Canfield Crib Renovation
Roughly a year into the pandemic, Marshal and I sortakinda started talking about a full house renovation, as we were sick of the dirty carpet and brown walls. With Amanda and Ollie moving out of the Canfield Crib a bit sooner than expected, and Marshal at work, I acted upon a “now or never” opportunity. I quickly watched a few YouTube videos and spontaneously started ripping up carpet. 😮 We hadn’t fully committed to this house renovation plan, though I knew Marshal would be on board.
Little did I know, he had only a morning house inspection that day and had come home early with the plan to start ripping up the carpets, as I was already doing! (What a relief!) He was surprised to see the house already torn apart, and we worked together, breathing in disgusting old carpet, for the rest of the day.
The Beginning
A real “there’s no turning back” moment here
We discovered multiple layers of old vinyl flooring in the kitchen and had to decide if we were going to take them out or add our new flooring atop. We decided on the latter, as the layers tested positive for asbestos.
Picking up the hundreds of staples was one of the worst parts.
Amanda’s old room (now my office)
The living room
Amid all the renovation chaos, Marshal and Boo somehow found a way to still watch basketball. 😆
The Middle
The “bonus room” (with the fireplace to the left)
The tenants’ bedroom
Our primary bedroom
My office
I woke up early to rent a Home Depot van and drive to Portland to pick up our new vinyl flooring. Here I am, proud that I successfully drove that beast of a van without getting into an accident!
I unloaded all the flooring by myself, and while that doesn’t sound like a large accomplishment, you’re just going to have to take my word that it indeed was and also quite a workout.
The living room
After ripping off the rubber baseboards
Finally - new flooring and baseboards, yet still brown, dirty walls
For an entire, exhausting month, Marshal worked during the day, then came home and laid flooring at night. 😮
Our friend Derek did a lot of flooring work for us, as well! 🙏🏻 Without his expertise, the renovation would have taken twice the amount of time to finish.
At this stage in the renovation, with nothing in its correct place and the new floors dirty as ever, I was absolutely losing my mind.
The tenants’ bathroom - check out the difference in the two paint colors. 🤢
I often couldn’t leave the house while the painters painted, so here I am watching Netflix from our bed as they worked. 😬
Our 1970s house has many of these random holes with wires shoved in them.
After a long day of renovation work, Marsh and I grabbed dinner and a beer at a brewery down the road from our house.
The End
Once the walls were painted a fresh white, I needed to change the electrical outlets and light switches. Turns out, that’s an absolute nightmare to complete in an old house and as a person who has no electrical wiring experience whatsoever.
I successfully changed the outlets and plates so they looked cute, but the lights didn’t work as expected, sooo I had to call in actual electricians to fix the issue. 🙃
Our painters painted our futon frame and the fireplace, as well.
Finally, we have our (new and improved) house back!
The house is so much brighter than it was before. 🤍
I’m so, so thankful for my new work-from-home office/video background. 🤓
The last thing we fixed was our front door, as it was seemingly not adhered to the house or something. 🤷🏼♀️
So, after endless days of dirt and absolute chaos, we survived the Canfield Crib transformation and are breathing cleaner air and enjoying a lighter, decluttered house because of it. ✨
