The Beginning of Everything

     Here it is. Another young homeowner's DIY blog--an internet concept with about as much originality as a cat meme. Just another voice in the sea of far too many, determined to tell the world about all the projects around my house that I've attempted (for better or worse) to take a swing at myself. It's true that most of my undertakings were the norm, even what was expected of homeowners in a previous era. But after growing up in a world of "hiring out," I feel as though I'm charting a new path, even though there's nothing new about it. It is a path sought by many young homeowners of my generation; as any Pinterest peruser or channel flipper knows, DIY is very "in" right now.
     But this definitely isn't HGTV; projects don't magically get finished and they sure as hell don't always come out right. What you'll read here is my attempt at an unvarnished, honest look at what it's like to tackle this version of DIY home ownership. It's a journey I embark on not because its cool or cheap, but because of this real passion and desire to fix the broken, innovate the dysfunctional, and create the not-yet-existent. Some of my projects will work, some will probably fail miserably. And when they fail, I'll write about it extensively--the only thing more important than instructions on how to do something are instructions on how not to do something!
     If you're looking for complete originality, you won't find it here--I have no desire to reinvent the wheel. What you'll find is a mix of different plans and ideas that I've read about and discovered elsewhere, then changed somewhat or even significantly to perfectly suit our home. Maybe this blend of tweaked unoriginal ideas will inspire you, or maybe it will just look like the same crap you've seen 30 times already on Pinterest... I suppose there's only one way to find out!


     The House is a 1925, two-story bungalow with beautiful, original Pine woodwork and doors. The original hardwood floors are found throughout the house, with Curly Maple on the first floor and Southern Yellow Pine on the second. The basement is a huge space with a poured foundation and 7-foot ceilings. All in all, it's got great bones, but after years of neglect and no real updates since the 1960s, we certainly have our work cut out for us!

   The Floors

The wall and worn floors in all their glory

     Ironically, this story of home ownership starts with a hired-out renovation in which my only role was writing a check. When we bought the house, the original floors were in pretty rough shape. The damage was mostly superficial, with a few deeper dents and water stains, but overall, they needed some serious work.
     Wanting to do everything myself, I had grand visions of renting a drum floor sander and going to town. After all, how hard could it be to just push a sander back and forth? ...Turns out, pretty hard! After a bit of research I learned how temperamental these machines can be and how much damage you can do to your floors if you stay in one spot for even a split second longer than you should. It didn't take long to decide that I'd rather not try floor refinishing for the first time on my own 92-year-old floors. Most reasonable floor refinishers charge between $2-4 per square foot, depending on the type of wood. With a little under 1400 square feet of wood floor and a quote for $2.50/sqft, hiring a professional was a no-brainer.

The upstairs pine after being stripped down to bare wood

...And after a few coats of semi-gloss

  The Wall
     We were fortunate to have a bit of leeway with our move-in date, which allowed us to have the floors done while the house was empty. Since we had the extra time and a contractor who did more than just floors, we figured, "hey, why not tear down some walls at the same time!"

The wall is gone but the floors look even worse!

   The layout of the house was classic 1920s: a nice open dining room and living room, then a small, one-person kitchen hidden behind a full wall with a door. It's as though the goal was to keep the kitchen a secret, leaving only a small portal through which food could be magically transported into the dining room.
     So needless to say, that wall had to go! Being a load-bearing wall that held up half the house though, I again found myself outside my DIY comfort zone. So for a few thousand dollars more, we had the wall taken out while the floors were being refinished. The contractor put in an 8x8 engineered beam to carry the second floor load and wrapped the beam in beautiful, 14'-long pine boards, stained to match the rest of the woodwork.
     Taking out the wall also left a gap in the flooring, which he filled with an 8 inch maple board planed down to lie flush with the rest of the flooring. Since maple darkens with age and UV exposure, the 92-year-old floors looked considerably darker than the filler board. To lessen the contrast, he put a light stain on the new board before putting the topcoat on the entire floor.
     Once the floors were completed, the difference was incredible! The kitchen/dining room combo seems so obvious, I just don't understand why people of another era would have wanted it any other way. The wrapped beam and maple floor plank, running perpendicular to the floor boards, creates a visual separation of the two rooms. It doesn't feel like too big of an expanse, but at the same time there are no physical barriers between the rooms--just the right amount of openness.
       With the contractor's work complete, this is where my adventure begins...

The space is so big, I can only capture it with a pano shot! Notice the color
difference between the dining room and kitchen flooring... 92 years of the
sun coming in the dining room windows and never reaching the kitchen
because of the wall.