The upstairs unit butlers pantry

This area is cozy, not huge. It had been filled with trash of course and old refrigerator with decades old food rotted in it.
Once it was all cleaned out, I decided to make it a morning room. It has an original built-in china cabinet which is neat.
This room is a testament to my tending to do something, then when it is done I either add to it or change something.
I decided to use old shelving wood in the basement and make a custom wall built-in at the window wall. It turned out nice though it made me cuss during the process. In an old house, expect nothing to be plumb. I made it a breakfront design, with a pediment I made free form. I painted it. First it was a Valspar color called Honeysuckle Bloom. Also from the farmhouse collection and was to be used for the woodwork as well throughout the house. Of course, I changed my mind and went with a color called Crepe and had to have it custom mixed.
I bought some lighting at Restore that matched. They were brass. An island fixture, two pendants and a chandelier. As we had come to like bronze finished lighting, I decided to spray paint the lighting. This is really an inexpensive way to update something. It cost about $12 for that. The lighting from Restore was about $150 for all of it. I got it done and installed.

It is hung in the room and then recently of course, I started to change my mind. I had gone to a local store and found a brass and crystal chandelier there that belonged to Richard Nixon's former secretary at The White House. He gifted the chandelier to her which once hung in his private office off of the Oval Office. I got it cheap and was really happy to get it.
SO NOW, I am changing the lighting out and installing the one I just found and also a pot rack I found and spray painted. I have to admit I have a bad habit of that and it must drive David crazy. But hey I yam what I yam lol.
Made a custom medallion for in this area as well, octagonal as posted before. Though small in size, it easily houses most of my china collection and a great table and chairs I put together for in there. The table came from Goodwill and was half off. It cost $35. I found the chairs at a local thrift store for $20 for all four. The table had a price tag on it from Goldstein's Furniture for $999.99 so that goes to show how thrifty we are. $55 for a great table and chair set. The flat screen in there came from Salvation Army when they opened their Boardman store last year and was $40. It has a built in DVD player.
Again, you can do amazing things with little money if you look around your local thrift stores, flea markets and yard sales.

The basement

The basement is unique. It provides separate areas for both units divided by double doors. There is private access to each space from each apartment.
This area was worse than the rest of the house and that is saying something! It was almost like a hoard store. It was piled up all the way to the third step from the top to the first floor unit and ALL THE WAY to the top and up the stairs to top floor unit. It was A LOT to have to go through and cart out to the dumpster.
David gets credit for the work there and I am grateful for the work he and his father did there. I helped some down there, but they did most of the trash hauling to the dumpster and clean out while i worked upstairs. It was moist and smelly down there and of course, there was food rotted down there too. I cannot imagine having lived in such deplorable conditions for nearly four decades.
Believe me when I tell you that this house made ANYTHING that I EVER saw on the television show "HOARDERS" look like they were clean as a whistle.

