Our bedroom

Our bedroom when we first purchased the house - it had drop ceilings, a door leading to the bathroom and a door that lead outside (not pictured)  Paneling and about 25 layers of wallpaper, rotten floors and a sketchy ceiling fan that would shock you if you weren't careful haha

My middle child (step son) working on the demo.  Him and his brother removed the drop ceiling and the insulation.  ...I was on cleanup duty, sweeping up old insulation..picking up nails. You know - the fun stuff haha

This is where we stored a lot of our stuff too while we were working.  But here you can see the new sub flooring...and middle child on that ladder - just a working. lol

Here you can see the door that lead outside.  That was one of the last things to come out - along with the old windows.  Now we have new windows - no door leading outside...and we closed up the door leading to the bathroom.

Here is our bedroom now.  We share it with our two year old, but the room is big enough for her to have her own "room" in our room haha

This is the wall that had the door leading to the bathroom - the door used to be where the christmas tree is now.  I have been snagging silver platters at goodwill for my wall decorations over my head board.  The pictures on the wall are of my sweet baby girl.  

Another view of our room - I plan on using orange/silver/light blue in this room.  ...so I will eventually get a new bedspread and all that jazz.  The pink body pillow is my little girl's - we use that to keep her from falling off the bed because even though she has her own bed - she usually ends up in ours haha

My baby girls "room"  ...she actually slept in her bed the entire night last night - maybe she will start sleeping through the night more often?  But if not - I'm ok with her crawling in the bed with us *grin*  The quilt on her bed was made by her Grandma (my mama!  most of you found me through her blog, and I'm pretty sure she posted a blog about this quilt.)

So that is our room - no more couch sleeping!  ..unless we take a nap or something lol  We are going to add on another room eventually - hopefully when hubby gets back from Puerto Rico.  So our house will end up being a two bedroom/one bath house.  Which is all we need - I have to say I love this little house so much...maybe its because of all the sweat and tears we have put in it...but its so cozy and sweet.  ...and a part of history because it was a gas station back in 1906 lol  

The Kitchen Reno so far

Kitchen Before

Bedroom number one which will become part of the kitchen

Stepson removing wall between original kitchen and bedroom

hubby putting down flooring

Our cabinet/counter/and flooring we picked out

This is the new kitchen after removing wall

We discovered some beautiful wood ceiling under the drop ceiling- but we didn't have the time to put into saving it...so we drywalled over it...i wanted to save that ceiling so bad!!

This is looking into the original kitchen from bedroom - We removed the door leading outside so we could put in lots of cabinets - we need as much storage as possible lol

Another view of the original kitchen once we started tearing down old drywall with about 23 layers of wall paper on it. lol

Now this is where the big windows where in the bedroom - but we decided to put in french doors here leading to the back yard

Hubby cutting open that wall! *it was freezing outside while this part of the process was happening lol

Another view of our soon to be french doors

TADA!  our doors - and insulation. ...our house hardly had any isolation at all in the beginning - we wore lots of layers!

Starting to put up that drywall - look at that cute little window that will be over my sink!

Insulation!!!!  And that door leads to the bathroom

This wall separates the kitchen from the living room...

And now that wall is no longer there.  lol We wanted our house as open concept as possible since it is small.  So down came the wall!

It made a huuuuge difference!  and made our house feel 20 times bigger!

OUR CABINETS!!!!  yay!  I love these off white cabinets...love love love!

Another view of our cabinets in the beginning 

...and another view..

Here is a picture of our ceiling - we put up drywall and then did the stamp pattern in the drywall mud.  I don't know the technical term for it...but thats what our ceiling looks like lol

Here we are today!  (ignore my messy counters lol  I was just trying to get a picture of where we are at in the renovation)

We have the back splash, paint, counters, all appliances..and a cute little 2 year old climbing on the kitchen table. lol We haven't gotten around to tiling our floors yet - hubby needs to go under the house and put in some more supports (girders?)  But that will be our next project once he returns home for Puerto Rico...Oh yea - my hubs is in Puerto Rico for the next couple months lol  So we had a simple thanksgiving at Cracker Barrel with my sister in law - then we did a little black friday shopping at walmart.  I got a new vacuum! I have been needing/wanting one...and I found one for $44.  So I was super excited about vacuuming this morning haha

Here is the view of the kitchen from the space leading from the living room.  Showing my pretty french doors..

This is looking into our bedroom, and then the door to the left is the bathroom.  We still have some clutter because as of now we have NO closets in this house.  lol  Storage is a big thing we are having to incorporate into our reno...which is why we have a lot of kitchen cabinets...and we could probably have enough room to install a kitchen island with storage - but thats something we can think about later on.  And also pictured in my favorite cow painting...i bought that for myself two birthdays ago, my husband was deployed so I got to go shopping for myself and I found this beauty at a local antique store.  My mama always says when I get tired of it that she will happily take it off my hands for a while haha  

So that is where our kitchen is at as of now...we have cabinets, counter tops, all of our appliances ...we just need flooring.  I can't wait to get the floors in - I am about tired of walking on this sub flooring lol  I wear slippers constantly because i can't stand how the wood feels on my feet haha  

**I will take a picture of my kitchen when it is actually clean one day lol  I just wanted you guys to see what we are living with today!  I love love my kitchen!  

Living room Camping..

