Apartment: Before Pictures & Plans

Since I’m up to my eyeballs in apartment renovations, you’ll be seeing quite a few posts of our progress leading up to the reveal. Please bear with me until I get to the fun/creative/decorating stuff…I can’t wait for that part myself! It’s the reward for the dirty work, isn’t it? I shared the first project yesterday {sanding floors} and here is the apartment “before-before” and after cleaning/’in progress’ but before paint. Got that? lol It’s just the before pictures before and after cleaning, before and after sanding hardwood floors.

Everything got a bath. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g! It went from disgusting to clean. As you can tell, someone was a heavy indoor cigarette smoker. Thankfully with washing/scrubbing everything, sanding floors and primer+paint, airing out and sitting empty for quite a while, the smell will diminish. I apologize in advance for these ‘before’ cleaning pictures. I did spare you worse ones, I promise!

Okay, ready?

Dirty kitchen ‘before’ and before cleaning…{gag…what is the brown stuff all over the walls? Tobacco? Cooking grease? Coke explosion? Maybe we don’t want to know!}

rental kitchen before

All cleaned up and in progress…ready to move forward

  • paint ceiling {done!}
  • paint walls
  • paint trim
  • paint cabinets
  • redo countertop
  • storage and organizing solutions
  • thrifty furnishings
  • decorate!

There’s a paint fest going on! Envious, aren’t ya?

clean kitchen before

Pantry under the stairs – before

apartment pantry

Apartment before then ‘after’ cleaned/sanded…

wall 1

apartment living room entryway before

living room before

wall 2

living room before

apartment makeover - before

wall 3 – dirty before

apartment living room before

in progress…

apartment before

{You just turned 360 degrees and saw the entire first floor!}

Stairs are so narrow with a bend…we’ll have to get creative with upstairs furniture/getting furniture up!

before:

apartment stairs before

  • clean (done as of yesterday)
  • sanded (done as of yesterday)
  • stain stair treads
  • fun paint technique on the risers
  • paint trim and ceiling
  • patch ceiling/trim

Someone obviously wasn’t too careful with moving furniture out {it’s a super tight squeeze and odd angle for furniture} and tore off the trim and part of the ceiling on the way down…uh oh!

trim before

I love the vintage light fixture hanging in the hallway upstairs…

vintage light fixture

  • patch and paint ceiling
  • fun idea for the small wall space coming up!

Bathroom needs a complete overhaul, but we’ll see what’s in the budget. Hate.hate.hate the faux tile walls and yellowed tub surround. Actually, I hate it all! I may be able to get away with a new floor, vanity and lighting but that’s probably all we can manage financially for right now. Those walls and tub surround have to stay for now. Wahhhh!

  • new flooring
  • new baseboard trim
  • new vanity
  • new mirror/medicine cabinet
  • storage solutions
  • new lighting
  • paint
  • caulking
  • decorating!

This bathroom is so tiny, the sink/vanity only leaves a small entrance…

apartment bathroom before makeover

Bedroom before…

apartment bedroom before

who paints half a room and walks away?

apartment bedroom before

After will turn this small room into 3 areas:

  • office/study area
  • bedroom for one
  • dressing room

Improving with every little bit of TLC and elbow grease. Ah, progress. Still a ways to go, but getting started is always the tough part for me and we’ve passed that goal! 😉
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Apartment Progress ~ floors are sanded!

It’s been a mega DIY couple of weeks here folks! Where I challenge myself to see just how much DIY I can squeeze into a tight deadline (6 wks.) in the apartment renovation. Sounds like work to most people I know but for me, I say “let the fun begin!”. This rental is my life sized mini-doll house! Here’s an update:

how-to-sand-hardwood-floors

{graphic courtesy of Fox Hollow Cottage}

Apartment Progress!

I rented an orbital sander and I enlisted the help from my 19 year old nephew, Kaleb. {muscles, people – I don’t have them!}

orbital sander

HOW TO SAND HARDWOOD FLOORS

{How we did it.}

  1. Floors were cleaned.
  2. Floors were sanded (24 grit) with the orbital sander. Thank goodness my nephew helped because I seriously doubt I could have carried that thing up the stairs and from the looks of it, once the power was turned on, that thing had a mind of it’s own and took off! I know my limitations. And orbital sander wrangling ain’t one of them. Paying a nephew was a wise choice. Much better for Kaleb to restrain the monster sander than me being spun around in circles and crashing through walls, gouging the floor as I go. (It really wasn’t that bad…I’m just little and wimpy but most people would control the orbital sander without difficulty.)
  3. I swept up the dust.
  4. Then he sanded again (60 grit).
  5. Then swept.
  6. Then sanded again (120 grit).
  7. Then swept again!
  8. I used my Dremel Multi-Max and a palm sander where needed in corners, under radiators and around the edges where floor met baseboards. My little muscles could handle those guys. I did the edging with the 3 levels of sandpaper.

{Please don’t mistake these legs for mine…they’re Kaleb’s!}

how to sand hardwood floors

I really don’t know anything about the previous renter/owner. Perhaps their situation wasn’t so easy, but they definitely were not clean and did some damage.

hardwood floors before

So, floors are now sanded!

sanding hardwood floor

There’s a method to my out-of-order renovating madness. I sanded the floors first before painting the walls because I didn’t want to have to scrub the walls twice (1 – the grime before and 2 – after sanding due to the fine layer of saw dust after sanding floors). Next up is covering the floors and painting the ceiling, walls then trim because I don’t want to lose the weekend waiting for the floor stain to dry.

As you’re reading this, I’m probably at the rental DIY’ing! More to come!

Oh! Hoping for better pictures in the near future. I always have trouble making what I’ve learned ‘stick’ and resort to shooting in auto but I sat in on the Photography session at the Haven Conference and Josh and Kevin really had a way with making it more interesting.  I’m all signed up for Photography 101 to learn how to use my DSLR and to finally learn the skills to take better pictures…

ShootFlyShoot.com

I’m also giving their affiliate program a try and invite you to join me in learning! DIY Show Off - FacebookDIY Show Off - TwitterDIY Show Off - PinterestDIY Show Off - Feed