Pictured above is the view from the landing of the top floor unit looking down into the basement stairwell AFTER it had been worked on for a good while to remove the trash. The bike was tethered to the railing with chain and was a real monster to get loose.
All cleaned out now. We only a few weeks ago finished throwing out the last few remaining piles. It is a large open space now with a clean concrete floor and plenty of storage and lighting. The windows are like English basement windows and are larger in height than most of the basement windows from the era the house was built.
We had to have both furnaces worked on to get them running. I was going to replace them early on in the project but was persuaded not to. I was told the older ones work better than newer ones and actually are more efficient.
The 105 unit furnace was first worked on with a replaced blower motor. When gas service was turned on, the furnace blew out cold air. It was freezing inside. One thing I hate is being cold. Luckily we had found a nice man who went to church with David's mother who told us about a good furnace man.
He was amazing to say the very least. He works for the city by day and works on things for people nights and weekends. He used to be a code inspector so I was confident in his work. He made sure to tell us he would not leave until HE KNEW the units were safe, working right and would be code compliant.
Here he came about half past eleven at night as he had been on another job. I am sure the poor man was worn out when he came. He got BOTH furnaces running right and only charged us $50 for each furnace. For $100 we got them both right as rain. He really blessed us.
Turns out the man who installed the blower motor had put the belt on backwards. A few adjustments and it was like Hawaii in July on the top floor.
The other furnace needed the gas inlet cleaned that was all. It went right to work as well. Good and toasty throughout the entire house now, even the basement as there are vents down there too. Of anything, I am sure grateful for the heat!!
When we got the house, the water heater was stolen as were are the copper pipes. Figures. I bought and installed a brand new high efficiency hot water heater and hired a man to replace all the pipes. OF course, another fly by night ding dong. He only connected plumbing for the first floor and did nothing for the top floor. What he did do failed and leaked. So we plumbed the top floor unit ourselves and fixed what he did not do properly.
I have to say it is not a monster job doing plumbing. They have these things called Shark Bites that are copper and attach easily by pushing on to either PVC or metal pipes. PVC pipes are easy to work with and take little effort to get in place as well. It was all a matter of time and patience. We are finishing this work this weekend. We had a really bad leak spring up yesterday from what appears to be a broken pipe in the wall. David is more patient than myself. I should be ashamed all the curse words I have let loose while working here lol.
But we will get it done in time to be inspected this coming week and cleared for occupation. It only took 18 months..........
I put a high efficiency front load washer and dryer in the basement. Another investment. The washer was on clearance at Lowes because it had a small ding in the back of it. It was normally $1,299.00 and I got it for $599.00 because of the ding. The matching dryer was $900 on sale and both pedestals were $300 on clearance for the pair of them. They are a color similar to chili pepper red. I love red. My favorite color. But took some getting used to seeing it used as an appliance color though lol. I had shopped around and even local rental stores selling their off lease items wanted $1,400 or more for a pair like that, without pedestals. I bought them the same day as the kitchen appliances. I also got a chest freezer there half price because it also had a small ding in it for $200. I figured it scared me to spend that much of the budget on appliances, but if we started out with good ones that were new it made more sense down the line. In all nearly $7,000 was spent on appliances. It was the biggest part of our budget. I have confidence it will be an investment well made.

So now we finally have enough storage. Thank goodness. I have come to detest even the smallest clutter.

First floor configuration

The first floor is laid out identical to the upper floor unit and is about 1,900 square feet. As our main living is upstairs, we chose to use the first floor as extra space.
David called dibs on the front half of the unit which consists of living room with alcove, sun room and dining room.
Finally he gets the "library" he always wanted and was such a challenge to try and incorporate in other houses we have lived in. Now he can spread out which is nice.
The back half of the unit consists of three bedrooms, large bath, large passage hall and kitchen with breakfast room. It has its own side exterior entrance and access to the basement.
We configured this area into living quarters for Kyle and Grace as a kind of "in law" suite. We configured the front bedroom into a sitting room for them. Everything else functions as normal usage and makes a nice five room and bath suite. It is cozy and comfortable. It is also spacious and has a lot of light. The suite is well over a thousand square feet unto itself so they will have plenty of room to spread out and enjoy which is a far cry from the 10'0"x12'0" bedroom they have been living in for the past three years living with us. Now they can have five rooms to themselves and everybody can spread out and have their own privacy.
One thing this house has is windows! Altogether there are 65 windows. Plenty of natural lighting which makes everything bright and comfortable.

The downstairs kitchen....

The downstairs kitchen was a total disaster just like the upper one. Everything was caked in thick black grease. It had been at least 25 years, literally since it was cleaned. Day one it was chest high filled with pots and pans and trash not to mention old nasty food.
It took a while just to clean out this small space which measures about 10'0"x11'0". Once it was cleaned out, it was a wreck to say the least!

 The downstairs kitchen

Attached breakfast room to downstairs kitchen

There were so many other things to do in the house and to the house, that the downstairs kitchen had to wait its turn. Literally we only just now managed to finish.

With money running out and time as well, I had to get creative with this space. Everything in there was cleaned, then cleaned again. This alone took a lot of time and thankfully David's father tended to the cleaning so we could work elsewhere in the house.

I painted the counters and the back splash with Rustoleum counter paint. It is an epoxy paint and you can get it tinted to a lot of different colors which is nice. One can did the whole job and was around $20 at Lowes. I put three coats on everything. The counters were Robins Egg Blue 1950's formica counters.

