Chad, Candace, Grace, Mike, Owen and Henry

Let me take you on a little journey. Our house was built in 1870-something. We love our house. It has so much character. The thing is, when we bought the house we loved all of the character and we didn't really think about the practicality of it all. For instance, there are NO closets. We have a tiny one and there is another tiny one in Mikey's room but thats it. And the hard wood floors that I LOVED when we walked through it, well now they drive me nuts because they never look clean. Oh what I would give to see vacuum lines on my floors. We are also slowly growing out of this wonderful house. We do have three kids now and it's getting harder for us to fit in these three tiny bedrooms. Anyways, we had a bedroom on the main floor that was a bit of wasted space. It was a bedroom, but there was no closet and it was a really odd shape. We have lived here for 3 1/2 years and we could never figure out what to do with this room. So we decided this summer to make it our project. At first we thought we would just paint, carpet, re-decorate. You know, quick fixes. Well if any of you know Chad you know he is the jack of all trades and he can't really do anything small. So, the first step was to see if it was possible to raise the ceiling. So he drilled a hole, stuck the camera up in the hole, and started snapping pictures. Here is what we saw:

Wallpaper. Really, really old wallpaper. But, the ceilings could be raised. Good sign right?

Start Ripping.

Oh ya, the room BEFORE. The hole on the left is where we put the camera. Now to help you understand this room and the process, use the window as a point of reference.

This was the old entrance. The Bathroom door is right outside this door then a hallway.

Chad just getting started. Man if we knew what we were in for at this point, we probably would have stopped.

Mike loved the demo part of it all.

This is the entrance with the hallway missing. There was a hallway down the left hand side.

The pics are a little out of order. sorry.

My dad was here to help with the first day. It was a hard days work!

When this room was built in the first place, they used chicken wire and plaster. So it wasn't like tearing down sheetrock. It was a lot heavier and a lot more work.

Again Mike helping.

There is the wallpaper ceiling

This is the room with the hallway completely gone

After all of the plaster was torn off, we found a little box in the wall. When we first found it we were stoked because we thought we had found a hidden treasure. Like gold and jewels.

That's the box on the left

No gold or jewels. But a note from the owner and a newspaper from the day Apollo 11 landed back on earth in 1969

Next Chad had to patch up the hole.

We didn't know that the plaster was hiding really cool brick. So at this point we decided we wanted to keep it exposed. So we had to prep the brick to be glazed so it wouldn't get dust all over all of the time.

Next came the mudding and taping. This was a nightmare. I didn't help at all because I can't stand the dust. I'm not a priss, but for some reason the sandpaper on the mud makes my skin crawl. My ENTIRE house had dust for weeks from this step.

Finally getting there

Chad had to fill up a strip in the floor so there would be an even surface for the carpet

Almost done! Paint is finished!

TA-DA!!!!!!

We are still trying to sort out the furniture situation. I'm thinking sectional? And also, the wires and the tivo will be behind the wall, we just have some re-routing to do. But you get the idea.

And I have CARPET!! I must say, Chad dumped probably 200 plus hours into this room. I am so grateful for a husband who works so hard and teaches himself how to do things if he doesn't know how. I am starting to love this home even more.