A bed hanging from the ceiling? In the living room you say? Next to the fireplace?
yes. yes thats what i said.
it was my dream when i was a little girl that i’d have a bed that was a swing. you know, during those exercises where teachers ask you to design your dream bedroom… well this was mine. It’s not perfect…we don’t have two story vaulted ceilings, so i had to discard the idea of a slide coming off the swinging bed down to the floor. since there’s just not enough ceiling height for a two story swinging bed. i dream big, what can i say.
maybe my next house.
anyway, i’m just going to say that we built that platform bed/swinging bed/ swinging couch, whatever you want to call it, and then a few months later i saw anthropologie have one in their showroom. look, i’m not making any accusations… but just so you know.
It is definitely the most sought after place to sleep in the dark cold and rainy pacific northwest months, when a wood fire is crackling away, whisky in my glass, and a soft blanket wrapped around .
before we ever purchased the house i had a sneaking suspicion that the ceilings were dropped at some point in the house’s history- meaning they were ‘faux’ ceilings and the true ceiling height was much higher. sometimes, homeowners did this to conserve heat and energy in old drafty houses, and low ceilings were considered ‘cozy’. i knew, in whatever home i had, that i wanted to expose the beams, so i was very interested in seeing what was above this ceiling, and if there was any space above it. we bought the house, and the first thing we did was walk over to the right side of the fireplace and punch a hole right through the ceiling to see what was above it (you can see the hole in the picture above!!)
sure enough, we were right! the ceilings had been dropped decades earlier, and could be taken out, and the ceiling height effectively raised.
this would be a simple task, i thought. newbie homeowner.
guys… i actually estimated just 2 months for this renovation to be started and completed….. with dustin and myself doing the work by hand.
hysterical. what kids. (seven years later… still completing renovations…)
Literally, can you see our footprints walking in the front door, over to that corner, and punching a hole in the ceiling?
i mean… there was a lot going on. cork flooring butted up against that behoemoth stone fireplace. Sure is a dog hair and lego trap if i ever saw one. convenient if you want to trap dog hair and legos. inconvenient if that isn’t your goal.
look at us there! ripe with enthusiasm! “babe, put on your best ‘determined and serious and competent face’
STOP JESUS CHRIST PUT THE TOOLS DOWN. DRINK SOME WATER TAKE A COLD SHOWER. THIS IS A SEVEN YEAR SENTENCE AND WILL CONSUME ALL YOUR FINANCES AND YOUR SANITY AND YOU’LL SUFFER PHYSICAL PANIC ATTACKS AND YOUR MARRIAGE WILL NARROWLY SURVIVE
YOU’RE DRUNK GO HOME.
buy a condo. pay the association fees, and enjoy your life of leisure.
guys… just look at how brand new those tools were. i mean, NARY A DUST PARTICLE ON THEM. i’m wearing a construction costume for christ’s sake. it might as well be halloween. this photo gives me a literal panic attack just looking at it because i want to reach through the camera and hold a come-to-jesus intervention meeting with myself.
Those N95 masks sure would be handy RN though.
we were ahead of our times, what can i say.
in this diagramed illustration we will show you what NOT to do when demoing a ceiling.
“babe, be careful, aren’t there wires and stuff near that light? do we need to shut off the power?”
“no, i’m being careful it will be fine”
“but you can’t see. what if you get electrocuted?”
“i won’t”
Spoiler: he was immediately electrocuted.
we were so well equipped for this project, in both skill and knowledge.
so we set to work. like literally, right then. taking down the ceiling. you can see the original ceiling above these beams. I knew it would be there!
this is also the first point i realized that if we took down the dropped ceiling… that we’d also have to contend with the wall situation. that it was also a double wall. it was like they had build a room, inside of a room.
what can i say… there wasn’t a lot of planning that was involved in this spontaneous art project we took on with zero experience or knowledge of home ownership or renovation. spontaneity was not something we lacked.
in my mind at this point i was like ‘thats okay! new ceiling, exposed beams…. and NEW WALLS! thats easy! maybe add on another weekend, but it will be fine.’ ha….ha. ha.
this is what i mean, when i say we then had to figure out what to do about the wall… as well as the ceiling.
