New year… new renovation project…

This Vancouver townhouse was in desperate need of some love… and we wanted to give it her! Check out these hideous BEFORE pictures:

Nice curb appeal… it goes down hill from here...

Retro? Yep. Stone fireplace. Skanky carpets. And check out that light fixture! Yuck...

And the kitchen? That's original 70's baby!

Ummm… yeah. That's all gotta go.

Ditto.

Pretty sure I would need a shower after showering in this original bathroom.

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DAY 1

So what's the plan here? Well, to start with… rip EVERYTHING out. Kitchen. Bathrooms. Carpets. Light fixtures. EVERYTHING. We've got a great layout to work with, but that's about all.

In the kitchen, we are starting over, opening up the wall and adding pot lights. Here is how it looks at the end of day 1:

As you can see, we have opened up the wall significantly and the electrician has cut the holes and rough in the pot lights. We need to get the electrical finished and drywall done before we start thinking about installing cabinets. Middle of next week sounds about right for cabinet installation. You can also see the channel cut into the ceiling here that is needed to add the pot lighting into the living area.

Here is a closer look at the electrical work needed to install the pot lighting.

When gutting a townhouse, you create a lot of junk. This is what is left AFTER we removed a truckload…

As for the bathroom, we almost got it all ripped out. The bathtub is actually going to be salvaged and re-finished here as it is a killer double wide tub that you just can't find anymore. The epoxy re-finishing costs about $600 and consists of spraying 7-8 layers of epoxy paint over the existing tub. Looks and acts like new. A great cost saving decisions if your old tub is in good condition.

What's in store for this weekend? With any luck all the electrical work will be complete by the end of the day Saturday. On Sunday we have our painters coming in to scrap and skim coat the ceilings to get rid of the 'popcorn' effect and go with a more modern flat ceiling.

I'll be back with another update on Monday when we start putting things back together!