helped even though Thure is in all the photos!
Prepping living room renovation
sanding walls
Planning out Rails
Painting Trip
Waiting walls
Tearing down wall
Building up wall structure
Putting in drywall
Painting Kitchen
Eos Teaching us how she muds walls
Mark showing us how to ACTUALLY mud a wall
Removed all carpet and laminate in prep from hardwood
Moved all the furniture to the kitchen
Eos showing Thure that there was a hole in the floor he needed to close
Eos realizing that every thing was changing again.
install process shots. Constantly moving furniture out of the way
Hardwood going in
moved into the kitchen
bought carpets that match for the entire main floor
kitchen runner
hallway
microwave upgrade because the old one finally broke
Kitchen to Living room - AFTER
Kitchen to Living room - BEFORE
Sanding the new wall
Writing inside of our wall
putting up the boards
priming the boards
Finished corner
We still have to add back an air vent we relocated and put in our tile. We were waiting for Wisconsin to get warmer so we could put the tile saw outside and turn the furnace off. The main floor should be completely down by the end of 2019.
We are now making our way to the basement where we have to add structural beams and repair an area that has water damage. More Updates to come!