First glimpse of Birdsong Cottage makeover...

Good morning friends! First of all, I want to thank you for your comments on my studio. We were away the week that "Where Bloggers Create 2013" opened. I had no internet access at Birdsong, other than what I could do with my iPad, and didn't have much time for even looking at that, so wasn't able to look at many of the other studios that were posted. I intend to do that soon!

As you know, we were in the mountains this past week, beginning our work on Birdsong. We hit a few snags that we did not anticipate. For one, the refrigerator, which seemed to work when we bought it, did not chill down the food at all. It constantly ran, to no effect, so we ended up having to waste time shopping for a new one and waiting for its delivery. The second snag was that when my husband started ripping out all of the carpeting and padding, it became painfully obvious that the musty smell of the place was not caused only by the old carpet, but also by the moldy sub-flooring underneath it in the bedrooms and living room. This was caused by old leaks on several LARGE areas of the sub-flooring which had never been repaired, and then just carpeted over. The leaks in the master bedroom and its closet were caused by the toilet that leaked in earlier years. Shucks! Now we know why all of the windows, the roof, and the toilet had been recently replaced!! Since it had been our intent to replace all the carpeting with laminate flooring in the first place, my husband, who is the supreme perfectionist, decided to rip out all the areas of bad sub-flooring and replace it. That took away from our painting time, so all I got done were the outsides and some of the insides of the kitchen cabinets, along with the walls in the kitchen and most of the living room. Since I had to work around Hubby, I had to jump around a little.

In spite of all, we did get a lot accomplished in the four days that we were up there, considering the fact that we were five hours from home with only the tools that my husband had the foresight to bring. Plus, we weren't all that familiar yet with the locations of the stores that we had to shop at.

Below are a few of the photos that I took so that you can see what we were up against.

These photos are of the master bedroom.

Rotted flooring under window on right...

...and another in front of closet, shown on left.

This old leak also rotted out the flooring inside

the closet.

My husband replaced all of this rotten mess.

I can't believe that the clowns who previously owned this home would have carpeted over this rot.

Below is the section that Hubby replaced in the living room,

which was almost the whose length of the room.

You can see at the bottom left corner where someone

replaced a small section, but not the rest.

The seller told our neighbor that they only replaced it

because their rocking chair made the floor squeak.

Really???

And below we have packed up the car with as much old carpet

and padding that would fit.

Boy, did it ever stink!

To the dump it goes.

On the next trip we hauled out all the carpet stripping, staples,

nails, and sections of rotted flooring.

It didn't smell much better!

And below is our charming screened porch,

shown in all its glory with the remainder of the new

wood used for the rest of the sub-flooring

that Hubby completed...

Below is a picture that shows you the wall paint color.

We are getting rid of the ugly gold,

and replacing it with a greige-tone that you see on the

right of the hook board. 

It contrasts beautifully with the white cabinets.

The color is "Mineral", by Behr, but we had it mixed

in Glidden to save some money...

And below is the kitchen with the newly-painted

white cabinets, and the new wall color.

I can't wait to see the cabinets with the new hardware.

We know what we will get, but haven't bought it yet.

Initially I though that I would want to rip out the

rick-racky trim above the middle window,

but we'll live with it awhile as I think it lends to

the cottage flair...

And if there was any beauty to be found at this place

this week, it was in the wild daylilies that grow next to

the porch, shown here after a rain storm...

So, after those days of sleeping on an uncomfortable sleeper sofa left by the sellers, waking up at 5:00 each day, working all day except for meals and frequent runs to Home Depot, Lowe's and Ace Hardware, going to bed at 9:00 because there was no TV and we were too tired to do anything anyway, we started to make a dent in the process. Though we had our moments last week, we do remain positive that Birdsong will soon become what we want it to be. Soon will come the fun part of installing the new flooring and completing the painting. Oh, and did I mention that the previous owners left a bunch of junk behind, such as old toilet bowl cleaners, plungers, dirty mops, and so forth? I guess they thought they were doing us a favor and that we would use them. Again I say, really?? To the dump they went.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for putting up with me!

Sue