Step 1: Cleaning Out

March 2018

My husband, my parents, and I - and the kids, too - spent almost a month cleaning out the house before any of the renovations even started. We found all kinds of family memorabilia, lots of trash (over 20 van loads to the dump!), and many interesting random things, including a cow head skeleton that, strangely, the guy who cut down the trees asked if he could have. Ooohhh-kay. We donated a lot of furniture, stored even more, and threw out pounds and pounds of trash.

DOWNSTAIRS

BEDROOM #1

This room will be combined with Bedroom #2 to become the new Downstairs Master Bedroom/Bath. 

This was the hardest room to get the furniture out of because it was packed in there so tight. Our construction crew had to disassemble the bunkbeds to even fit them out through the door. Bet you can't even see that there are bunkbeds in there! In this room was: a set of bunkbeds with built in dresser, a vanity, a wardrobe, another dresser, and an entire four piece dining room set.

The bunkbeds/dresser was the only thing in here when I was a kid and we actually used the place. Maybe with another bed in there, too, I can't remember, exactly. We typically crammed as many beds in there as possible to have as much space for family as possible, so it wouldn't surprise me at all. The rest of the furniture came from my Great Aunt Inez's house, when she passed away in 2006. We hope to be able to reuse a good bit of her furniture, assuming it hasn't been too damaged from being stored that long in a non-climate controlled space.

BEDROOM #2

This room will be combined with Bedroom #1 above to become the new Downstairs Master Bedroom/Bath.

This room had in it: an old pull out couch that was really, really hard for my parents to let go of because it was the first piece of furniture they bought together when they were first married in 1970. Sadly, it got left out in the rain for several days when the crew was moving the furniture out into storage and was ruined. It also had in it: a bazillion tools from my grandpa, ranging anywhere from the 1940s to the 1980s, another dresser, an old record player built into a hutch, an extra kitchen table, and this amazing sleigh toddler bed that my grandpa made for my aunts and uncles and which all four of us slept in, many of my cousins have slept in, and all three of my kids have slept in. 

BEDROOM #3

This room will become the office/den.

This room was still set up as a bedroom, so it wasn't too bad to clean out - a bed and two dressers and bunch of fishing equipment in the closet. Oh, and all of those drawers had clothes in them. 

LIVING/DINING ROOM

This room had two old dining tables (see the one tucked in the corner on the right?), two arm chairs, two couches, a bunch of old patio chair cushions on top of them, a record player and cabinet, a bookshelf, and a massively heavy marble coffee table handmade by my grandpa, which supposedly we are driving up to Vermont to give to my uncle at some point. Oh, and a whole bunch of old 80s 'art' on the walls and fun chotchkies like a paddle from my dad's fraternity and a statue of Moses with horns on his head. There was also a large stuffed bass that my dad caught in 1982 that will return.

Below is just the opposite angle on this same room. In the background, you can see the bathroom on the left and the kitchen on the right.

There's a better angle on that fish, proudly displayed on the wall. Those two doors in the back are the downstairs bedroom #2 and #1 that will become the downstairs master suite and the door on the right is the bathroom which will be torn out, along with the kitchen to make space for a larger dining area.

BATHROOM

The bathroom and kitchen next to it will be torn out to make a larger dining area, since the kitchen will now be in the addition. The bathroom will basically slide back into Bedroom #1 to become part of the new Master Suite.

This kitchen may seem small, but it had a looooootttt of stuff in it. Boxes and boxes and boxes.

Below is the opposite side from the yellow cabinets, next to the refrigerator - the pantry and rack for broom, mop, etc. This was definitely a cabin kitchen! The addition will have a real mud room (with laundry, which this house has never had!) and pantry in place of this space!

UPSTAIRS

BOYS' ROOM

There is probably too much stuff in this room to recount, but: a king sized bed, a massive extremely heavy metal desk that was my GREAT grandfather's, a huge file cabinet, six dining room chairs, two entire sets of china, and a bunch of other stuff, including a unicycle, from my little brother's "I think I want to go to clown college" phase. Also notice how none of the upstairs rooms have walls? I forgot to mention on the intro page that when they put on the addition in the 80s, they never finished the walls. The bathrooms were finished completely, but none of the bedrooms had walls. That didn't stop us from having family reunions and sleepovers and retreats there, though. It was a cabin. And it was the 80s. Things were simpler back then.

GIRL'S ROOM

This room only had another dresser, a bed frame and about ten small tables in it. Oh, and lots of tall, thin doors and a bunch of shutters. And an actual door that was never hung, apparently.

UPSTAIRS MASTER BEDROOM

This room had two queen beds, two dressers, a desk, and a whole bunch of boxes of stuff from my dad's office that he couldn't bear to get rid of when he retired. He and I spent a whole day in here going through those boxes and he actually got rid of most of it. I was so proud of him.

SCREENED-IN PORCH

This porch faces the lake. I call it the front porch, the contractor keeps calling it the back porch. He seems to be under the mistaken impression that the side of the house that faces the street is the front. No, it's all about the lake, baby.

And the best part of the whole house, the screened in porch. Unfortunately, I didn't get a total 'before' picture of this - this was after we cleared it out and only left the furniture we are keeping. There were a bunch more chairs out here and a whole lot of fishing equipment and just a bunch of other junk laying around. This is the stuff we're keeping from this room, but not all of it will go back in here.

Cleaning the house out was a lot of work and got emotional at times, but was obviously necessary and totally worth it. We channeled our inner hoarder interventionist and purged a TON of stuff, and hope to purge even more when we start moving in. 

The plan is not to bring ANYthing in to the house that doesn't have a place to go. 

hahahaha. 

We'll see.

NEXT: Step 2: Exterior Demo