Surprising Walkthrough of Small Fixer Upper After Demo

My surprising walkthrough of our small fixer upper after my husband worked on several demo projects was quite the shock and excitement!

Oh my gosh, this was the closet! It’s gone! Oh my gosh, this is our bathroom. You cannot bathroom in here!

Romans 12:2

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

If you have been following us our DIY renovations journey, you will know that we have done a lot of demo in this small fixer upper. Now we want to take a trip down memory lane and recall all the work that has been done. It’s pretty exciting to see how far we’ve come! 

For us it seemed like we had to make things worse before we could actually make them better. It’s like starting over with a clean slate. And at the same time bringing this old historic home back to life! There is so much character and charm to older homes and we are excited to give this little old grandma a new life!

I invite you to grab a coffee or tea and sit back and relax and take this journey with us down memory lane as we recall all the hard work that Nate has accomplished on his own as DIY projects! We hope that you enjoy this tour after our several demo projects!

If you are also working on your own fixer upper or DIY projects or even renovating your house like us, we hope that you’ll find some inspiration here!

You can also watch a video about this here.

SURPRISING FIXER UPPER WALKTHROUGH – AFTER DEMO

Here we go.. Are you ready? I’m scared! That was my first thought as I began to open the front door to a surprising walkthrough of our small fixer upper demo that had already been done. Nate was filming me as I reacted to all the progress that had been made. 

“Do I have to plug my nose still?” I asked since that was always the case before. “Yea unfortunately,” was Nate’s quick response. As you hear the sound of the door making a squeaky sound, I’m like, ok, here we go! Oh my gosh was my first reaction! I finally get to see what has been done during week two of our initial renovations. 

Nate motions to loads of trash bags lined up in the living room and quickly addresses my concerns about them. He explained that they were filled with the stuff he just took out of the bathroom that day. “Really? That’s all the trash?” I said surprised. Nate further explains that this was all the junk he cleaned out under the bathroom flooring. 

Then he points to different piles of drywall and wood, which were also in the living room. “That pile there is stuff that was in the bathroom.” He clarifies. Then pointing to the next pile, he says, “And this one was in the closet.”

I somehow realize that besides the trash everywhere, the air seems cleaner. “Actually, it smells better than last week. The last time I couldn’t even breathe in here. It actually smells fresh kinda like almost spring. Ok, spring with a little bit of moldy wood like this.” I say that as I’m pointing to the wood in the living room that came from the bathroom. 

SURPRISING FIXER UPPER WALKTHROUGH – OFFICE DEMO

“Oh, look at the office!” I exclaim as I continue the surprising walkthrough of our small fixer upper demo in this room.

As I walk into the office, I notice that all of the wood flooring has been removed and the floor joists are exposed. I actually had to walk on top of them to get around the room. It was like walking on a mini balance beam or something. It was a bit sketchy and I wasn’t sure if it was sturdy enough so I ended up walking along the perimeter on top of a bit of wood flooring that wasn’t removed. 

I asked Nate if he excavated and he said that he has to dig that out eventually. We are learning about excavation because we thought we already excavated, but we really just started the process to actually excavate under the flooring. 

It was pretty clean under the flooring and I made a comment about how the whole house was breathing. The last thing I take note of is the fact that the closet in there is VERY small. Then I move on to the next room, which is our bedroom and connected to the office. 

MAIN BEDROOM

This is our bedroom. There is a large piece of plywood in there that makes it a lot easier to walk through it. Like in the office, I point out how clean the ground is under the floor. Nate has really done a great job so far on all these demo projects, on his own!

Oh my gosh, this was the closet! It’s gone! We tore out the closet that was in the bedroom and we’re going to turn that into a larger bathroom. As I continue to inspect the closet, I notice a wood wall to the left, which appears to maybe be original shiplap or shiplap siding. “You see that wood there, the wood wall?” Nate says to me. “I thought about leaving it because maybe we can put the toilet on one side and then the shower and everything on the other.”

“This wood looks kind of original,” I thought. “Yea. I started to hammer it and I was going to break it out of there and it was on there good and I was like, wait a minute, it looks kinda cool,” Nate reflected. I actually saw sap coming out of the wood and it looked like really good wood. Nate even commented about how solid it was too. “You did a good job!” I exclaimed. “That’s incredible! That was our closet!” He reminds me that the closet is all going to be the bathroom now. 

BATHROOM

Now I make my way to the bathroom for an extreme surprise. All I could say was, oh my gosh, this is our bathroom! You cannot bathroom in here! You certainly couldn’t as it was completely gutted. 

I recall where everything use to be in the bathroom before the demo project. Moving counter clockwise when you first walk in to the right was the toilet and the sink was next to it at the other side of the wall. Then the window was to the left of the sink and the shower and tub to the left of that. 

This is incredible what you have done in here! Wow, I’m glad it’s out though. It was naaaasssty! See, I’m still plugging my nose.

KITCHEN

So let’s go into the kitchen. Is this going to be crazy? Wow, this is the kitchen of my dreams! Nate laughs. This is awesome. Look at all that dirt. We could grow some plants in here, says Nate. Yea, we can grow a grocery store. We can grow a garden in our kitchen! Nate chimes in and elaborates, different rows of different plants with a little drywall mixed in there. 

I feel so good that the ground is able to breathe now. The dirt actually looks really nice. Like it looks clean. I can feel that it’s aerating. Like that old yucky junky moldy smell is going out. I also recognize the wonderful breeze coming in from the kitchen window and note how awesome it will be when we’re cooking in there. 

Now I recall where the appliances use to be in the kitchen. Moving clockwise around it was the fridge, sink, and countertop on one wall. Then on the other side was the stove, countertop, and then the cabinets underneath them. The upper cabinets still need to be removed to complete the kitchen demo. I also note how big the kitchen is and a good size for us and so open. 

LAUNDRY ROOM

Nice laundry room and again it’s all breathing. I point out the two windows in there and where the washer and dryer hook ups are on the opposite side of the kitchen wall. We actually end up placing the washer and dryer hook ups under the east facing window instead later. 

I point out how we have two doors that allow for a nice cross flow breeze from the front to the back door. Similar I guess to a shotgun house, hence the ability of a bullet to go from the front to the back of the house in one shot. 

Thanks for joining us on this journey! We hope that you will find inspiration watching us learn as we go while we’re attempting to renovate and rebuild this old small historic home mostly on our own. 

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS

If you want to see our bathroom expansion demo and a video we made about our DIY bathroom flooring removal, click on the links below.

SMALL FIXER UPPER | DIY BATHROOM DEMO TO MAKE IT LARGER

SMALL FIXER UPPER | DIY BATHROOM FLOORING REMOVAL