I cannot believe it. 6 months in the making. Like what??
I mean. I knew I could do it. But as usual, I underestimated how much work was going to go into this renovation. There were so many new things that I learned including taking breaks to protect my mental health. Because ooph!!
But wait!
Before you read more, this post does not include any tutorials. Subscribe to emails so you know when to come back and see how I tackled each area.
OK back to goodies.
First, you need to know where I started. This is it people. Yup. That’s right.
It’s a dark gloomy picture which truly represents how the space felt. Can you believe a washer/dryer was in this space? Like where’s the walkway? You had to literally twist and turn your body to get past the machine. It got evicted ASAP. Then the radiator cover became a dumping ground. It was simply a hot mess.
With the washer/dryer gone, we were left with this.. And we lived with it for 2.5 years.
As you can see, the dumping ground didn’t go anywhere.
The first step was demoing the entire space. Including the ceiling. I was not prepared for how much work (and mess) was involved in demo! That’s def one thing I don’t look forward to doing for quite some time.
Once I got the baseboard and piping removed I built floor-to-ceiling-cabinets. It took alot of planning (and indecisiveness). After all, I’ve never built cabinets before. I was so nervous they wouldn’t all be equal.
But the hardest part during this step was that I had to cut the wood outside in January weather. For reference, I live in the Northeast. The New England area to be exact. So yup, my fingers were numb. Probably an unsafe choice.
This is what I was left with once the ceiling was removed. I was a bit…shook! I could see the second floor floorboards. I guess I never really thought what it would look like. I also found some knob and tube wiring. Thankfully, they had since been updated. But that’s a story for a different day.
Insulation wasn’t necessary but I used to help with sound travel. I also started building the wall up to meet the new ceiling.
I added drywall and lighting. Then started the painful process of mudding and taping. That took a few weeks because I kept finding more areas that needed touch-ups. It was so worth it!
I ultimately decided that the radiator looked best uncovered. The wall was so wavy and even though I scribed correctly, it really didn’t look good. If you’re wondering why I would have done it in the first place, I initially decided to scribe because I didn’t know why the wall was bulging. Well it ended up being that some of the plaster was just loose which was an easy fix.
So I left it uncovered, painted it and fixed the radiator so the weight of the radiator wouldn’t be on the pipes.
I got the doors back on the cabinets, painted and it was done. Check it out!
Let me know if you would like the nitty gritty details of each phase of this renovation. To see all my projects unfold in real-time, you can follow me on Instagram @pieceofmeesh You can check out my highlight there called Panty I, Pantry II, Pantry III. In the meantime, enjoy the after pics!
