Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tyler's New Room

On January 6th, Dan started his biggest home improvement project yet... and he's done a lot of them!! Finally, it was time to start on the worst room in the house. Here are a few pictures to prove how bad it really was.

See the yuck above the window?

I'm not sure if I'm really seeing all the waves in the ceiling and the walls in this picture or if it is just ingrained in my memory. The coloring was also off and the popcorn ceiling was lovely!!

You've probably noticed the spots in the pictures. The rational part of me knows this is lingering dust from activity the room, but the superstitious part of me believes we have ghosts. This is an old house so you never know!! I used to lay on the couch downstairs below the "nursery" when Tyler was a baby and swear I was hearing footsteps when I was alone in the house. At the time I found comfort in it hoping I was getting a little extra help with my special boy. I certainly needed it.
When Dan tore out this part of the wall he found hints that there used to be a sink here??

Another lovely stain on the ceiling. There was actually a hole here when we looked at the house from running plumbing upstairs. This is the patch... nice, huh?

There goes the nasty carpet!! He's stirring up all those ghosts!

Check out the floor! Fancy stuff!

Dan also discovered that the back of the room used to be part of the foyer. Or, there may not have been a foyer at one time. The living room may have just been really large. What I don't understand is why they left the wood floor under the carpet. This explains the really big bump under the carpet!! You can also see where they used the original molding on the side and then just put a plain board against the back wall.

One less room with lath and plaster in our house!


Dan found a few odd things in the walls, but I didn't get a picture before he threw it out. Mostly it was old bent tools.

Once Dan got the room cleared and a frame built to lower the ceiling, he had to figure out how to hang drywall on the ceiling by himself. I was impressed with his solution. Check this out...
He built a swing arm to hold the drywall.
Then he swung it up. It was hinged on one side.


He then braced it so that he could secure the drywall. Viola!!

Dan insulated the exterior and interior walls. Yippy! Soundproofing!
All the drywall is up and the taping/mudding/sanding is complete. Thank goodness! This part has been over for weeks, but I don't think I've got the dust out of the whole house yet!

Tyler was very excited about this process... until he slept in the room for the first time last night and realized that all he could see from his bed is the kitchen... Ha! I think that is awesome and am quite surprised that it took him that long to figure it out. Did he really think we wanted him to have that room because it was bigger?? Silly boy!


Complete! Isn't Dan talented? With the exception of the carpeting, he did it all himself.

Dressed!

Woo Hoo! Some day I'm hoping for shelving above his bed, but Dan isn't ready to put holes in the walls yet. I can't say I blame him after dedicating most nights and weekends to this project for over 2 months.

Here is the other side of the room. I'm also hoping to replace all the doors in the house... we all have to have dreams, right?


Our next step is to move Ryan downstairs. I can't wait to be able to put the boys' laundry away during commercials! And the entire upstairs will be adult space. Yippy!

1 comment:

threelittlegirls said...

It looks so great! He is so talented! You are all lucky to have such a handy guy around! Hope Tyler is sleeping better!