Wednesday, September 21, 2011

HGTV'd

Do we have been living in our house for 3 years (in December). We purchased it as a foreclosure which had not been lived in for over a year! Even though it was not trashed at all by the previous owners when they went into foreclosure they definitely didn't take care of it....or update it ...AT ALL!
When we moved in we painted the kitchen (3 times) NOTE TO SELF: beige may not look like the same beige on the little swatch as it does in a whole kitchen with lots of light...it MAY look PINK! FAIL! And brown well brown just didn't look right....so we finally found our match with gray.  Anyways....we painted a room, some more than once until we found the right look. We repainted all the kitchen cabinets from an Oak wood finish to white ( more modern), as well as ALL of the trim in majority of the rooms (NOT FUN!!) Just changing out the paint gave the house a whole new look! Gradually it was becoming our own and definitely updated! Now don't get me wrong the house still has its 30 year old character. Example: we have an attic fan (my yankee self loves this) and on a fall or spring day it is AMAZING! If you are unsure what an attic fan does its a fan in the attic DUH! so when you open the windows it sucks the air out and creates an amazing breeze in the house. (note to self: until we get screens for the windows it also sucks in bugs) Guess I need to add screens to the list! The ceilings also have a "sunburst" texture, now keep in mind I hated this when we first looked at the house but amazingly I would never change it now. Like I said character! Now im just rambling....
SO anyways! Drew and I have been bitten by the HGTV bug. We stay glued to that channel and constantly take mental notes. However when renovating a home its not as easy as you see on TV- it takes TIME and $$!  Speaking of money I forgot to mention when I was 7 months pregnant we had to replace our roof because we had HUGE leaks! This was a big set back but HAD to have it replaced because we didn't want to risk mold with Logan about to make his appearance...not to mention a problem like that doesn't get better on its own- it only gets worse! So luckily since we got a great deal on the house purchasing it waaaay under what it was worth we instantly had equity in the house and was able to take out an equity loan to get the roof replaced. Did I mention a month later the whole neighborhood liked the idea and had theirs replaced too? Well they did except theirs was covered by their insurance because apparently there was hail damage right after. Everything happens for a reason right?? Havent figured out this one yet though!
Geez im bad at this. What was the purpose of this blog??? oh yea! HGTV/DIY....
So Drew and I went to our local lowes and did some window shopping and have come up with a wish list on a reasonable budget. Our next projects are as follows:

Laundry Room:

We are in the process of painting the cabinets Black and updating the hardware to silver. The walls will be a deep baby blue ( as in not pastel) and the counter top will be replaced (hopefully from a good find from habitat for humanity. If not it should only be a small cost. We will repaint all the trim a fresh bright white and replace the light fixture (also hopefully a good find from habitat) and install some simple blinds for privacy. The renovation should cost us under $100 and will be well worth it considering I spend a lot of time in that room :o)

The next renovation will be a semi-incomplete project in our master bath. This bathroom truely needs more work than we want to spend on it right now but we are going to paint the vanity cabinets black (they are the same color wood as the laundry room). Eventually we will need a new shower and some demo is involved in this. Our shower is a standing shower and requires alot of work to even be able to shave my legs so we will be expanding. But this will take some money so we have decided to start with the CHEAP simple projects first. So in our bathroom the vanity will be our quick fix, but once again still worth it and a project that will easily be under $50.

Now for the backyard! Logan LOVES being outside so we are motivated to get this done by next summer! So far we have taken out approx. 20+ trees and had the stumps grinded. When we started Logan at school and no longer had a nanny we decided to fence in the backyard and get a doggydoor so the boys could come and go as they please and stop marking in the house! Drew just spent a couple days putting together Logans swingset (another future project) that my awesome coworker found from a neighbor that was throwing it away. With a little TLC this swingset the retails new for $500+ will look good as new. Now all we need is some grass!!! I will have to search for some inital pictures but this is the yard halfway through transition...so you can imagine what it looked like!!

Next years goal: Grass and a Garden so I can grow my own fruits and veggies!!!

Well the list goes on and on but these are the next couple projects for this month...

TO BE CONTINUED!

Oh and our tax refund will go towards replacing all our windows. They are 30 years old and 30% energy efficient!!!!

Thanks for reading!

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