WHY DID WE NOT THINK THIS THROUGH.
the look of a man whose wife said ‘hey! the first day of home ownership, could we just raise the ceiling a little bit? so we can see the beams? make it a little higher? it will be easy!”
next thing you know, you’ve got a hitler stache and you’re standing in 10 tons of rubble while your wife is taking photos for some blog in the distant future “it will be like a how-to post, babe! full of inspiration!”
WELCOME TO HOMEOWNERSHIP THIS IS YOUR LIFE NOW
just look at that baby trashcan! what did we think we were going to do with that thing? oh, looks like you’ve created a little messy-poo… hang on let me get a garbage can and help you tidy up a bit.
we just need to take down the walls too. then it will be even.
GUYS THERE WAS NO THOUGHT OR PLANNING PLACED INTO THIS. this was on a whim. because we are full of f*cking whimsy and spontaneity.
like… how do you not look at the current situation, with your teeny little garbage can, and think ‘might we be in over our heads? no? let’s continue moving forward? yes, remove the walls. that will fix things’
THIS IS STILL DAY ONE.
EXCELLENT! A HIDDEN WALLED-OFF CLOSET WITH CLOTHES STILL INSIDE LOCATED UNDER THE STAIRS? don’t forget to check for bodies!
i love buying homes and then immediately wondering if we are disturbing a gravesite of a murdered human and inciting the wrath of the undead.
On the plus side… we got a closet we didn’t even pay for! it’s like we bought a house that was 1,300 sq feet but we BEAT THE SYSTEM because LITTLE DID THEY KNOW there were extra square feet hidden!
I have to give them design credit. it’s a bold move to sponge paint the inside of an under-stair walled-off closet.
it’s especially helpful when camouflaging blood splotches.
personally, i’d go for a pentagram and ketchup smears spelling “DIEEEEE”, just to screw with the new owners.
to each their own.
this is the only photo from me during this entire period of time. actual depiction of me thinking ‘it’s going to be fine! we’re fine! this is all good! remember…. exposed beams! like on pinterest!’
probably headed to go pick up some day workers to help us sort out this sh*t show we created.
we needed additional labor to carry out the tonnes (literally) of rock that was on this wall.
at this point…. we just had to be all in. there was no turning back.
what.in.the.actual.fuckery.is.going.on.here.
Google…. ‘bricks shoved into wall at random, not secure, DIY fix’
also: “what do I do if i’ve accidentally fully demoed my first house, and don’t have any money to hire someone to fix it, and we’re staying at my mom’s 1 bedroom apartment with her and i told her it would just be 2 weeks and there are 3 dogs, 3 adults, and two small toddlers in the one bedroom apartment”
also: “return policy on demoed houses”
(photo credit, 5 year old son)
i wish i could say that we planned this. i wish i could say that we knew what we were getting into. i wish i could say that we had budgeted for this. i wish i could tell you that even if we didn’t budget for this… that we had money stashed away in a bank somewhere that would be able to fund this renovation. I wish i could tell you that we had priced out contractors, and we knew how much it would be to drywall a house. i wish i could tell you we had a place to live with our two children while this construction was going on.
spoiler: we didn’t.
did that stop us from charging forth and demoing EVERY ROOM BUT THE KITCHEN?! of course not!
WE DOUBLED THAT SH*T DOWN.
perseverance! resilience!
we moved in. it looked like this, the day we moved in. i brought my children… children i had fed organic food to avoid toxins, children who i had carried in my arms for the first 6 months of their lives so as not to expose them to any harmful bacteria on the floor …to live… in this house… that is pictured above.
ALL SEEMS SAFE HERE. CARRY ON.
