It's starting to look goooood

So as of yesterday, I have a ceiling! I know it doesn't seem that exciting, there was a ceiling to start with, but just look at this picture...



It's starting to look good, right?!? Just imagine the air isn't full of drywall dust, and you'll see what I mean. It's looking clean, bright and white with those beautiful lights! When I bought the place it was dark and yellow with a popcorn ceiling full of water stains, so this is a huge improvement!

In other news, this happened...



It's so hard to yell at her when she looks at you with those eyes.

Massive Long-Awaited Update!

Well I think I have actually skipped two weeks now, oops! So we will just stop counting, whose idea was that anyway?

So many many moons ago my Dad came down for the weekend with my siblings and we worked on the condo one lovely Saturrrrr....Sunday? Don't remember.

My Dad removed absolutely everything from the kitchen, like everything. No cabinets, no floor, no appliances, and some of the wall was missing for some reason? I don't always follow his logic, but I trust it!



Mallory played maid and went around vacuuming all the mess we've made the past few weeks. That's her in the red, and yes she is taller than me. I know.



And I....sat on the floor. With a pair of pliers. And pulled tacks out. We need to have a flat surface to put the wood in, did I tell you I'm putting in fake hardwood? Like the engineered wood that looks real, not the laminate stuff. Anyway, here's my bucket of tacks and little pieces of carpet padding.



Skip to the next weekend when my dad started replacing some of the missing drywall from where he took down the soffit (google it, I had to).



John and I put up the insulation, which the doggies decided made a nice bed. I have to bathe them both later, don't even ask how that went.





My bedroom ceiling all insulated!



John is such a diva.

And today I found out that the electrical work passed inspection! So tomorrow the builder dudes are bringing drywall and Monday they start putting up my new, popcorn-free ceiling! Everything is going so fast...sheesh.

So uhm...update you again in......ok I dunno when. Sorry!

Week three came and went with no post...

But seriously, lots of stuff happened. I just can't remember to write about it.

Fail?

Week 3 and Happy Thanksgiving!

Quick update...

I swung by the condo this week, I got to see all the work my Dad did on Sunday without me. All the cabinets are gone (hooray!) here's some pictures:



My dishwasher and kitchen sink in the middle of the living room



No more ugly cabinets!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Lauren's Condo Project, Episode One!

Hooray! I've finally done it, set up a blog for you, my friends and family, to see what I'm doing in my new condo without having to get your hands dirty or drive down here. I've put this off for a couple weeks now, so there is a LOT to catch you all up on!

We can start at the very beginning, I closed on my condo Thursday two weeks ago in the middle of that November Nor'easter. I was secretly worried my new home would flood on the first day I owned it, but it survived! We got started with the renovations the following Saturday, wasting no time. The first project was to take out the ceilings. Dad told me that this was a simple task, just "put a hole in it with a crowbar and start ripping, it will come down in sheets." This is a lie! It does not come down in sheets! It comes down in tiny pieces that get in your eye and after about forty five minutes we had only managed to make about a two foot square hole. It was not looking good. Luckily I have wonderful friends (Becca and Klooster) and a lovely boyfriend (John) and with some luck we started to make progress. We found that hanging on it like monkey bars made it come down a little faster, so we did that. After a few hours we had the living room, kitchen, hall and bathroom ceilings down and were about to start on the bedroom....but we got tired. So we called it a day! Here are some pictures from that first day and thanks again to my awesome friends without whom this would have never gotten done!

The living room before we did anything to it

Becca with stuff in her eye...it was unavoidable, the air was so full of falling drywall bits

John likes the crowbar...a little too much

After about 45 minutes this was all we had to show for our efforts!

but eventually we got the hang of it...

Becca and Klooster...my weirdo friends

This is how we got it all down, we just hung from the ceiling until it fell!

Ella hated the loud noises and thought we were crazy!

My boyfriend is a stud.

At the end of Day one, a little tired!

The next day Dad, John, and I took down the rest of the ceilings and the sound proofing bars that were under the ceiling, we are gonna put up better ones. We loaded everything up into the trailer, but the dump was closed so we had to stop. We also put up orange stickies for where all the new ceiling installations would go. Here are some pictures from last Sunday:

John on Day Two!

"Who put a lid on my water bowl?"

"Hi Mom, I wasn't doing anything!"

Ella and I taking a break in our future bedroom!

It started to look a little scary...

Dad taking down the sound proofing

John's hangover kicked in at some point and he got a little tired

The sticky notes showing where my new lighting will be

During the week my Uncle Monk, who is an electrician, came down and installed the lights and fan boxes and all the other electric stuff for me, but I didn’t get any good pictures of that. Oops!
This weekend (#2) we started again on Saturday. John and I went in and tore out all the carpet and padding underneath. I was hoping this would get rid of the smell, but it’s still a little stinky. We’ll see if this goes away. Then Dad came and we tore out the cabinets in the kitchen and some of the ugly laminate flooring. I was pretty much rejoicing at this point because I HATED those cabinets and that flooring. It was sooo 80s and tacky, cheap, and ugly! I am SO glad it’s gone! After two dump runs we finished up. Here’s some pictures from Saturday:

My new lighting, compliments of Uncle Monk

No ceiling or floor left in the living room

John stepped on a nail about two seconds after this picture...ouch

Ella hanging out in the empty construction zone

The kitchen after the bar and upped cabinets were removed

My Dad in his natural element...working!

And that brings us to today! I am sore ALL OVER from helping Dad carry stuff out and so when he gave me an out, I took it. Yes, I sat around on my fat lazy butt and let my Dad work on my condo all day. I am not a good daughter. So I have nothing to show you what he did today, but he’s been there for about three hours now so I assume it looks different. I’ll show you as soon as I see it!
So there you have it! Everything I’ve done with the condo in the past two weeks! In the future, I hope to update this on a weekly basis so you can see things as they happen, but I make no promises…