Home Improvements - March, April, and June 2010

Kitchen "before" - this is our rollaway dishwasher (where the cabinet was installed later)

With Spring quickly approaching, we had to get the house ready to be shown and hopefully sold.

I scraped all the paint off the woodwork in the kids room. Then stained and varnished it. When the floors and stairs were refinished on the 2nd floor, they also stained the new oak railing to match.

Kitchen with new built in dishwasher, new range fan, and counter tops.

We hired an excellent carpenter, Bob Reger, to complete all home improvements. We bought an under counter dishwasher, which Bob installed. This was the first built in dishwasher in this house. We moved the cabinet that was taken out to the other side of the kitchen. Then we bought new granite laminate counter tops to extend over the new area. Finally we bought a new stainless steel hood fan for over the stove. Now our kitchen is all stainless steel.

Living room color before repainted.

Bob also repaired the fence next to the house that had begun to sag and dug a couple of fence posts to complete the installation of the fence in the backyard.

I painted the living room off white after being a brilliant green for several years. I bought some oak trim and stained it. Bob took down the plastic trim and put up the new oak. The living room looks great.

Living room color and trim after repainted.

I painted the master bedroom, Clara's bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and two walls of the kids bedroom.

I created an ad to sell the house on FSBO Madison dot com in mid-March 2010. By April 18, I held my first open house. The next day, I listed the house on the Multiple Listing Service. After every showing, I called the Realtor and asked for feedback. I heard that the bathroom cabinets needed an update.

Once the April 30 deadline for the Home Buyer's Tax credit passed, the Realtors stopped calling. On May 20, we decided to pull the house from the MLS and get the bathroom remodeled. We hired Cyndi from the Cabinet Shop to design the layout for the new cabinets.

Bathroom before remodel - these cabinets were made from "scrap wood". I found an old schoolroom wood desk for the floor.

Bob Reger took out the old cabinets and tore down 2 walls on Tuesday June 1. I moved rubble to the neighbors trash cans. Larger cabinet pieces I dropped off at the City of Madison Recycling center. The ordered cabinets arrived June 2. The new walls were built. The new electrical outlets installed. Over the weekend, I stuffed the blown insulation I saved from the two walls we removed into the new wall. I primed. The cabinets went in on June 11, the last day of school. I painted on June 12. Bob Reger was diagnosed with lung cancer on June 10 but he came back to finish our job.

Bathroom Remodel completed June 12, 2010