Condo Renos Update

"If they don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy..." - Red Green

D here with this post...

I won't talk a lot, but we wanted to update folks on our reno projects that we've done over the past couple months in preparation to get outta here and get something with a backyard!

Phase 0 -- The Original Condo:
C managed to dig up the original photos of what the condo looked like when we purchased it.  Looking closely, you can't see some of the damage that existed here, but I can assure it did! The counter had a hole in it, and was rotting near the sink. The corner bulkhead drywall was in really bad shape. Oh, and it was UGLY!  The carpet was pretty worn, despite being only 7 years old. And there were some pee stains from the dog.  I think we got a deal when we bought, because of all these flaws, and our plan was to rectify as many of them as possible, and cash in at the end. (fingers crossed!)

Phase 1 -- Living room/Hallway:

We wanted to replace the old carpet with some new hardwood, and to do that we needed to take all the furniture out of the living room, front hall, etc.  This meant shipping C & A to Florida for the week, while I reorganized the house.  

Here's a couple shots of Abby's room, and ours with all our furniture in them. It made for a bit of an obstacle course.

Abby's room

Our room

Once the floor was down, it was time for a quick layer of paint on the walls and we were done!

 

Phase 2 -- Kitchen:
When we purchased the house, we knew that the kitchen was something that would need some updating. Too bad it took us 5 years to get around to actually doing it. 

First, we needed to do something about the cabinets.  We drove the doors to London and our dads, Chris and Rob, tagged in to help us sand, while Christy and I painted furiously. Coat of primer and two coats of paint later (and hours of sanding!) and we had something we could use.  There's talk of another coat on the front, but we'll see how much time we have for that.

You can really see the damage on the cabinet door by the dishwasher in this one.

The doors stayed in London for a week to cure, so we lived 'open concept' during that time. The following weekend, I sent Christy and Abby to London to pick up the doors, while I painted the cupboard frames and trim.

One of the challenges of doing renovations in a condo, is that there aren't places to put stuff while you're reno-ing! Here's the kitchen in the living room:

 

Here's the cupboards done!

 

 Next came the counter top... We removed the counter ourselves, and unhooked the plumbing.

 

Counter is in! That needed to cure for 24 hours before we could do anything more, so we selected a tile back splash and started preparing for that. We had it narrowed down to either a white subway tile, or a grey glass tile.

 

Abby was very excited to help, so we created baby gates with empty boxes to keep her out.  The small glass fragments from the tile saw would have looked like little snacks to her. Here's me sanding and prepping the walls for the tile, and fixing the wall where the old counter came up.

 

Tile is up and dry, time for grout. Not many photos of this, because C (who took most of these photos) was too busy washing while I grouted.

 

We (C) chose a light grey grout and light grey (Mist) glass tiles. I think it was a great choice!

With the tile up, it was time to prep the walls for paint. We weren't going to paint everything, just solve some of the problems caused by taking out the old counter-top. Then came plumbing. The old plumbing was brass, but because we changed sink sizes, the old plumbing had to be replaced.  After a couple trips to Home Depot and a dozen YouTube videos, we were ready to begin.

Victory!

Then came hooking up the dishwasher with my helper...

Replacing the old electrical receptacles....

And we were done!

 

Phase 3 -- Listing: 

We got a really great start on this yesterday... clearing out clutter/stuff that we don't use a lot and trying to create some more visual space in the condo.  We packed up probably a dozen boxes of stuff, and we'll leave them at our swim coach Amie's house while we're listing.

Hope you enjoyed our little project update.  

-Dh