First off, hello. I've been lurking around here taking some tips and just
reading everything coming through. My wife and I just bought our first
home. We've been working on it since 10/01 and just moved in yesterday.
This past weekend I had 4 hrs of sleep in 3 days, what fun! As everyone is
telling us, the joys of being a homeowner, it never stops.
Anyway, here is what we did. This is a 3 bed room house approx 1100 sq ft.
First we started by removing the 3 layers of wall paper from one kitchen
wall and the boarder above the cabinets on the other three walls. We used a
mixture of Downy fabric softener and hot water, works great! While family
was helping, I pulled carpet. All 3 bedrooms, the hallway, and the living
room (around 700 sq ft.) This was a nasty job, the previous owner had 2
cats and a dog and it seemed like they just went to the bathroom where ever
they wanted.
The next thing we did was prime, some rooms had so many nail/tack holes we
needed to prime over the stucco. There was one wood paneling wall in the
living room that needed primer, and one rough looking dark wood wall in the
master bedroom that needed a heavier primer. We didn't do anything to the
kitchen, although I was told by Lowe's to use the Bin Primer there to seal
in any missed wallpaper glue.
After that, we painted the living room blue and hallway, including the
ceiling. The primed paneling wall was painted white. The trim was painted
white. The master bedroom was painted light pink with white trim, the baby
room was painted light green with white trim, and the third bed room, now
our office, was painted dark blue with a black ceiling. We used Martha
Stewart paint for every room except the office. We used American Tradition
for that. Only two coats in each room with the Martha Stewart paint, except
the primed wall in the master bedroom, that took three to get to a more even
look. The American Tradition took three coats on the ceiling for the black,
and two on the walls, but there are still some light spots to cover up.
The new carpet came from World of Floors and was put in on Saturday. Just
so you don't think everything went smoothly, the lady who sold us the carpet
measured the living room and lost a foot somewhere so they didn't have
enough carpet to cover all 3 bedrooms and the living room and hallway. They
completed all but the office/third bedroom and will be back this week to do
it (free of charge).
Outside, we've cut down several trees that covered the front of the house.
You could just see the front door and a few other places, the picture window
in the living room was completely blocked by trees. All trees were cut
down, the roots still have to be pulled.
We got moved in yesterday. We can't believe we are finally in the house.
No rest yet though, we still have to go plug holes and clean the apartment
up.
If anyone has any questions about anything we did, feel free to ask. I'm
sure I'll be asking for help as we go on. By the way, I've got pics of the
before but still need to get the after. Once I do, I'll get them posted
somewhere.
Rob