I fixed the original 1950's cabinetry which matched what had been upstairs. Again it is maple furniture grade plywood and was built on site. I applied two coats of Antique Chestnut gloss stain with poly in it from Minwax. One can did the trick and was about $13 at Lowes. This brought the cabinets out and made them look nice.

We bought peel and stick vinyl floor tiles and installed them in the kitchen and adjoining breakfast room. They are $12 at Family Dollar Stores for 25 tiles. This updated the spaces, made them durable and really looks nice.

We bought a stainless steel electric range from Habitat for Humanity Restore for $125, another great find. It is a Frigidaire Gallery with convection oven, five burners and warming drawer. We found and bought a GE Profile stainless steel French door refrigerator with ice and water in it from a local thrift store for $299 and they delivered it for free. Also a great find. The original refrigerator was maggot filled and nasty so it was thrown away. The original stove was a 1950's Frigidaire built-in range where the burners slid out. We still have to get that out and the new stove in.

I found a really nice almost brand new stainless steel single handle faucet at a local church "trash and treasure" sale and it was fill a bag for $2. Counting other things in the bag, the faucet wound up costing only about sixty cents. 

My local Restore yielded four really nice JC Penney valances which I hung at the windows in the two rooms which were brand new in the bags and cost only $4 for all four. So for a buck a piece it made the rooms pop and look nice.

Again, at Restore we found a complete service for eight of a beautiful old Haviland china pattern with completer pieces for $20 and displayed it in there as well as a service for eight of old crystal stemware we got from Goodwill for $28 for all of it. Other kitchen items in there were either from thrift stores or things we had already and put in there.

The tea cart we put in the breakfast room came from Restore as well, as did the corner cabinet. The tea cart was $45 and is from Heywood Wakefield, it is solid maple and has glass tops and a drawer which is nice. The corner cabinet was $125 original price but they had a sale at Restore with 25% off so it wound costing us $100. It is hand Amish made with a glass shelf and light inside. The table and chairs were on hand. I bought four chair pads from Restore for $8 and put them on the chairs. The accessories on the table came from Restore as well and were inexpensive.

The chandelier hanging in the breakfast room made the room come together and was another Restore find. It was $50 with 25% off so that made it $40. I put a wire and chain on it and hung it on a hook over the table.

The breakfast room has a large double door pantry. One side has slide out storage drawers. The other side is open for brooms and mops and things. It is a handy feature. A shelf above each provides more storage as well. For small spaces in there, there is plenty of light and storage which makes the room function well.

The after pictures are coming at the conclusion of the progress posts. I think you will be impressed with what you can do with just a little money and some time.

If you want something, go after it

Taking a break from the renovation aspect of this project, I wanted to interject a word of advice generally.
You never get anywhere in life unless you apply yourself and go after what you want or what you want to achieve. I do not believe there is anything in life you cannot achieve or believe in the word impossible.
You know, I did not grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. Hard work and going day after day toward what you set your mind to is one of the best lessons in life I ever learned.
Case in point, is a baby grand piano. I had it in my mind that I just had to have a baby grand piano. Just about everybody knows how expensive they are and not exactly something a lot of people are going to be able to afford. I certainly could not.
I went on craigslist and I looked and looked in 2013. My mind was set and I was determined somehow I was going to get a baby grand piano.
One day I came across an ad on craigslist for a 1916 Rosewood Kranich and Bach baby grand piano. It had been restored and was in great condition. The seller wanted $300 for the piano which of course was a steal. I did not have the money for it.
I contacted the seller and offered a trade. We talked and he came to my house WITH the piano one rainy day on a trailer on the back of his SUV. He had no idea what it was this trade was going to be and neither did I.
We wound up trading an antique corner cabinet I had bought and an old Star brand victrola for it. He had brought a friend with him and between those two and David and I we managed to get into the house and set up.

My Kranich and Bach Baby Grand

The seller became a friend. He was a nice guy and his girlfriend was nice as well. They were young. He had bought the piano at an auction for himself, but his girlfriend was not letting it come into the house lol. My lucky day.

