For those of you that don't feel like looking at a hundred pictures, I put two pictures of the main area right here at the top for you. Ta da!
For those of you who decided to subject yourself, here's a LOT more pictures of before, during, and after. (Scott took all the before pictures, so I tried to take after pictures from all the same spots he did.)
From the kitchen to the garage was a hallway. Coming in or going out, there was not enough room for putting on shoes and coats. People were always getting hit with the door and stepping on each other. Now we have a mud room!! It's really the only thing on my "must have" list that this house didn't have. Now I guess I'll never have to move again.
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| from the kitchen, looking toward the garage (before) |
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| (after) |
We had a little landing in the garage, so we enclosed that space and stole a little more space from the garage to make our mud room.
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| in the garage (before) |
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| after |
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looking in the house from the garage (before)
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after
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my dream come true
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that closet door is the pantry
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look at all that space for NOT stepping on each other!
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| from the hallway into the kitchen (no before pic for this one) |
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| entering the kitchen from the garage, looking to your right (before) |
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| (after) |
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| from the kitchen into the living area (before) |
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| (after) We took out the little closet by the basement stairs and the small railings at the entrance of the living room. |
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| from the living room into the kitchen (before) |
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| (after) No more wall! |
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| from the front door (before) |
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| (after) |
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| looking into the dining room (before) |
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| (after) |
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| dining room window (before) |
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| (after) |
...and a few more shots in case I missed anything.
The majority of the work took about six weeks. Countertops, backsplash, and a few other details trickled in for the rest of the summer. (We still have a bunch of trim and doors to paint...maybe by Christmas?)
For most of the summer, this was my makeshift kitchen in the basement: toaster oven, microwave, electric skillet, and refrigerator. Throw in a crockpot and the grill, and I could cook a lot of things! (As long as you don't use more than one appliance at a time...we blew that fuse more times than I can count.)
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| day one |
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| and the wall is gone! |
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| our garage was filled with cabinets, flooring, and appliances |
On the fourth of July we had a near-disaster. We had a rainstorm with a lot of wind. I was running out to the store and noticed that some water had come into the garage. Scott came out to inspect everything while I continued on to the store. He called to let me know that nothing looked damaged; it appeared that only boxes were wet, not the contents. We decided to text Roy anyway (our contractor and good friend) just to let him know what happened. Fifteen minutes later Roy and his brother-in-law Brian (also a good friend of ours) showed up in our driveway. The three men pulled out every box, and when they reached the box nearest the drain, water gushed out of it. Had Roy and Brian not come over, we would have had to replace some of the cabinets due to water damage.
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| expanding the hallway to make the mud room |
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| we had plastic sheeting protecting the living room and the rest of the house from dust and debris. |
One night I was finishing putting the kids to bed when I heard a huge crash. The bathroom mirror fell off the wall and shattered! Thankfully, no one was in there at the time. We think all the vibrations loosened the 30-year-old glue.
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| Another little set-back was finding ants and water damage in the corner of the dining room. Pest control and some new siding fixed the problem. |
It was a lot of work and inconvenience and cleaning, but totally worth it!
