Do-it-yourself projects!

This thread was inspired by another... but I thought it would make for some interesting Thursday morning conversation! (Well, morning if you are on this side of the world! )

What kind of do-it-yourself projects have you done in your home?? Cat related or non.... let's hear about it! What was your inspiration? What pitfalls occured? How did it turn out in the end?

Maybe your story can give the rest of us some inspiration!

I'm in the middle of stripping the wallpaper in my bedroom. So far I have only managed a small area, I have two layers of woodchip and one layer of normal wallpaper to get through as well as all the paint. The previous owners of our house obviously hated stripping wallpaper!

On the up side, we have recently finished our lounge, cream walls apart from the chimney breast which is ocean blue, navy carpet, cream curtains, vertical blinds and beech bookcase, tv unit, coffee table, side tables and cd/dvd rack.

It may not sound like a big deal but you should've seen it before we started

The next big job is to clear the back garden, it is full of blackberry brambles. I want to try and clear it without resorting to weedkiller because we have 2 pear trees and an apple tree, if I have to use weedkiller the fruit will be inedible for two years

I sprayed painted the small bathroom radiator white and sponged it with a very pale blue.

When i was with my husband, he was in finance so never had the time to DIY so we always had to pay for someone to do things. My ex boyfriend on the otherhand was very handy with DIY.

At least he painted my house before we split

Last Easter weekend my hubby & I decided to get rid of the salmon pink ceramic tiles in our bathroom. We live in a condo so after hours of smashing the walls with a hammer I think our neighbor wanted to kill us. Once we had the tile off, the drywall was rotten and had to be replaced too. Tiling is not as easy as it looks and we made a mess of the grout, it took a month to totally finish the project. every time I go in the bathroom it drives me crazy. Our other bath which is also salmon pink will stay that way forever. This weekend will be a more traditional Easter! Happy Easter everyone.

"The next big job is to clear the back garden, it is full of blackberry brambles."

Good luck with that! Those things are mean! Even the leaves have thorns.

Well lets see, what have I done.... I have painted MANY an apartment. I HATE white walls so whenever they will let me I paint. My last apartment before I moved to Tennssee was a very old building that was converted into apartments (this was in Boston). It had beautiful molding and hard wood floors, but hadn't been taken care of. We painted the living room a dark teal, the molding and trim bright white, and did our best to shine the floors. We also painted the kitchen orange (it had a mexican theme) and the bedrooms one a mint green and the other lilac. I think the place looked GREAT! and the landlord even loved it.

But where we live now, we can't paint or do much of anything. So my work is limited to my cat creations, and screening in my porch. But as soon as we can buy a new house I'm sure I'll be laying floors, tearing up tile, painting, and so much more!

I am always so inspired by "Trading Spaces". I'm sure I will be copying a lot of Vern Yip's ideas in my own home!

Lots of little stuff like wallpapering and painting. Re-fitted the kitchen (someone else did the electrics-plumbing was pretty easy.
Helped my nephew lay the wooden flooring and am contemplating rearranging the stair carpet (Dirt widdles on carpet something dreadful)! and laying something removable. Laid the carpet in my studio/workroom and fitted out the shelving and storage things in there as well.
Rosiemac- now when would I get the time to watch Sky/cable

Oops nearly forgot - retiled the bathroom as well - not as easy as it looks when all your walls are out of skwiff-the perils of living in an old house

We've been working on remodeling our kitchen for 4 years now! We aren't very fast, sorry to say, and we really don't have the time to the energy to get it all done. I'm always jealous of our friends who manage to get things done in a few weeks and I'm half temped to hire someone to finish the things that need to get done, but with the wedding, I can't afford it right now. but when we get back from it, boy it will be tempting again! Our house is very old and someone painted the kitchen cabinets fire engine red so it is horrible to get off and unfortunately honey likes EVERYTHING white, every wall in this house is white(UGH! it drives me nuts!) and that is what he wants to paint the kitchen and the cabinets also, and I"m nervous around the cats because that is where their food is and I am worried about the dust, and the paint getting on them, you know, the mother worries, so it is a slow process.

Barb, I hear you there, we have been working on remodeling for five years now! Doing it all ourselves so it is slow going...Added a master bedroom, masterbath, jacuzzi tub for inside, still need to build the kitchen cabinets, take down three walls, put the floor down and start on the laundry room and the feeding room (for the cats) We get tired of tripping over bowls of food! LOL

Recently, we built new horse feeders and started putting in a wooden post fence for the horses to keep Racer off the grass. Mike finally got the wiring done in the bedroom and next is to finish off the bathroom and keep our building permit current. Good thing they don't penalize slow pokes!

