Spring fix-up update

I mentioned in a previous post that we were working on fixing up several rooms in my family's Summer rental house. The 80 year old radiators and the old heating system was removed and the new heater is installed and working really well. We are much further ahead in our yearly work than we usually are this time of year (we always do all repairs, cleaning etc. starting in late Winter to early Spring before the Summer rental season starts) My dad put drop ceilings in the two downstairs bedrooms to cover the new heater's ductwork, and he also put in new carpeting, since the previous carpeting was almost 25 years old. I did the painting and room set-ups. Here are some before and after shots.

First was the downstairs front bedroom, which used to be painted this dark magenta color shown in the 1st picture. I don't know why I didn't change this color years ago, it was just so dark in there. But now it is a pretty light yellow with a new light colored rug.




The back bedroom downstairs was a dark blue as shown in the 1st photo below. Now it is a light and bright blue-green shade. This room got a little smaller, because we had to build a closet in the room to house the new heater. The difference is amazing and I'm really pleased with the way the room turned out.



This is the carpet that we put in the blue bedroom. My dad & I both liked it, because it had kind of a Victorian look, and our house is 105 years old and it's furnished with alot of old pieces of furniture. But after we bought the carpet, I was worried that it was going to be too dark because I was trying to brighten that room, and I was worried that it wouldn't match the paint color. But it looks really great in the room, expecially with the old furniture that's in there, and it does have a tiny bit of light blue in it. Actually, we liked the carpet so much, we went back and bought a 2nd piece for the bedroom upstairs too.



Next is the hallway. 'Oh, big deal, a hallway' - you might be thinking. But I can't get over how much better it looks. You can see in the first photo that it had brown paneling and dark green and red carpeting. There's no light down there so it was kind of dark. After mentioning that I wanted to paint the paneling either on this blog or in my weekly update, someone very nicely emailed me and told me to clean the paneling with a degreaser, coat it with Kilz, and then paint it. Their advice worked great, and with a new light colored carpet and some Kmart Special $12.99 rag rugs, the hallway looks great. The second photo is the hallway going up to the front bedroom, and the 3rd photo is the back end of the hallway at the backdoor. You could barely see our old server piece setting there before in the old dark hallway, now it really stands out against the white.




I'm hoping to paint the paneling in the downstairs bathroom next. We have some other odds-n-ends jobs around the house to do first though. This morning I steam cleaned the rug in the livingroom. It came up better than I thought, but the rug is still going to need to be replaced next year. We always do the work in the house ourselves. My Dad can fix or build just about anything. Why pay someone to do what you can do yourself (we did have someone put the new heaters in though) plus we like to do the work. It's satisfying to walk into the rooms and see how good they look after your work is done. My back is probably going to be aching tonight after cleaning that rug.