I realized today that I really haven't blogged much about our new house! We were kind of at a standstill for a couple of weeks after closing on the house because we were getting bids and making plans. However, now we are really making progress and I feel like I can share an update.
The house we purchased was a foreclosure. We immediately loved the one-story floorplan and the neighborhood that the house is in. Luckily, the house was in fairly good shape- it was very clean and very well cared for. However, there were several (let's say a million) cosmetic things that we definitely wanted to change prior to moving in. In a nutshell, the entire house was painted Mauve (as in pinkish-puke colored) and the carpet in 2 rooms was teal! The curtains were a major eye-sore as well. I chose to look past these features and see the house for what it could be- NOT an ugly duckling but a beautiful swan! :) Ok, that was supposed to be funny.
I do think it's funny that Robin and I chose to take on such a huge project- I've had several people say to me, "Oh, you and your husband must be really handy." I have to chuckle inside when hearing this (no offense Robin!) Let me just say that we are "learning" to be handy and we are always up for a challenge- right Robin? It has already been such a memorable experience.
We've had so many people tell us to do as much as possible before moving in because the remodeling process can create such a mess. Of course, everything has taken longer than expected, but we are now flying through the process and are hoping to move in sometime the week after Thanksgiving.
Painters have been in the house for the past week or so and should finish up on Thursday. Robin and are also doing some of the painting ourselves which has been a lot of fun. We sneak out of my mom's house after Emma has gone to bed (don't worry- mom is here with her) and go to our house to paint. We talk, listen to music, and paint paint paint- real marital bonding!
We will still have several projects on our "to do list" and our "wish list when we win the lottery" after we move in. However, the majority of the painting and flooring will be complete. We plan to tackle the exterior of the house in the Spring when the weather heats up a bit- we'd like to re-do some landscaping, trim the trees, paint the trim a brown color, etc.
We have some family coming in town next week for Thanksgiving- we told them they can come if they B.Y.O.B- bring their own BRUSH. They have to paint the room they stay in- just kidding. We WILL probably put them to work though. :)
Here are a few pics from the last week so you can see what we've been working on. I plan to post more before and after pictures when we are really finished.
Robin painting one of the hallways: (covering up the mauve with a yellow-neutral color we picked out- similar to the color in our old house)
Kitchen cabinets: this picture kind of shows you the cabinets before and after- the cabinets were originally the lighter, oak color. The painter glazed them and now they are dark and I LOVE them! They are getting ready to do a tea-stain plaster faux finish on the kitchen walls tomorrow:
Master bedroom before: (yikes!)
Master bedroom after paint: (new carpet coming next week!) Robin and I painted this room- we covered up the mauve color with a light brown .)
Stay tuned for more pics and stories!
