The Big Remodel

This remodel on our house took place over a long period, one weekend at a time. The work was done when we had the parts and time. Hopefully you will find this as entertaining as we do. We did the entire job without any contractors with the exception of hanging the kitchen cabinets and carpeting. This is mostly a matter of cost, but the fact that I (Glenn) have the skills and the kids love to help out, it is also fun and a matter of pride.

Unfortunatly, when this project got started my camera wasn't working and I didn't have a replacement. So this means no good pictures of the "before" state of the house. It wasn't pretty and not in great shape. The floor plan drawing will hopefully give you the basic idea.

A Short Comment

Although almost every room in the house is touched in some way by this long remodeling project, the bulk of the work centers around the kitchen and dining room. This is why these are the only two rooms shown in the drawings on this page. More images of the floor plans (before and after) are available on other pages. Take a look at the bottom of this page for links to all of the other remodeling pages.

The Starting Point

Why do this remodel? There are a few reasons. For some time we have felt the kitchen/dining room needed work. The fact we need to walk through the kitchen to get to the dining room just bothers us. A while back we had a few plumbing problems that caused water to leak into the dining room. The floor has started to get soft in places so we need to fix that. The floor is why we are doing this now instead of waiting a little while. But since we have to put in so much work, we might as well go the last 20% of the way and do a full remodel to get the home we really want. The only added cost to the remodel over just doing the repairs is going to be putting in new cabinets and a little more work on the walls. And of course a little more time.

The Finished Job

When done we hope to have a spacious diningroom off of our living room with the new kitchen being by the back door. Below is our original drawing showing what we are trying to get to.

Standing in the living room looking into the dining room, you will see the large arch has been replaced with a half wall and three open arches. The full size arch on the right is 36" wide. This is to allow more wall space in the living room for placing our large sectional against.

All Along The Way

Below are a set of links that will give you taste of the project in various stages. Each page has progress notes, comments, and some pictures.

The Demolition Phase: The house is coming apart all around us!

The Bathroom Goes Together: The downstairs bathroom takes shape!

Sewer Problems Crop Up: Our sewer line needs to be replaced!

The Kitchen Gets Assembled: The house starts to go back together!

Taking On The Boys Room: Converting one large room into two smaller ones!

Reroofing Is Not My Bag: The back half of the house needed to be reroofed!

The Dining Room Takes Shape: Finally we have one kitchen and one dining room!

Taking On The Girls Room: Making the space more useful through minor consturction!

The Living Room Face Lift: Removing the old doorways and making nice clean look.

The Hall & 5th Bedroom: The den becomes a bedroom.

Making The Yard Look Nice: Now that summer is coming around we started work on the yard!

More updates to come...