While cleaning the duplex out we came across just about anything and everything you can ever imagine finding. Wound up that shortly after the seller contacted me and offered to trade me back my corner cabinet. He knew I liked it, but I liked the piano more of course.

I had bought the corner cabinet from a local antique dealer. It was from an old house. Had leaded glass arched door and was just what I saw in my mind. I got it and painted and fixed it up. I hated to part with it and was glad to have the chance to get it back.

Turned out one snowy day the seller came with his girlfriend and they "picked" at the duplex taking things that were really things we were going to throw away. Rusted old wash tub and things like that. He came that day again with the corner cabinet on the trailer and left with things he picked out to trade for it. They wound up using that old rusted wash tub this past Christmas season to put their Christmas tree in for a stand.
So my garnering my nerve and contacting the seller asking did he want to trade wound up with my baby grand which was appraised for $22,000.00. Never could have bought it otherwise and even if I could have would never have spent that much anyway.

Funny how things work out. I wound up talking to the antique dealer shortly after and she told me there was a matching corner cabinet. It was in pieces though as it was built around an old radiator pipe. Wound up trading her some old canning shelving in the basement for it. Have not had the time to get it together yet but I will.

As you will see as this blog progresses, we managed to put together quite a collection of antiques, furniture, china, crystal, silver, art, etc. People are always amazed when they see our house thinking we spent a fortune on the things we have.

I am not ashamed to pony up and tell them the house is decorated with things other people did not want. Almost everything came from yard sales, flea markets, church sales, auction, thrift stores (a lot of it DID come from thrift stores) and sometimes antique shops. We would lay something away and pay on time until we could pay in full and get it out of layaway.

From crystal chandeliers and everything in between, somehow we managed to focus and make it happen though I think a lot of people thought I was half crazy.

Never take your eyes or your mind off of what it is you want to achieve or what you want to go after. Not for a second. You cannot sit back and wish something into reality. Get out there and make it happen. You will have disappointments but that makes the successes that much sweeter believe you me.

I have been blessed and very fortunate. I do not believe in the word luck. I do not believe there is any such thing. 

We managed to make a home and decorate it just the way we wanted for pennies on the dollar. Just about every bit of it being something somebody else did not want and got rid of. I am proud of what we have managed to do with determination rather than dollars. It makes it mean that much more.

Custom...cheap and nice

I like to get creative and one of my ideas was for custom ceiling medallions. I wanted to dress up the kitchen ceiling. I liked the look of old tin ceilings.
I took a scrap piece of old paneling that had been used as a wainscot in the kitchen. I cut it to size and cleaned it.
Then I covered it with Allen and Roth embossed paintable vinyl wallpaper. Once it dried, I painted it with antique copper spray paint and hung it up with common screws which I painted to hide them. It cost me about $6.00 in materials and really looks nice.
I did the same thing in the adjoining butlers pantry/morning room, which I did an octagon shape for that one.
It was cheap, easy and made a nice custom touch.

On to the bathroom!!

The bathroom was gross for lack of a better word. As hoarded as the rest of the house. Everything was damaged and broken in there. Had a tub and separate shower, toilet and sink vanity. Started from scratch and gutted the whole thing.

The bath was a goner

The original hexagon white porcelain tile in the bathroom from the 1920's

with the black tiled border design.

The Kitchen Tile

This is the floor tile in the kitchen. Using it in the bathroom as well. It is Rialto Beige from Lowes. It is sturdy and the color is through the tile. Laying it was an experience as was grouting it. You can have Lowes cut the straight cuts for you. They did not charge us anything for that.

