It's taken some time, but we are finally done with the apartment project. Woohoo! It's hard to fully capture the size of this project, so here's a sampling of the before, the work, and the final photos.
We also had places where the layer over the plaster was falling off.
All of the kitchens needed to be deep cleaned. We also replaced 8 appliances, including this yellow oven.
It took a massive amount of work remove all of the scum on the tubs.
The yellow trim was bad enough, but then the molding starting falling off. We removed the molding, added quarter around, and painted everything white.
I like this picture because it shows how dirty everything was when we bought it. The large marks on the wall were not uncommon either.
Here's the hallway, which was extremely dingy.
If you look closely, you'll notice the counter hangs over the cabinets a lot. We took all of these out and completely redid the whole thing with IKEA cabinets.
We also redid this kitchen. I love how the refrigerator blocked the entrance. Now it's on the other side of the kitchen.
The plaster was slowly, but surely falling off. The leak was repaired, but water damage was never fixed.
We also had a broken window, and other windows that leaked.
In some cases it made sense to take all of the plaster off and replace it with drywall.
We did the same for the ceiling. Notice the dingy feeling.
A couple kitchens had carpet in them. We took the carpet out and installed allure flooring instead.
One of the units smelled like horrible cat urine. We sprayed everything down with Lysol and then painted over it with a germ killing primer. Yep, we even painted the floor.
Here are half the IKEA packages. We spent a whole week putting the kitchens together.
Some subfloors had a lot of damage and so we went and filled in all the little holes so the flooring sat flat.
We replaced almost all of the carpet.
Carpet we didn't replace was professionally cleaned.
We also painted everything... including super hard to reach places.
At the last minute, Jessi thought it would be nice to paint the trim in the hallway. She was right - it looks great.
All the bathrooms are scrubbed and clean.
Check out the hallway now. Bright and wonderful!
The rooms also look nice. We also installed ceiling fans in each unit. I'll save you from looking at 50 pictures of rooms that all look the same.
Here's the other kitchen.
The downstairs hallway.
And finally, a couple side-by-side comparisons.
That's the project. It was very long, but well worth it. We took a broken building and made it much better. Here are the guys that did 99% of the work. Thanks Mark and Rich!
BEFORE
We had a little bit of mold that required us to remove the plaster.We also had places where the layer over the plaster was falling off.
All of the kitchens needed to be deep cleaned. We also replaced 8 appliances, including this yellow oven.
It took a massive amount of work remove all of the scum on the tubs.
The yellow trim was bad enough, but then the molding starting falling off. We removed the molding, added quarter around, and painted everything white.
I like this picture because it shows how dirty everything was when we bought it. The large marks on the wall were not uncommon either.
Here's the hallway, which was extremely dingy.
If you look closely, you'll notice the counter hangs over the cabinets a lot. We took all of these out and completely redid the whole thing with IKEA cabinets.
We also redid this kitchen. I love how the refrigerator blocked the entrance. Now it's on the other side of the kitchen.
The plaster was slowly, but surely falling off. The leak was repaired, but water damage was never fixed.
We also had a broken window, and other windows that leaked.
REPAIRS
I had the window pane replaced. If you look to the right of the person, you'll see we still had a lot of wall damage to repair.In some cases it made sense to take all of the plaster off and replace it with drywall.
We did the same for the ceiling. Notice the dingy feeling.
A couple kitchens had carpet in them. We took the carpet out and installed allure flooring instead.
One of the units smelled like horrible cat urine. We sprayed everything down with Lysol and then painted over it with a germ killing primer. Yep, we even painted the floor.
Here are half the IKEA packages. We spent a whole week putting the kitchens together.
Some subfloors had a lot of damage and so we went and filled in all the little holes so the flooring sat flat.
So, it turns out that one side of the building had windows that were in between the standard blind sizes. You can have Home Depot cut them for you for 3 TIMES the cost (instead of spending $100 on blinds for this side, it would be over $300!), or you can buy this $20 tool and cut them yourself.
We replaced almost all of the carpet.
Carpet we didn't replace was professionally cleaned.
We also painted everything... including super hard to reach places.
At the last minute, Jessi thought it would be nice to paint the trim in the hallway. She was right - it looks great.
AFTER
Here's what the new kitchen looked like. No cords, no counter overhang.All the bathrooms are scrubbed and clean.
Check out the hallway now. Bright and wonderful!
The rooms also look nice. We also installed ceiling fans in each unit. I'll save you from looking at 50 pictures of rooms that all look the same.
Here's the other kitchen.
And finally, a couple side-by-side comparisons.
That's the project. It was very long, but well worth it. We took a broken building and made it much better. Here are the guys that did 99% of the work. Thanks Mark and Rich!