Flipping Hearts Week of Fun

July 27th – August 2nd

Don’t miss the week long buffet of post and prizes hosted by your Independence Islands authors.

All I know is DIY

There isn’t much that I am willing to do myself, well that my husband isn’t willing to do. Me? I sit in the other room, per his request, and pray that the good Lord keeps him safe. He is notorious for being accident prone–car accent, hatchet in leg, third degree burns on arms and belly, motorcycle accident, slice hand open with drywall knife, falling five feet off a trailer while sitting on a motorcycle, and several sprains (Yes, I have become proficient in at home first aid.). No matter the number of battle scars he carries, he still insists on doing things himself. Whether it is car repair, plumbing, electrical, or home remodel; he wants to do it. I can’t blame him though, it isn’t cheap to have a professional come in and do it, but he at least recognizes when he needs help and has a list of buddies with various skilled trade jobs to “Show him the way”.

Our most recent project.

Three years ago, we bought this beautiful Victorian home built in 1900. It had been owned by a Bachelor for some years and there were certain aspects of the house that just weren’t even close to fitting the age of the home (Yes, most of the character was stripped over the years. the 80’s were not kind to this beauty).

Take my dining room, for example – yes, that is a display case from a store, built into the wall. the desk, though it looks useful, was short even for me. Let me tell you, it was solid. too solid.

But wait, there is more.

Because the living room and the dining room flow into each other, we wanted the flooring to be the same in both rooms. So we also had to remodel the living room. Now this was a much bigger task.

During the 80s, It was a cool thing to have a stone fireplace. We’re not talking about the Fieldstone fireplaces you see now. No, we’re talking about granite stone. That white rock that is expensive but cannot be cleaned at all. So we decided to take it out. What we found under the cheap, beige tile on the hearth was not some thing we expected to find. Yes, that is the original porcelain tile put on the hearth in 1900. And yes that’s the base of the fireplace. We wanted to take the entire fireplace out all the way up to the ceiling because the chimney is gone and it stops at the ceiling. That was an undertaking we just did not have the time or the finances to do. Maybe later.

I will say, it turned out pretty well though. I cried when we had to cover up the original hearth But it is still there. When we do sell this house we will make sure to tell the future owners that it is there preserved as best as we possibly could. We didn’t restore it because you can’t find these tiles. These are a brown green color and all I found were green and pink.

We have not completed the trim yet because of the price of lumber. We want to create our own trim instead of using the cheep contractor trim. So we are willing to take our time for that.

After some floorboards, drywall, putty, and paint anyone who didn’t see that area before wouldn’t know that we filled in a fireplace. Good job, babe!

can you see why we didn’t keep the floors

Yes, we have done a lot to this house and there is so much more to do. Some of the projects we will do ourselves like putting a shower in our half bath so that there is a public bathroom. But some projects we will hire out like our master bed and bathroom remodel, siding, and a new roof.

The pictures below are a couple more DIY projects that we tackled that weren’t too much to handle.