Kitchen Details

The cabinets came in at $350 which was awesome. We got the appliances at Lowes, that was $4500 in all. David picked out an Italian porcelain floor which looks like aged stone which is nice in there and cost about $490.00 including the mortar, grout and Hardybacker. We got the glass tile for the back splash on clearance at Lowes which in all cost us about $130.
The enamel on iron sink we got at Restore for $40. Had bought one at Lowes for $300 and returned it when I found the one at Restore. Great savings.
The faucet I got on Amazon. It was an open box item and retailed for $650. I got it for $78 with free shipping.
I built the counters. Counters had me stumped. I decided against the granite but had no idea what to do for counters. I got inventive and bought pre-finished solid oak hardwood flooring which I used to build the counter surfaces. I like how they turned out.
Got stained glass cabinet doors (not shown) at the flea market for $20 for the pair for over the wine fridge. Got the wine fridge at Home Depot on clearance for $230.00---had been $500 but it had two dents. Big deal.
I custom made a matching shelf for the right side of the kitchen window and also a base bookcase for next to the wine fridge.
Had to custom tweak the base cabinets and resize a few but they worked well though it was a pain at first.
Did all the work ourselves which is nice and saves a ton of cash.

Loved the faucet from the start. It is in antiqued bronze.

Bought matching strainer baskets for it which are now in.

The style really accentuates the age of the house which is from 1926.

The Kitchen Shapes Up

I spent a lot of time and energy not to mention money on the kitchen. I love to cook and for me the kitchen really is one of the most important rooms in the house.
We found ways to save money to get the kitchen we wanted, including the good ole Restore and watching for sales.
Here is the kitchen mostly completed.

I got my refrigerator

I had bought a used black Samsung French door refrigerator when we first started. The kitchen was no where near ready for it and it was in the dining room of our house up the street where we live. I wanted stainless steel, but the price scared me. I dragged my feet of course until finally in Lowes they had a sale and after three days of "Okay I'll do it" I finally did. We wound up choosing Frigidaire Gallery appliances, which I like and have great features for the money.
We got the 28 CF French door refrigerator, dual oven 30" five burner convection electric range and microwave. I had also bought the dishwasher, but returned it and deleted a dishwasher in the kitchen. I do not like them. You have to rinse and practically clean the dishes before you wash them and often times have to hand wash anyway when they are done.
In all, the appliances, minus the dishwasher, cost us about $4,500.00 which was scary for me to spend that much but figured if we bought new and good from the start it would make longevity and financial sense over the long term.

Arggggh!

Of anything, the kitchen upstairs took a ton of time. I had first made cabinets and tried to work with that. Installed ones we made. They came down. Then found the Restore cabinets. They went up then came back down. I was really frustrated.
So I checked out craigslist. I was patient and kept checking. Finally found an ad where a guy was selling a kitchen full of cabinets. They were still installed in the house the guy had. We went and looked and liked them.
Had to take them down ourselves and get them home. This took some time. David thankfully has the umph to work a screwdriver when the screws are hard to get loose.
So, we had our cabinets! It was a start.

The cabinets are oak. I prefer darker colors, but since the kitchen is only about 11'x13' the lighter wood tone makes the space brighter. We got the entire set of cabinets for $350.00 which was great.

First Find

I was pretty upset really. Here I had a gutted kitchen. No cabinets or anything else. David and I went to the retail stores looking at cabinets and granite counters. I was dragging my feet. Though they were nice and all, the newer cabinets just seemed like over-priced wafer board shells with doors and drawers on them. Granite was nice of course, but there were so many choices my head was spinning. We did put a deposit down on granite, which David was happy about.

I went to the Restore and bought nine read oak wall cabinets for the kitchen. I really liked them. They said the base cabinets were coming but they never came which was a shame because we had found exactly the amount of wall cabinets we needed. We got all of them for $225.00 which was a great deal.
I saved them and they are in the basement. I am thinking of using them for a basement laundry room or maybe some built-ins somewhere in the house.

Love the Restore!!

I had bought thousands of dollars of materials at my local Lowes and Home Depot for the project. I had heard of the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Struthers, Ohio but had never been there. I did not how to get there. More than half way through the project we finally went.
One day a friend went with David and I to show us where it was. It was the beginning of a great love affair lol.
I found things there and was able to return items bought retail, this saved some good money for us. Over the past almost year I have bought a lot of building supplies, furniture, fixtures, stove for the downstairs unit, lighting and home accessories from there.
We bought so much the cashier asked us once we were dealers, coming in to buy things to resell. Of course we are not and said no. Last week I spent a few dollars and bought a few small things. The cashier joked must be a slow week and was that all we were buying lol.
The staff there are really nice people. I like going there, which I do several times a week. You never know what you are going to find and their prices are great (which was a blessing as by the time this fall hit the money well went dry on us).
I highly recommend checking them out. You can save a ton of money and find really unusual things.I think they are nationwide, so a lot of local communities have them.
They do great work, including building houses for veterans. Everything you buy goes to helping their cause, which I really think is great.

