Operation Bigger House: Inside the Original House

I took some pictures of the inside of our house as it is right now so that this project will be fully documented. Unfortunately, I don't have a good Before picture of the old pink bathroom, but here are a couple of good looks at it's pinkness.

Ella's first interaction with tampons. Oh, and the pink floor.

This hilarious picture shows the original pink tile floor. I didn't necessarily hate this tile, but it had a lot of wear and tear. What you cannot see behind Ella (circa 14ish months) is that the majority of the tiles in the threshhold are cracked or broken. We ended up pulling them up entirely once she was crawling because she kept picking them out of the floor and carrying them around the house. When we put the house on the market earlier this year (because Plan A was to sell it and buy a bigger one), Dave caulked them back down so that it looked all nice and put together, just in time for Luke to start crawling and picking them out of the floor.

The picture also shows the old bathroom doors. Those were upgraded, as part of my perfect Christmas present in 2009 - when all I asked for were doors that opened and shut without the full weight of my body behind the effort.


Ella, circa 9 months, in the very pink bathtub.


This picture is also of Ella (Why don't I have any bathtub pictures of Luke? Oh, that's right, because mangaging two kids in a tub is lot more work than one.),  in the pink bathtub. Note the pink tile around the tub as well; it covered the walls up to chest height. The sink was pink to match the tub, the counter was the same tile as the floor. The cabinet was painted white - but the chipped places revealed the secret that it used to be pink, too. Above the tile on the walls was a beige and pink flowered wallpaper with a border.

All of that is gone now. The only thing left in that room is the disgusting light fixture (which will be replaced) and the closet with it's new door. It looks like this now.

Bathroom- unpinked.

This picture is from the doorway, looking into the corner where the tub used to be. Dave's new closet is right behind the wall you see in this picture.


We have picked out the tub, vanity, toilet, and floor tile for this makeover but I still haven't settled on a paint color. There will not be any tile on the wall this go round.

Bathroom from where the tub used to be.

This is the bathroom from where the tub used to be. See the nice new door? I love my new doors. (I know that they aren't really new anymore since Dave gave them to me 2 years ago, but they still feel new to me. They still make me squeal inside sometimes when I admire them.)

Ella is content to shower all by herself now, and I am content to let her. She uses our shower in the current "master bath", and she even bathes, with soap and a rag and everything. A couple of times a week, I reach in there and scrub her head for her, and that's all I have to do to keep her clean. She loves showering so much , she will sit in there and play for 45 minutes. While she had the stomach virus, she asked to shower every time her fever spiked - 4 times in one day.

Luke in the temporary tub.

Given that bit of goodness, I really only have to worry about scrubbing Luke these days. I know he misses the bathtub, especially since he had just gotten to have it to himself. He was really enjoying swimming on his stomach and blowing bubbles with his face in the water, but he is an adaptable child so he's making do with this situation for now. As long as I keep him out of the knives, he's good to go with drowning the entire kitchen and watching Mickey Mouse through the space over the stove.




 



 The kids' bedroom.



This is a picture of the bedroom the kids have shared since I moved Luke out of the Arms-Reach co-sleeper beside my bed. See that terribly scary piece of plywood on the wall? That used to be a window. There was another one beside it as well. Those windows are now in "the nook" in the new master bedroom. The new laundry room is directly on the other side of that wall now. I took this picture from what will be the new doorway to this room. It will be Ella's because she cannot fathom the thought of changing rooms at this stage in her life. She has plans for it to be purple, and she has already picked out her bedding, rug, and lamp.

Frame for the new hallway.

This is the frame for the new hallway, and the plywood that covers what used to be the other window and what will soon be the opening to the new part of the house.

Ella finds the room completely terrifying in it's present state - so terrifying that she cannot go in there alone. Luke, on the other hand, enjoys playing loudly in there to hear his echo in the absence of furniture. Over the weekend he mastered balancing on the 2x4 on the floor.

The Big Room dressed as their temporary bedroom.

This is where they are sleeping for the present - our Big Room. If you look past the bedroom in the middle of it, you might be able to see that it is usually a combination sitting room/dining room. Ella dubbed it The Big Room some time ago because it has a lot of wide open space for playing, especially since we pushed all of the furniture against the walls for just that purpose.

One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is having this room put back together again - sans toys.

From the opposite side of The Big Room.

 
And this is a view of the play portion of the room. Most of the toys that are in there today will go into Luke's new room (our current bedroom). He loves the little kitchen and Ella rarely plays with it anymore, so I'm putting it in his room.
 
I'm okay with the current situation for a little while longer, but I'm really hoping to have The Big Room cleaned up in time for Christmas. This is where we put our tree, and I'm trying to rest peacefully in the belief that that will happen this year, too.
 
As for the addition, the duct work for the heating and air went in last week and that's about all that happened. There was an inspection today, so the hanging of the drywall should commence shortly. I look forward to a lot more progress this week.