Did you ever watch HGTV House Hunters and just yell at the TV because someone didn’t want to buy a house because of the paint color on the walls? Well, it seems absurd but then you actually go out looking for a house and you’re like – wow this is hideous. And there are a lot of walls.
Well, thankfully that’s how most people really do think! Because we ended up with a super ugly house that was in dire need of a good paint job and some renovations… which we were happy to make.
I mostly want to share these photos for the sake of seeing HOW FAR WE’VE COME. I mean, it’s been almost a year and a half in our house and we’ve made some major improvements. And there are still many to go.
Upon getting the keys, we enlisted our family to help us paint every wall in the whole house. The walls were full of nail holes, screws.. grime. It was quite the experience just trying to get it all cleaned up! Plus, I was about 7 months pregnant and we had a 2 year old, celebrating her birthday on the day we moved in.
The house was painted quickly and we all moved into the largest bedroom, which thankfully had enough room for 2 beds! This way, Eric could sand and refinish the wood floors in the main living space and we could rip the old, dirty, STINKY carpets out of the bedrooms and hallway. It was pretty gross, honestly. It felt like it would never end as we waiting for the carpet to be ordered and installed and the floors to be finished so we could take a deep breath again (literally and figuratively).
Fresh paint. Fresh floors! We finally got to make use of the house. A year ago, after we had our new baby, and on our way out for a few days vacation, my brother-in-law ripped up the kitchen! The floor was rotting from a dishwasher leak the previous owners hadn’t taken care of, and overall the place was pretty non-functional for us.
The funny thing about DIY home renovations – it takes a while! Hiccups occur, we still have to work, and our kids can’t just sit in front of the TV all of the time – so the work comes in bits and pieces.
We slowly made our way through and now a year later, we’re all that much closer to getting things in place! A full kitchen reveal will be coming up, full of details on what we used and how we stuck to a budget!
