If you missed the initial post of where this area started off, click here.

The stairs and upstairs did not need any reconfiguration of any kind, just A LOT of sweat and elbow grease to make some major cosmetic updates. So where do you start?? DEMO!!

What Did We Uncover  During Demo?

Well….like with any demo day, we uncovered some good things and some bad things. We like to keep things positive around here so we will start with the good. There ARE wood floors underneath all of that scary shag! Woot woot! We just need to scrape up all of the old carpet pad that is super stuck to the floor. Another bit of good news, there was actually some insulation in the walls which a fair amount of the time we do not see in older homes.

Now for our interesting finds….between the walls of the bedroom, Tim found some old lamps that had been boarded up years ago. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of those, but we did leave one in the wall that maybe someone will find decades from now! We also uncovered a mint green door where the built in desk was! I cannot believe they would wall off a cute door like that! You can bet that we will not be doing that!

And now for the bad…..womp wom…

When we took the paneling off, there were not actually any ‘walls’. The paneling was adhered to 1/4 inch cardboard type stuff throughout all of the upstairs and a chunk of the stairwell. So…all of that came down and we would have to put up drywall. Bummer! When we took the paneling off in the stairwell, we uncovered wall paper!! Bummer again!! More wall paper to remove. Grrr!!

Luckily, our kids love to remove wall paper and our boys love to put holes in things. Pictured above is our 4 year old, Aiden, after he helped Daddy put a hole through the wall that we were taking down. I might be biased, but I think he is a handsome little guy!

What’s Next?

• Scrape up all of the carpet pad so that we do not gum up the floor sander
• Refinish floors
• Add electrical outlets and swap out light fixtures
• Replace door
• Drywall
• Put up trim around all windows and doors- then paint it
• Paint walls
• Instill some ‘character’ upstairs

It can only get better from here, right? 🙂