Awfully Big Deck You Got There

When my parents and I walked through my house, before I bought it, the first thing my mom said was "I would rip down this patio cover and open this all up." At the time I thought she was crazy. First of all, SHADE! Secondly, it's a covered outdoor space, who doesn't love that? 

Two and a half years later, I am willing to admit my mom was right (didya hear that Mom??). The roof had gotten progressively leakier over the years, not to mention sustained quite a bit of termite damage. And the cement floor was severely sloped (toward the house), so if I ever wanted to level it out, it would mean the roof would be incredibly low on one side. I finally decided to give up putting lipstick on the pig, and just take it all down.

Here is the before...

I'm not going to lie, this was way more work that I expected. The roof was tarred right up to the siding of the house, so taking that down meant damaging quite a bit of the siding. And then about a third of the cement floor had to be chipped up and thrown into a dumpster (such back-breaking work), just so we could make a level frame for the deck. 

Once that groundwork was laid, the actual decking went in pretty quickly, thanks to this handy tool. 

Not only does it help people who are not that great at drilling screws in straight (ahem), but it also puts the screws into the sides of the board, so they're hidden. And check out the results!

Pretty fancy, eh? It's amazing how much brighter the space is - it feels like a whole new backyard!

Starring: The Rosenfeld Cottage!

Okay, maybe HGTV didn't work out, but my little house is finding its fame and fortune, nonetheless! A friend of mine is shooting a short film, and needed a location that could pass for two different houses, one of which would be destroyed.  Luckily, my garage was on deck to be destroyed anyway, so looks like we're in business!

Here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the Director of Photography shooting the main character in my bedroom. It was more than a little strange to see a man who is not my boyfriend in my bed! 

The garage was previously just being used for storage, but got a lot of set dressing to make it look like a living room. And since that wall with the shelves is going to come down eventually anyway, I told them they could go to town on making it look like it was crumbling. There is even a "gas line" sticking out of it, that was rigged to look like it was on fire during filming!

I'm also planning on tearing out the ceiling, so the set dec crew ripped a big whole in that too.

Then they made it look as though a pipe had fallen from the ceiling, and water poured out while the cameras were rolling. 

The destruction continued on the other side of the wall, where they actually set things on fire! I was standing by with a fire extinguisher the whole time, don't worry.

The best part of all of this, is that we don't have to clean it up! It's all going to be demoed soon anyway! 

The glimpses I caught behind the camera looked really great, I can't wait to see my house on film! I will definitely post the link as soon as it pops up online.

Kitchen Demo: It's Finally Here!

It's been a whirlwind of activity at the Rosenfeld Cottage the past few days! Demo has officially begun on the kitchen remodel! Check out the before pictures, so I can have your complete sympathy...

Can you believe I ever hosted Pre-Thanksgiving in this kitchen?? Now feast your eyes on the glory that is demolition...

Looks better already, doesn't it? That big old hole in the floor is so that we can run the plumbing over to the other side of the kitchen, for the sink and dishwasher. The crawlspace was too small to fit a person, so we had to go in through the top. Luckily, replacing the floor was already on the menu, so it wasn't too big a deal.

When we pulled down all those weird pressboard ceiling tiles, we uncovered a recessed vent hood in the ceiling! Not only is it a cool piece of character from the original build, but it also saves me a bit of money on buying a new hood (those things are expensive! Who knew?). 

It already feels about ten times bigger than it did. You can see we have some drywall up on the half wall! Things are beginning to take shape!

From Bad to Worse

I know this is not exactly revolutionary information, but I feel the need to point out that buying a house, and renovating it, is a very stressful process. It's expensive, it's hard to plan, and there is an immense amount of pressure to get things done quickly. This was compounded by the fact that my closing date went over by 2 weeks, my carefully planned renovation schedule went out the window, and I was effectively homeless. This is not how things were supposed to go!

As I mentioned in my previous post, there was a fair amount of demo that had to be done before the real work could start. We're concentrating on the bedroom, but we also had to rip out about a third of the kitchen cabinets, just to get a refrigerator into that space. Oh, this is after replacing the electrical panel, and adding outlets to every room (and GFIs in the kitchen and bathroom). This is post-demo...

I know it's horrifying, but it has to get worse before it can get better!

Back in the bedroom, we tore down the ceiling (or, more accurately, we poked the ceiling and it fell down), replaced the broken window panes, and ripped out the carpet in both bedrooms and the hallway. The spare room and the hallway had pretty pristine wood floors underneath, just like in the rest of the house. Jackpot, right? Not quite. For some reason, in the bedroom, the entire floor was covered in some kind of thin green adhesive. It wasn't sticky to the touch, but it sure as hell stuck to the floor. Sanding didn't work, floor scrapers didn't work, soaking didn't work... the only thing we could do was get on our hands and knees and chip it up, bit by bit, with 5-in-1s. This is also the week I learned what a 5-in-1 is.

Little by little, we got it all done. And my bedroom is officially the first "done" room in the house. I readily admit that it's not the most polished design in the world, but with the time constraints and not having the budget to buy multiple new rooms full of furniture, I did what I could with what I had. And actually, it feels like a cheerful little island in a tumultuous sea of sawdust and joint compound.

Remember the "before"?

Here is the very yellow after..

An extra special thank you to the kind friends who are letting me take turns crashing in their spare rooms! Love you guys!