Original Upstairs Kitchen

The cabinets like I said were a 1950's remodel. Maple plywood built on site. I tried to work with them. Eventually decided to scrap them. I did save them and the wood. May find a use for them sometime. I like to repurpose things as you will see as the blog progresses.

I sanded the original cabinets and made repairs to them.

Then I re-stained them using stain with gloss poly in it.

The second floor apartment is now the main living area. The house is no longer used as a duplex. Upstairs there is a large living room with music room bay to the side, a sun room, formal dining room, butlers pantry/morning room, kitchen, three bedrooms, large passage hall and a large bathroom. Lots of closets which I love.
The kitchen dated to the 1950's and had to go. Total gut job. Tried to restore the cabinets and that flopped.
Decided to start from scratch. Glad now we did.

The cabinets there were maple plywood. Two walls in the kitchen were blank so I tried my hand at making some to match in.
These pictures show me in the process of grain painting the cabinets we built on site. I wanted to match in with the original cabinets. This took me some time to do.
I did not like how they were turning out and I scrapped that idea. I did repurpose the wood used for building them in other projects around the house though.

Finally.....getting to work on the interior

By the time April 2014 came, we were able to start working on the interior. That has been my favorite part. I love to design and decorate so I was in heaven being able to use my imagination and make reality what I had pictured in my mind.

 David hard at it painting the cut in 

in the upstairs master bedroom

I like color. I always have. I really, really hate plain white walls and ceilings. I loved being able to pick colors for the rooms.

For the upstairs master bedroom I picked a color called Valspar Rhubarb. It is from their Farmhouse Collection. I really love Valspar's colors.

It was a daring choice, kinda orangish if you first see it from a distance. It is actually a pretty rich color.

Winter 2013

Winter 2013 into the spring of 2014 was spent finishing the interior clean out. I figured out that we had gotten rid of about 33,000 square feet of trash and debris which included splintered and broken furniture, old appliances, flat out trash dating to the 1980's, etc. You name it or imagine it, it was there. The clean out itself took us about nine months.....and that was working every single day no matter what the weather was like. Sweltering heat then freezing cold (there was no heat yet).

David did it!!!

David, who had no experience, went and bought a door and installed it on the left side of the house. The house was no secured. Very proud of him.

Staking me claim!!

Just as the first men on the moon planted the American flag, as soon as the work was underway so did I.

Cold had come...but the exterior facelift was shaping up nicely

By the time cold weather had arrived, most of the exterior was shaping up. Wood had been replaced, the chimneys rebuilt, the wood was scraped and mostly painted and that awful ivy was gone (yay!!). The trash and debris were gone outside and the ground mowed. Started the weeding (which I hate).

This is the front of the house. By this time most of the overgrown

bushes in the front were removed. Of course, they were covered in thorns.

This is the left side of the house. Notice the dumpster.

This is the right side of the house.

This is the back of the house.

Gettin to work on the exterior

We started this project late July of 2013. By the time we had gotten anywhere in the inside making progress getting the hoard manageable, cold weather was soon coming. Attention had to shift focus to getting the exterior in shape.
First mistake was hiring a contractor from craigslist. Showed up a few times, staying a few hours if we were lucky. Did terrible work. Eventually never came back and ripped us off nearly $3,000.00 in all.

There was rotted wood, missing wood and the chimneys had to be completely rebuilt as they were by then just stacked on top of each other. The mortar had turned to dust.

WOO HOO>>>> FLOOR AHO!!!

We were so happy that after several MONTHS of cleaning out we had ACTUALLY managed to reach the floor!! It was like hitting the lottery lol. We were THAT happy at just getting to the floor in some areas.