I have been removing wallpaper (bathroom, kitchen, master bedroom, master bath, living room, 3rd bedroom). I have also been removing the carpet from my bedroom, and the den. I say just burn the house down and start over, it would be MUCH cheaper....oh well.

Heh heh. The latest project was remodeling the master bathroom. My wife said she was tired of the look and the cabinets. That was on a friday night. I walked out in the garage and got my handy dandy cabinet remover AKA an 8 pound sledgehammer, ( my wife rolled her eyes and said something akin to rut-roh <but not printable here> when I walked through) and after making sure all the water was turned off I spent about 15 minutes turning all the bathroom fixtures into a large pile of shattered junk. 9 days later we had a completely new bathroom top to bottom including tile, corian countertops (I had the corian installed) jacuzzi tub and a brand spanking new shower enclosure and toilet. Because it had some really ugly looking wallpaper the builder put in, I stripped that off and textured the walls. Fun project, and I highly suggest swinging a sledge hammer as a stress reliever...lol.

Next project....the guest bath.
And more sledgehammer time.

Last summer I gutted the bathroom, replaced walls, floor and ceiling, all the plumbing and new shower stall. I've refinished one floor so far and plan to do the rest this summer. Just got done putting ceramic tile on the kitchen counter and repainted the whole kitchen and made curtains to boot. It's amazing what you can do so you dont have to pay rent

My house is an almost 100 years old country farm house that really needs a lot of TLC. Mostly cosmetic stuff, but its crazy how fast it all adds up and becomes overwhelming! Its financially consuming, and time consuming.
But here is what I have done in the first year or so of living in my home:
First, the front from my driveway


This was a pict of the living room/dining room when the last owners lived here, so its their stuff.


Just painted a different color:


This is leading in to the office. It was the death room, I swear. The carpet was about 20 years old, and pink. The walls that look beige in the background were actually a TERRIBLE wallpaper. OMG I had to peel most of it off with my fingers. It was a nightmare. (remember this is the old owners stuff before I moved in)


During the work, you can see the potential of the floor under that carpet.


Shortly after, although it doesnt show the curtain I put up. This is a different angle of the room, which is now a sunny yellow with white trim.


More to come....

The downstairs bathroom. The ceiling was a weird mixture of pinks and browns. Awful. There was wallpaper in there too, got that all down thank God. Also pulled out the vanity and mirror (cant see how bad it was in this pict)


And after, much better


This was my daughters room before I painted it. Next project is to take that carpet out. Theres really nice wood flooring underneath.


Heres the new color


With new curtains and stamping on the walls:


This is a picture of my hallway, in the middle of the last project, stripping ancient grass wallpaper. You can also see the nasty green trim that is now my current project (stripping all the wood in my hallway). We stripped all the wallpaper, though it was very tough going.

Heres another angle of the hallway/stairwell before I moved in. You can see the green trim (current nightmare), the grass paper and also some spackle on the top part of the wall. We had to scrape and sand it smooth.


There is more, but I think thats enough for today I love talking about houses and home improvement though. I love to see pictures too, so if anyone else will share Id love to see!

OMG I love your pictures!!! Your house is beautiful and has so much potential and what you have done so far is gorgeous!!! I love it

I love these pics!!! It is so cool to see and hear what you all have done to your homes!

The home I live in now was left to me by my father, I grew up here. But hubby and I completely renovated it...we redid everything...carpet to walls...it wasn't easy...but it was worth it. I wish I had taken before and after pics.

I have a few more to add Hope no one minds.
First, heres a newer picture of my hallway showing all the wallpaper stripped, the weird textured walls scraped, now painted a rosy beige and a new light fixture.


Heres a before picture of my bedroom.


Heres the after picture showing again, wallpaper stripped (go figure ) and new curtains put up. New light fixture, too.


This is part of my latest project, stripping the green trim


Heres that corner in the den again, with more junk

My basement and my kitchen were painted that same color of green what were people thinking??

I dunno. Its an awful green, and really cheap paint! Its high shine too. And if you wipe a damp cloth over it the paint rubs off!!

Heres a pict of my basement, which is scary and yucky but we tried to clean it up a bit and paint it to help it look brighter. Cant improve it much though since its so bad. (thats my mom in the picture)

I'm in the process of attempting a cat climber thingo.