Odds and ends

Sorry we’ve been so long without a post.  We promise we have been hard at work though J—still demo-ing, cleaning, and getting bids from different contractors. 

Bobby Greene Plumbing started their work, which is our first phase (re-plumbing the WHOLE house), last Friday.  It’s amazing how fast they have worked, just in a week!   We already have a new hot water heater in the garage, a tankless hot water heater in the house, water hook-up for our refrigerator, and brand new washer/dryer hook-ups ready to go.  We already recommend them highly; they gave us a great, competitive price, have very nice employees, and are working incredibly fast. 

New electric hot water heater for garage

New washer/dryer hook-ups

Thanks Bobby Greene Plumbing! (as I am singing to myself--"Bobby L. Greene and Ricky Greene, the plumbing team you like best!")

We also bought our first fixture for the house--a pot filler. It's a little bit of a luxury item, but we can't wait to get it installed. For those of you that are not familiar with the concept, a pot filler is installed in the back splash or on the wall behind the stove. It runs water directly to that area, so you do not have to carry water back and forth from the sink.

We will be going with chrome fixtures in the kitchen. Here is the one we bought:

On another note, our yard is becoming beautiful!  Although we have TONS of things to accomplish inside the house, last weekend we could not resist doing a little yard work—the weather is awesome this time of year!  We first saw the house in October and bought it in January, so we have yet to see what it looks like in full bloom.  Right now we have a two beautiful camellia bushes, snow bells popping up everywhere, azaleas beginning to bloom-out, and two amazing dogwoods that will be gorgeous by the end of this week! 

Back yard

Front yard dogwood

Front yard--jasmine around the lamp-post and pink azalea

Jasmine again :)

Double pink camellia

White camellia

We cleaned out the garage too!

Garage before

Garage after (of course, we did add some of our stuff to clutter it back up!)

It’s a little overwhelming to think that this house is actually coming together.  At this rate, we miiight be ready to move in within the next month—cross your fingers.

The Krewe of Fairfield

In the spirit of Mardi Gras, this past week we have had a little parade of our own!  We had a steady 'krewe' of helpers--family and friends--some helping us with physical support and some giving their support otherwise!

All of the 'thank yous' in the world wouldn't do justice to let Phyllis Cooper (mom), Wanda Wyatt (mom), and Mary Baxter (Meme) how much they helped us this past weekend!  Collectively, we pulled approximately 800-1000 staples, nails, and tacks (and tack strips) from the floors and walls of the house, removed more wallpaper and carpet, and continued cleaning and sanitizing!  Thanks as well to Kyle Wyatt (ice cream man), Jason Eddy, Adam and Mandy Rogers, Amy Martin, Candace Payne, Ali Feaster, and various neighbors for stopping by to say "hello"--your support also means a lot to us! 

We discovered some new friends at Centenary Hardware (our new favorite place to go)--very convenient and very helpful workers.  Also, a special thank you to our friend Dustin Morris at AirRef, who is going to get us all set up with a HVAC system!

It was a super-productive week and we finally feel like we have conquered the 'demo mountain' and *hopefully* it will be smooth sailing (or skiing with this analogy I guess!) with some of the finishing touches.

We might be biased, but it is hard to believe why anyone would cover up these beautiful floors with carpet!  Now, what everyone likes to see...more pictures!

Dining room (we probably won't have to sand the floors!)

Living room, again, great floors under all of that carpet

Panoramic pic (living room and front foyer)

Dining room again

The 'Krewe' (this room was a pain to get wallpaper down!)

Before and after:  left is the hardwood underneath--right was the old linoleum tile

Our pile of demo junk (sorry Shreveport waste department!)

Upstairs landing after carpet removal

--B&K

Slowly, but surely

Here are some things that have been accomplished at the (new) Wyatt household thus far:

1.  The carpet has been removed from 3 of the 4 upstairs bedrooms and half of the living area downstairs.  Lesson learned here:  cut carpet  into 3-4 foot strips--this makes for easy roll up and 'chunking' out of the window into a truck (our preferred method!) OR carrying to the garbage can.

2.  The 3 indoor bathrooms have been cleaned/sanitized and are ready for use! 

3.  We began raking and bagging leaves (there is a HUGE pin oak in the front yard that left us lots of fun).  Just doing this helped the outside look A LOT better.  Any other landscaping project will be put on hold until we can make some progress on the inside of the house. *Thanks Mom for the help on this!*

4.  We are in the process of taking down wallpaper in all of the rooms.  So far, the kitchen *thanks Meme, Mom, Uncle Rob and Aunt Robin!*, 2 upstairs bedrooms, and the upstairs bathrooms have made this an easy task--praise the Lord!  But...we are going to have to get our steamer (and vinegar and water spray bottle *thanks Aunt Robin*) to take down some of the rooms.

5.  We have begun the task of cleaning out the garage and 2 sheds in the backyard as well.  It looks like we are going to have to break down and rent a dumpster/borrow a trailer for all of the stuff we are cleaning out!

So our next step in the process will be to have a few electricians come out and give us estimates on re-wiring our old knob-and-tube house.  Also, we will be needing a HVAC system (the house currently uses radiators and window units).  So bring on the fun of one of us having to spend our precious lunch hour meeting with different electrical and mechanical companies! 

On another note--We have struggled so far with deciding whether or not to hire some outside help (i.e. a handyman (or two), contractor, kitchen consultant, etc.).  There are so many projects and so little time!  The time factor--us having to be out of our current house probably within the next 2-3 months-- is a little daunting. The more we do, the more we feel confident that WE can do this ourselves.  :)  More to come...



Before upstairs bedroom (after we had removed the carpet)




After with the curtains and matching wallpaper down



The O-fficial Before Pictures

Here are a select few before pictures, enjoy!  In no particular order....

Dining room

Dining room (this shows the felted wallpaper)

Looking out of a 2nd floor window to the back yard (it's over a 1/2 acre...huge yard!)

Back of the house

Kitchen (right when you walk in the back door)

Living room/parlor

Upstairs bedroom (matching wallpaper AND curtains...wow)

Living room/parlor looking into the library (and Brian!)

2 car working garage

Additional bedroom upstairs

One of the upstairs bathroom (love the center spout on tub)

Stairwell on 2nd floor and window storage/seat

Vintage sconce (there are about 15-20 of these throughout the  house)

Another cool sconce

Original ceiling fan

Ram (we think) molding and other molding

Beautiful chandelier in the dining room

Neat-o faceplate

There are 3 of these gorgeous mini-chandeliers in the house

Another view of the kitchen (will be gutted)

Front view of the house :)

So...we bought a house...

For as long as dwellings have been being built, renovations and improvements to them have been ongoing.  Thanks to home improvement television, the buzz-concept ‘house flipping’ has been brought to the forefront. 

I’m sure many of you, like us, have sat in front of your television wondering if you could attempt to knock down a wall for that desirable open floor-plan, re-finish hard wood flooring (easy right?), or put in some of the ever-popular granite counter top and have everything magically synchronize to make enough profit to not work for the rest of your life.  Well, it’s not going to be easy, but we have decided to take on this task.  We’re not sure if we are crazy or if this really could be a good idea (probably somewhere in between), but we are definitely one thing--excited.

Cue 3311 Fairfield--our new baby (for lack of any real children).  As of tomorrow, we will officially own our first fixer-upper, and as you can see in our before pictures, the floral wall paper and matching curtains and carpet, it most certainly needs the fixing-upping!

We welcome you to follow us as we blog our way through the journey.  The plan is to share details of our projects along the way, give suggestions and tips, and welcome any questions and suggestions you have too!

--Brian and Katie