Truth be told, Ryne and I were in a state of desperation when we bought this house. The housing market was madness. We had just moved our family of five out of a big, beautiful home that we loved and suddenly we had no place to raise our children. I remember pulling up to this house- the yard was so overgrown, you couldn’t even see the front door from the street. The carpet was filthy, the blinds were dusty and yellowing, the wood was rotten, and every single surface in the house was cheap and showing signs of wear. The floorplan somehow managed to make a 4,500 sqft footprint feel small. It had been on the market for three weeks in a housing market where homes were going under contract before the for sale sign even made it into the yard. No one wanted this house and neither did I. But like I said, we were desperate. Desperate doesn’t even adequately describe it. So we bought it.
I think we were delusional at first. We were definitely in denial and I can only imagine what our families must have been thinking when we walked them through this house for the first time. But we told ourselves we could envision it in a different state. After six months in the trenches of renovation, this house is finally starting to take shape. In some spaces, this home is truly unrecognizable. We still have a long way to go before this place is safe for our babies to live in, but we have made so much progress.
Projected move-in date: Still planning on July 11th, but Ryne and I are having serious regrets about not holding onto our rental a little longer. There is still so much that needs to be done to make this house a safe place for our family to lay their heads down at night. Some days I am not sure how we could possibly make it happen in time. At this point though, we have no choice but to be out of our rental by the end of the day on July 14th. The rental house we are currently living in has already been rented out to new tenants. It is a done deal. So one way or the other we need to pack up and move out. I just keep telling myself: worst-case scenario, there is no running water in which case we can stay with one of my parents for a period of time. But I am praying so hard that it is livable (and we have a very loose definition of “livable” right now).
Progress this month(ish): The drywall is smooth and it looks sooo good!! The front porch was torn off while we were in Maui. The basement bathroom was demoed and re-framed. Shower pans were poured. We ordered many more rooms of cabinetry including the kids’ bathroom vanities and our upstairs laundry room. On Memorial Day weekend we ordered so many light fixtures in addition to almost all of the cabinet hardware, furniture for two bedrooms, a new kitchen table, and a few pieces of outdoor furniture. The most exciting bit of progress by far came on the last day of May- the checkerboard tile is starting to be laid in the entry!!
Up next: Time to install interior doors, all of the tile, hardwood floors, trim, and start on landscaping. We plan to extend the front porch across the left side of the house facade, but first concrete needs to be poured. Once the structure is in place, brick and siding will go in, followed by paint. Exterior doors are supposed to arrive next week. Windows should be arriving the second week of June. We still need to order a whole-house air purifier (I keep kicking that can down the road), bathroom fans, new fire alarms, newel posts, electrical plates, and a million other things. We need to figure out what in the world we are doing for our fireplace mantels. Outdoor pavers and cobblestone need to be selected. The list gets longer by the day.
Major setback of the month: We lost a lot of ground because we were out of town for two weeks. Once the walls were smooth, the work kind of stalled out until we returned. It’s a small price to pay for a break as a family, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. Shower pans were also poured with the wrong drains. If I didn’t tell you, you’d never notice but it will bug Ryne until the day we sell this house.
Currently eyeing:
General feelings about the project: Right now I am wondering if it would have cost less time and money just to demolish the home to the ground and start anew.
