Man's Best Friend.

Living Room - Getting Closer!

After we finished the kitchen, we turned our attention to the living room. All of the ceilings are sagging, so we have to hang all new drywall - quite the process. Now that the ceilings are finished in the living room, it's time to paint the walls…finally! We also have to re-wire and install recessed lighting, and cover the fireplace with stone. I'm still trying to decide on a paint color! Here are a few of my inspiration pictures when trying to decide how to do my living room:

Here are my beautiful windows I have to work with - still trying to decide if I want to do any kind of window coverings!

Kitchen Remodel

One of the best parts of buying a house with a hideous kitchen is getting to redesign it myself! I got the opportunity to start from scratch. Of course I had the help of a designer from Home Depot to get logistics down, but other than that, it was all about SHOPPING! Tile, granite, cabinets, paint color, backsplash - so.much.fun. In case you don't remember what my oh-so-beautiful kitchen looked like before, here you go:

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The Beginning

November 29, 2012

9:00 a.m: closed on our first house

10:00 a.m: drove to our first house, basked in the glory of owning first house

10:07 a.m: time to start the demo

Even though this 1961 charmer had been well maintained, it was waaayyyy out of date. So we immediately got to work. We had less than 3 weeks to do as much as we could before move-in day…. we ripped out kitchen cabinets, cleaned the bathrooms,  knocked down a wall, tore down a ceiling, and chiseled up TWO layers of laminate flooring (worst.job.ever.).

The first items on my agenda: garage doors, floors, and windows.

The current garage doors were manual (I didn't even know they still had those) and one of the windows was broken. We found a great company to come out and install new doors right away…they even made them extra quiet…BEAUTIFUL!

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Next thing: floors. Positive: wood floors through out the whole house. Negative: trashed wood floors through out the whole house. Whoever decided that putting a puke-orange stain on wood floors was a good idea? There was horrible brown shag carpet taped (yes taped) to the floors and deep gashes covering most of the house. Instead of taking on this huge project ourselves - we called professional and moved in with friends (fantastic decision). Let me tell you what - refinishing hardwoods - best investment yet! Our professionals did a fabulous job and restored these oak floors to their former glory - with no orange stain.

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 And finally - the most expensive but important renovation: windows. The windows were original, single-pane and non-energy efficient. Every single window needed to go, and the difference it made in the house is incredible.

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Who knew something as simple as windows could make such a huge difference!