DEMO HAS BEGUN…AGAIN!

It’s official! Round 2 of demolition has begun in the Gadeken household!

Back in June of 2016 we bought our first house with the intention of renovating every inch of it. After moving in we started with a thorough cleaning. On the exterior there were actual mounds of junk from the previous owners. We found tires, beer cans, a car trunk, and SO MUCH MORE! Chris also trimmed up all the trees that had been neglected for years. 

On the interior, my mom came down to Nebraska and helped me clean every inch of the inside of this home. The tub in the bathroom had an actual layer of grime that had to be scraped off. Beard clippings covered the vanity; and my mom found lovely mouse droppings in the kitchen cabinets. (my worst nightmare!!!!)

After about 4 months of living in our new home, we started working on the living room. Chris ripped out the ceiling and found an extra 2 FEET above it. So obviously we kept the extra two feet. We put in new drywall, recessed lights, a new front door, a wood backdrop, and painted the fireplace. Although we couldn’t finish the room completely at the time (still needed news floors and trim), it didn’t take much to really transform this space.

UPDATE: We finished the living room and shared the final look here! You need to see the crazy transformation!

1 year later we have FINALLY started gutting the kitchen and the rest of the main living area! Hallelujah! I couldn’t handle the mice much longer. We found hardwood floors throughout the whole house. YES! But they were all a different type of wood and all at different heights. NO! It would have been a major project to try and patch and match all the flooring so we decided to level out the floors and put engineered hardwood down across the entire main floor. 

Next up, the kitchen. We gutted this room as fast as we could. I could not be more happy to see those cabinets go in the dumpster. They were horribly constructed with lots of layers of crappy paint so it was time to let them go. We also ripped out a wall in the kitchen allowing us to have more space. When doing this we discovered an old brick chimney. We’ll be doing all new electrical, lights, and insulation. Side note: we found out our house doesn’t have insulation on exterior walls so that’s awesome.

We’ll also be doing new modern cabinets, subway tile back splash, all new appliances, and a stainless steel vent hood! I’ve been wanting a vent hood above my stove top for quite some time so I’m happy our kitchen layout allowed for that!  

UPDATE: We finished the kitchen remodel and I shared the full reveal here! I think it might blow your mind! 🙂

Next, the hallway. Once again we ripped out all the walls. I forgot to mention that this house has plaster walls so that was a fun mess! After ridding of all the plaster and lathe, we decided to relocate the bathroom door, put in all new doors, add transom windows above the doors, and replace one of the windows with a back door. A lot of change in just the hallway.   

Last but not least, the guest room/my office. This room had a raised floor and we could not figure out why! Well we finally ripped out the flooring and discovered the reason why. This floor was so sloped that at one point it was 4 inches higher than the rest of the house. Yikes! Basically, they built a platform above the sloped floor to level it out. 

Our house did have some pretty extensive foundation issues at one point which were fixed, but this flooring was proof of how bad it had gotten. No additional foundation fixes are needed but unfortunately the platform has to stay.  We’ll make it work and with our plan I think it’ll feel more natural than how it was before.

So there you have it! This is demo part 2. Demo part 3 and 4 are coming down the road but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves! 

Here’s to hoping renovations wrap up by mid February! And don’t worry…as much as I love progress shots, I know what you really want to see are after photos. I’ll be sure to share them with you when this project is complete!