Before and After: Our Fixer Upper Story, part 1

I’ve been wanting to put this together for a while…here are some before and after pictures of our 89 year old NYC townhouse.  We purchased it on June 12, completed the majority of renovations to move in by July 15, and then finished up the projects.  We still have to do trim in the upstairs and replace the steps, and then we will refinish the basement little by little as the budget allows.  Next spring we will do more work to fix up the back yard with grass, etc. also.

Some things we knew needed fixed; others were unknown because of how much junk the previous owner had in the house.  We couldn’t see some of the problems until we started working on the house.

UPSTAIRS

All of the ceilings had water damage from previous roof leaks.  Once we started working we discovered an active leak, so we did a roof repair also.  We had a mudder come and skimcoat the plaster walls to make them smooth, and repair all the ceilings.  This was one of the few things we paid to have done rather than doing ourselves.  I’m so thankful for my husband’s skills!

The bathroom started leaking into the kitchen…probably because I scrubbed too hard on the old grout.  When we started investigating that, there were two tile walls in the bathroom.  Ben decided to knock everything out and start over, except for the floor.  When he knocked out the back wall in order to fix plumbing and wiring, he could see that the girls room ceiling was detached from the joists.  So we cut out the ceiling and did new drywall in there.

We removed the old, very nasty carpet in all the bedrooms and discovered fairy good original hard wood floors.  However, the ceiling leaks in the boys room had really caused a lot of rotting in the floor, and so we decided to lay a new laminate floor in the entire upstairs.  We had suspected this might be needed.  And then we painted.  A lot.

Master Bedroom – Before

 

 
Very poorly painted red walls – only one coat, and the brush strokes were awful!  Ben trimmed out the edging to make this beautiful haven:

Master Bedroom – After

 

  

     

Boys Room – Before and work in progress

 

  

  

Boys Room – After

We chose an adventure theme, and we are still adding some decor to this room.

 

   

Girls Room –

I missed the before pics somehow… here is work in progress:

 
Cutting out the old ceiling (Sissy) and installing the new (Ben and Jim)

   
Wall between girls room and bathroom – Elaine prepping the floor for the new flooring

Girls Room – After

It’s almost my favorite room in the house!

 
Elaine wanted purple and horses

   

 
Liberty wanted pink and princesses.  So we compromised.

 
One of my favorite pics…this is the “reading station.”

Office – Before and Work in progress

 

  
Laying the new floor – Pastor Dan came to help

Office – After

I’m just a little bit jealous!

 

Bathroom – Before

By far the biggest project, but one of my greatest joys to see it all done.  And I got to pick out every
bit of it.

 
Demolition.  I lost 10 pounds carrying bags upon bags of concrete and tile down three flight of stairs!

   
Finally no more mess!  New walls and tub dry fit into place.

 
Grandma and Grandpa kept the kids so I could help with tiling the bathroom.  I was the cutter and Ben grouted everything in place.

Bathroom – After

 
The pictures don’t capture the color well – its a sea foam green.

   

Hallway – Before

 
Again – the pictures don’t capture well.  It was the ugliest color I’ve ever seen!  And it was filthy!  And it’s textured (which we left because it’s too much to fix right now).

Hallway – After

We kept the same brown and white that we have now in the main level rooms.

 

  
I love this linen closet!  The girls also have their closet in the hall since there isn’t one in their room.  In the right picture above, the open door at the end of the hall is the girls room, then on the right working backwards there is the bathroom, the girls closet, and the linen closet.

That completes the upstairs tour!