Livingroom Camping at its finest *grin*

When we purchased this little gas station we also rented three storage units to put almost everything from our old house in it.  ...because we had absolutely NO room for anything.  The "back part" of the house was nothing but a big hole with walls and we could only fit so much in the living room.  So we had to do without a lot of luxuries that most everyone lives with...like a stove, a kitchen sink (or any type of sink actually), toilet, bathtub...even a BED!!! haha 

So - where did we sleep?  Every night we would slide the love seat over to face the couch and push them together. lol  We made a bed out of our couches.  I would usually sleep on the loveseat with my legs angled onto the couch, Annabelle would sleep in the "crack" that the love seat and couch made - and hubby slept on the couch.  Believe it or not, after a long day of working that "couch bed"was soooo comfortable.

Hubby and Annabelle snoozing away on the couch bed *grin*

When it came to cooking, I used a microwave and a small convection oven.  Luckily we did purchase our refrigerator a week after we moved in.  So I could actually get some food to cook instead of eating out daily.  But we had a lot of frozen dinners (that would fit in my little oven), sandwiches, hotdogs..quick and easy things.  I had some serving spoons and small bowls/plates that I would wash with the water hose outside, but other than that it was paper plates and plastic utensils!  

We may not of had a bed or toilet - but we had cable HAHA!

Annabelle playing babies with Roxie in the living room 

Annabelle and Lucy..  We did get a rug - I couldn't stand Annabelle running around on that cement floor!

We now have a bedroom - with paint on the walls and everything!  lol  ...and tonite I put up our Christmas tree in our carpeted living room.  ...annnd I am writing this blog from the comfort of our bed - which we still share with Annabelle haha.  We may not be sleeping on the couch anymore - but some how baby girl always ends up between me and daddy at night...and thats ok with me  *grin*

We had to dig a hole....a big ol' hole

We started by ripping up the old sub flooring

My oldest step son working on those floors - hubby in the background in the bathroom

So this is what the house was built on - the ground. No crawl space, no slab foundation.  Just dirt.  The corners of the house/store were "balanced" on huge rocks, which had settled into the ground since 1906.  lol  So what does that mean?  We had to dig out a crawl space...with a shovel.  ...no heavy machinery.  Just good old fashion manual labor!  haha

This is where we started - in the kitchen.  Notice how small this kitchen is..this room goes through a huge change in the next few months.  So take note of the size here..  But while we were doing demo in here - we found out that they had nailed a piece of wood over a window.  A huge window at that!

I'm not sure if you can tell - but we dug a hole so deep that this wall is just hanging.  lol  We were able to crawl under this wall.  My daughter who was one at the time would run back and forth under the wall.  But this wall was what separated the kitchen and bedroom number one.  Such tiny tiny rooms in this house!!!  

Looking back at these pictures makes me realize exactly how far we have come.  We had to dig out a crawl space under the kitchen, bathroom and both bedrooms.  Luckily the living room (the main part of the store) was built on a slab foundation...so NO digging there.  lol  

When we moved in we didn't have working plumbing...heat or air...no shower...no washer and dryer.  All we had was a roof over our head to keep us out of the elements.  

We used the bathroom at the Dollar General up the road - and to this day the ladies who work there ask how the progress is coming on the house.  lol  At night time when the dollar general was closed, yes...we did our business in a bucket.  lol  That may be a little too much info for some - but I want you guys to get the full affect of what its like living through this remodel *grin*

We showered at our gym - luckily when we bought this house we moved closer to our gym.  So every night we would pack up our bag with our pjs and shampoo and take a family trip to the gym.  Let me tell you about the struggle of trying to keep a one year old in the shower stall while trying to wash yourself.  HAHA  Annabelle is a wiggle worm - can not be still.  So I would have to sing, dance, act silly while showering to keep her in the stall.  ...and I would pray no one would come in while we were in there. ...oh such fun memories haha

We did our laundry at the laundry mat.  That is something we have done before...so that wasn't such a big deal.  ...but I felt like I was at the laundry mat every day - because we went through a lot of clothes. We were always dirty haha  We never wore our "nice clothes" ...I remember telling my Mama that I loved visiting her house (12 hours away) because Annabelle could wear her cute/nice clothes...and not her dirt stained sweat pants.  lol

...but yes - the first thing we did to this lovely little blue gas station was dig out a crawl space.  What a chore!!

Where it all began...

So some people may be wondering why in the world we decided to buy this little blue gas station in the first place. Well let me set the stage for you guys...

My husband was deployed and we had our house up for sale.  Once he came home, the house sold very quickly!  Since he was deployed we did a lot of online house shopping - but obviously we didn't go look at houses.  So once our house sold we were going to be homeless at the closing date if we didn't find a house soon.

Well low and behold if my husband didn't have to go back out of country just a couple weeks after from returning from his deployment!  ...our closing date was approaching - and we didn't have anywhere to live.  Then one day I got an email from him showing me this little blue gas station that he found on craigslist.  lol

It needed a lot of work - I'm talking a LOT of work!  So while he was out of country he sent me to go look at it.  So I drove up and took pictures - and I was NOT impressed.  lol  I couldn't even imagine the finished project, there were holes in the wall...rotten floors...broken windows.  It was rough.  ...long story short - my husband could see the potential, and we bought it.  haha

So once he came home we had an amazing project to start, it was going to be rough...but hey - we didn't have a house payment!  We were able to negotiate and get this store at a great price and were able to pay cash.  One thing that was one our "bucket list" was to not have a house payment...so we were able to mark that off!!

Here is where it all started...

Livingroom

Kitchen

Bedroom 1

Bedroom 2

Bathroom

Our cute little blue store

My baby girl under the car port