PUT THESE ON. THIS IS YOUR NEW HOME. BE GRATEFUL AND DO HARD LABOR. AVOID ANY SUSPECTED ASBESTOS. OR POWER TOOLS. Actually, can you hand me that saw over there? the one with the sharp blades with the power cord, mommy needs help.
although we tore out the floor , we left the walls intact upstairs. it was the only respite. we laid down two air mattresses and all slept in one bedroom. sheets are for people who have time to do laundry. sheets are for people that have a washing machine and dryer.
sheets are for people who have water connected.
we lived in the house without electric or water for 3 weeks. we took hose baths. we did our business in the backyard, collected the specimens, and threw them in the giant dumpster outside the house.
unlike most homes, shoes were actually required if you were coming in our home.
I NEVER CLAIMED TO BE AN INFLUENCER GUYS. you came to the wrong blog.
This was our furniture.
Life was hard. we had two small toddlers living at home, IN the mess. we had no furniture, no dressers, our clothes were in garbage bags. we lived without water for 3 weeks. we had no money. like at all. i remember cutting hot dogs in half and watering down milk for the kids. we couldn’t afford gas in the car. but there was no ‘eject’ button. the only way out was through.
we learned how to do things through google and youtube.
i found old used windows at a re-building center that were taken from old houses. we cut holes in the wall, and learned how to install them. (7 years later… no leaks! just sayin…)
I learned to tile, and was rewarded with my very first bath in my very first home, with the tub i’d always dreamed about having.
when the drywall began to be put up, it felt like it was really coming together, and CPS might not take our children away from us.
but i didn’t realize that the worst was yet to come. once drywall goes up, you have to tape and mud all of the seams… which was my job (dustin cut and put up the drywall, but it was my job to mud/tape and paint). the mudding is messy and nasty. but once it dries, the sanding is the dustiest project you’ve ever seen. there is no containing the spread of drywall dust. and…. you have to repeat the mudding process 3-5 times (mud, sand, mud, sand. mud, sand.).
to make matters worse, i had to mud around each one of those exposed ceiling beams to create a sealed edge where the drywall met the wood beams.
we spent an entire weekend hand-sanding each of the beams, then taped them with plastic, and painted between them with a paint sprayer… which was absolutely the most satisfying part of this entire renovation.
pulled the carpet upstairs and laid new flooring.
meanwhile, life was being lived. we managed to live in this space without real furniture for months and months. almost an entire year. the kids made neighbor friends, and somehow we were surviving. narrowly.
workstations were creative.
i pulled up the cork flooring, and exposed fir floors underneath…
then sanded, stained, and polyurethaned every floor in the entire house.
we still needed to tackle the meth-addict fireplace.
whenever i began to be a perfectionist in my own craftsmanship of the projects i was working on, i just looked over at the fireplace and reminded myself that someone built that. intentionally.
Likely, the same people that installed the above outlet.
ummm Ma’am? ma’am.
the only real solution to this fireplace, was to completely fill it with cement. which was great, because i love the mix of modern with old- the 100 year old exposed beams in contrast to a modern poured cement fireplace. we actually hired this one out, but had such a hard time with the contractor that we both agreed it probably would have gone smoother had we just done it ourselves.
we continued working, slowly. on each room. we eventually moved furniture in. we had another baby (she’s below). our dogs passed away, but new life was born in this home- babies, cats, chickens, and we’ve grown to love this home like its a part of ourselves. it’s so special to me- we’ve touched literally every single square centimeter- from the top to the bottom- and it is part of me, part of my family. it has it’s own energy, it’s own pull, it’s own personality. i will never ever love another home like i love this one. she is mine and i am hers.
it’s been a long journey. seven years. and we are finally at a place where we are doing projects that are fun (and not just survival) and i would love to share that work with you. i’d love to share this home with you. she might be tiny but she is quite mighty, and she deserves all the love in the world.