Our circa 1900 Victorian American Foursquare is a diamond in the rough, but we are slowly turning that around. This house tour shows that it’s still largely a work in progress – no room is fully finished (hence, the name “Living in a Fixer Upper”, har har). But we are very proud of how far we have come from when we became the new owners of this amazing piece of history in October 2015.
Since reality is that we are still in the midst of our restoration, many of these pictures are still in the messy and ugly “during restoration” phase, but hopefully you can start to see the differences being made and encourage you that IT DOES GET BETTER. :)
For a full list of all we plan to do with each room, see our giant “To Do” list.
See our main level home video tour from Winter 2020 here!
EXTERIOR
FRONT PORCH
The posts on the front porch, especially on the far left, were sagging very badly and we knew we’d need to prioritize it soon after moving in, especially when we found that things were worse than they appeared – almost nothing was holding the porch up! We’re moving full-steam ahead with restoring the porch as of July 2019! (see the progress here!)
FLOOR RESTORATION
Our story wouldn’t be complete without the huge undertaking of sanding and re-staining the yellowing, splintered, unfinished floors of our entire main floor. We chose to use low VOC and quick-drying water-based stain and finish and are still amazed at the transformation!
ENTRYWAY
Before we moved in:
Summer of 2019 I started to strip the stair’s balusters of the white paint.
Will be working to strip the brown paint off the stairs come Summer 2020.
The entry way has newly refinished hardwood floors, nice cozy green wall paint (BM Fairmont Green HC-127), and this amazing antique velvet chair I scored at an auction for $45!
DINING ROOM
Before we moved in, the dining room used to be the living room, complete with a pipe through the original floors for the previous owner’s flat screen TV and scalloped plywood bookcases. Oh, and no ceiling light.
We removed the shelving, scraped off FOUR layers of wallpaper, repaired the plaster, sanded and stained the floor, ran electricity, and painted. Now it’s the focal room of our home the moment you walk in!
For Dining Room related posts, see below:
Demolition of shelving // stripping layers of wallpaper // cleaning off wallpaper glue // repairing plaster & chandelier // dining room design plans // paint color: green or white? // antique empire bookcase & jacobean buffet // fancy carved wood curtain rod brackets // emerald green curtains //
LIVING ROOM
Before we moved in:
What used to be the dining room functions better as our living room. We painted the walls and sanded and stained the floor.
In the Fall of 2018, the living room was transformed again when we added stained crown molding and picture rail. We were finally able to hang artwork! Moldings are such a great way to add a lot more character to a room, especially in an old home. ;)
As of April 2020, the living room went through another phase of plans for it with being painted a rich, dark blue below the picture rail. It instantly added so much more depth and style to the room!
KITCHEN
This room has been a MESS even before we moved in. Bad plumbing, stick n’ peel thin floor tiles that were bubbling up, cheap cabinets that don’t fit standard-sized plates…we have our work cut out for us! Plans are slowly forming for this room, so stay tuned!
MASTER BEDROOM
A room that at one time had orange walls, bumpy red carpet, and a useless modern closet is looking much more refreshed, but there’s still much we need to do too!
We took out the closet and replaced the previous owner’s “brilliant” closet plywood walls with sheetrock. Created a doorway to connect the master to the very small 8×10 “Spare Oom” for the future master closet. Primed and painted.
Then we tore up the carpet and found a DISASTER with the original wood floors: scratches and CAR PUTTY. We didn’t know if these floors were able to be saved, but we still moved forward!
Scraped the putty up and then sanded, and IT WAS AMAZING how beautiful the floors became after each new pass of the sander. It was thrilling to save those floors!
Look at the difference! Old wood floors are amazing, y’all.
More to come as we continue to work. :) Lots more to see on the Instagram!
