A City Life For Me

If you missed the other posts, you can find them here: UPSTAIRS (part 1) MAIN FLOOR (part 2) BASEMENT (part 3) This project was definitely a family affair, but we also had a lot of helpers.  Ben’s parents came to Bronx four weekends in a row.  My parents came from Colorado for a week.  The Jackey boys helped knock out the basement.  Alex spent 4 or 5 days assisting Ben with anything.  Freddy came to paint, and Pastor Dan helped with painting and flooring.  After we moved in, Diane helped us paint the main floor, and the Bickels helped us paint trim.  Here are some misc pictures of the process…    Ben and Nolan working on the basement bathroom sink // Kids pulling staples to prep for the new flooring.  They got a penny for every staple they cleaned up!    Elaine prepping the floor // Twins scrubbing paint off the steps   Elaine was Pastor Dan’s runner for doing the new floor // The kids also pulled a lot of nails out of the...

If you missed the other posts, you can find them here: UPSTAIRS (part 1) MAIN FLOOR (part 2) Basement – Before The basement is long and skinny, and from the front of the house to the back there is an alcove, main room with old kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, and then the furnace/laundry room.  The previous owner’s dog lived in the basement, so we had to rip everything out.  Now there are no walls, and we have poured new concrete.  The bathroom is functional but needs some tile repair.  Ben uses the alcove as his workshop. We haven’t done much changing, except for the demolition process.  The refinishing will have to be completed a little at a time, as the budget and time allows.  Ben will do most of the work himself, even the drywall mudding.  There was a drop ceiling and we’d like to put in a regular ceiling, so there is a good amount of work to be done.    Furnace room/laundry room.  We knocked out walls and doorways to make this more o...

To read part 1 (the UPSTAIRS renovation), CLICK HERE ! When we moved in, the kitchen had already been cleaned and organized (I did it little by little – each time I drove from the mission apartment I brought some boxes), and the walls had been skim coated in the living room and dining room.  We ran out of time to paint, so things were dusty because they had not even been primered.  Ben had been using the front room as his tool area for the whole renovation project.  We transplanted the tools and work items to the basement alcove (there used to be a separate apartment in the basement, so there is a door to go out front and it has a nice crawl space and alcove).  The “mudroom” didn’t get much of a makeover…it didn’t even have washed walls until last week!  But its very functional…for shoes! The back yard was overgrown completely and mostly contained poison ivy.  My mom and I clipped all of the overgrowth and poison ivy out, and my dad and Ben’s dad trimmed tr...