Finished!!!!

We've finally finished the laundry room and the bathroom (bathroom pictures will be shown once I get it decorated...I'm still trying to decide on a shower curtain)!!! Yay! And I know that I said we were almost finished back in September, but we hit a few speedbumps that slowed our progress.

•  Our first big problem was with the shower hookup. To make a long story short we put the cold water pipe where the hot water pipe should be and vice versa.  Steven was able to fix it, but not before cutting a huge hole in our already-painted wall. I must say, seeing how he fixed made me think about the pipe maze game I used to play on the computer:

•  Due to the cold weather we've been having lately, the floor got very cold and the tiles shrank or shifted or something, resulting in gaps between the tiles that had to be sealed before the floor polish could be applied. Steven called the company that makes the floor polish to see if they make anything to put in the gaps, to which the representative replied, "Gaps? There shouldn't be any gaps." Then they suggested we tear up the floor and start over. That was not going to happen, so we had to come up with another solution...caulk. So we went along all the seams with caulk, which did the trick but took forever.
•  We also had to replace two tiles that had come up off the floor.

But despite all that I am so happy to say we are finally finished remodeling the laundry room!!

Here's the before to jog your memory...

Before we got started this room was a mess. The thin paneling had started to sag on the walls, so 1x2 strips were nailed to the wall to hold the paneling up. When we tore away the paneling we found that we needed to add insulation, and we when pulled up the carpet and linoleum on the floor, we found that the floor had to be leveled, which meant adding a layer of plywood and some extra beams under the house. We also had to seal the gas water heater vent and redo the outlets since the wiring was a little crazy. We decided to remove the window next to the back door (on the right side of the picture, next to the water heater) to give us a little more wallspace. Steven also added a 3-way switch so we can turn the lights on and off at both the entryway and the door leading into the rest of the house. Some friends of our's who were remodeling their house at the time were kind enough to give us their old front door and three light fixtures (two are being used in the laundry room and one in the bathroom), and we bought their outside water heater, which saved us a ton of space since we don't have to keep the water heater inside. The lines for the washing machine were ran through the floor, so we took those out and ran new lines into the wall. Then we sheetrocked and painted the walls and put down vinyl composite tile for the floor (the same type of floor used in places like Walmart). I am so proud to say that, with some help from his parents, we did all of this ourselves!! Seeing the finished product has really encouraged us to take on the other rooms in the house.  I've also started to see how much of a blessing this house is, and I am so thankful that God gave us this house.

Here are the amazing afters!!!

 

We are working towards moving in the end of December, but we're planning to tackle a few more projects before then. Coming Soon: Kitchen Nightmares! (no really, just wait and see)