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We bought the house in 1999. We loved our home even then, but a look at
some of the pictures from the beginning show a 1970s style
house in good shape but in desperate need of a makeover.
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I'm a guy so first things first. I was still drag racing back in 2000, so
winters were the car repair season. Cold concrete isn't much fun, so a
heater for the garage was first.
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We both decided we didn't care much for the brown and green color on the outside of the
house, so the next project was painting the outside of the house.
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We also fenced in the yard for a dog we didn't even have yet
at the time. Brock sure enjoys "his" yard now!
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I didn't mind it so much but Greta absolutely hated the wallpaper in the
house, so we spent a month stripping the wallpaper and
painting all the inside walls.
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Our first really big project was the kitchen. We had grown pretty
tired of living with a small kitchen and decided a complete gutting was in order. Follow
along with our progress and you'll see you can do alot yourself.
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Our old windows were pretty drafty. The south facing windows were not even double pane
glass! Here we're replacing all the windows, double hung windows at
the back and the side of the house, and sliders at the front of the house. Since we'd
already started to "color change" all the trim when we did the kitchen, we continued with
the new window trim, using a honey oat color.
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Since I was doing a lot of wood refinishing in the garage, I decided to
sheetrock the garage walls (the ceiling was already
done when it was insulated during the heater install). The
white color on the walls really helped brighten up the garage aiding in finishing work.
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Along the way I built a "sturdy" workbench. The thought was
that it should be able to hold an engine or transmission. While I never used it for that,
it does make a nice platform for working on things.
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Our upstairs bedrooms were fortunately a very pretty oak floor
but were in very bad shape. We had the floors refinished,
and installed new baseboard trim. You can also see the new 6 panel solid oak doors
that replaced the walnut colored hollow core flat doors that were there before.
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The last window remaining to be replaced was the bay window in the
livingroom. A friend of mine let me in on a neat trick for installing these. Instead
of humping a very heavy window up a pair of ladders, we simply pushed it through from the
inside of the house. The nailing fins on the newer style windows simply fold out of the
way.
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Working on the house is a tiring affair. A soak in the hot tub is
just what the doctor ordered after working on the house all day.
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The wrought iron railings in the house looked very 1970's. A
new light oak banister and hand railing now line
the stairs.
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The entryway was pretty worn out linoleum. We thought
some porcelain tile would look pretty nice.
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The carpet in the livingroom and on the stairs had seen its' best days. We
went with a green carpet with maroon flecks that looks great with
the new woodwork.
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We saved one of the biggest projects for last. The bathroom was still sporting a 1970s
countertop, and walnut colored cabinets. We opted for
a complete bathroom tearout with a new tub, granite counter,
clear glass sliding doors, and a heated tile floor.
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Well, the garage is finally too small. Our Correct Craft SV-211 doesn't really
fit very well without a tub of vaseline to squeeze under the door, and pulling the platform off the
back, so we're doing a garage addition with a taller 8' door to clear the
wakeboard tower, and adding 20 feet in length to make putting the boat away a simple chore.
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