New House Renovation Progress: The Beginning

Well hello again! Yes, still here. It has been quite a week in the house renovation progress. Stephen and I have had so much help from our parents, whether it is watching Weeks, spraying round up, bringing dinners, buying new plants or powerwashing the house. We are so thankful for all of that help! In reality, so much has been accomplished. But since all of our efforts have been so wide spread it hasn't been easy to see the quick results we are all used to. When you think about taking on a project of painting a bedroom, perhaps...you see that transformation pretty quickly and boom- done. This is an entirely different ballgame, I have learned. There are many, many steps to get us to where we want to be and those steps mean they have to have an order. The basic game plan for us was to first remove all existing flooring and resurface the ceilings, and subsequently paint all trim and walls, ceilings, paneling, cabinets. That is quite a daunting task itself, but as expected there are always more bumps in the road, especially with an older house. But, today I am just going to highlight some progress and focus in on other areas later. 

If you missed the original home tour, see here for comparison photos. Once they closer to completion I will post them side by side.

KITCHEN

Our sweet little wooden kitchen is looking better by the minute after getting painted inside and out and three times from Friday. Pretty much every surface will be refinished. We removed all the doors and I have been refinishing those at our current home when time allows. As seen below, we are in the priming stage. Cannot wait to see her all sparkly. We of course want to update the heinous countertops, but that is not as critical to me right now as other things. I even considered a concrete fix, which might happen if we can't find the right countertop for the budget right now. I got a lot of feedback about painting tile- still a possibility but we might jump for re-doing them completely as well. I will keep you posted.

ENTRYWAY

Our entryway is getting a surprising makeover from that slate flooring I mentioned in the home tour. The slate was SO heavy it was actually causing a slight sag in the middle of the floor. No bueno. After further inspection we found out that the floor needed to be replaced under that slate {along with some crawl space stuff I can't even describe}. Demo day below...

We are so happy that we made the right choice to go ahead and get these things fixed now, even though they weren't absolutely necessary at this point. We don't want to get moved in and recreate a big mess in a few years. You can also see below that the banisters and wonky steps were removed and we are working on a new step that is up to code.

WOOD FLOORS

Everything seemed to feel better once we started to see the wood floor go into place. After tons of thought and back and forth we decided on this hickory hardwood. Our hardwoods are actual hardwoods, but engineered, meaning the layers underneath the top layer of wood are made up of different woods. This is actually really important in our area being so close to the water. Solid hardwoods might buckle or warp. I am so pleased with the way they are coming along! PS- imagine this photo with white paneling, no wallpaper peeling :)

PAINT

I have literally been crouched down on the floor painting baseboards or standing on a ladder every night this week. Of course, we do not have to have all of this done by the time we move in. But, we are doing everything we can to get as much done as possible. First of all, it's so easy to paint pre-flooring without worrying about drop cloths. Second of all, once we move in we would rather focus on some projects that are a little more fun than painting baseboards. I took this photo of the difference in the trim color. Old color/left and new/right. These people actually had all their trim painted a "painters tape blue" at some point. They have convinced me to never be trendy on trim colors {if blue was ever big in the 70's}. Even after white paint you can still see residual blue/black on the left. So gross. By the way, I am using White Dove by Benjamin Moore on our trim. It seems slightly yellow in the picture but in reality is not at all. 

LANDSCAPING AND OUTDOORS

Tons of progress has been made outside! We have the most charming little patio on the front/side of the house that was covered in leaves and dirt. Literally, covered so much so that we didn't even see the patio until our third or fourth visit to the house. Here you can see the stones that were powerwashed by my Dad, and one of our many azaleas. Since this photo, we have added more landscaping, mulch and sand between pavers. It's gorgeous and the perfect place for an afternoon cocktail watching the water.

This is another in progress shot. This bed was full of miscellaneous bulbs, weeds, rose bushes etc. It was screaming for some order. We yanked everything and are working on a boxwood border all around. I'm in love. 

We also didn't realize our beach access until last week. What a wonderful surprise. I took Tucker down there on Saturday and he loved it. I enjoyed the pretty walk almost as much as the water itself. Can't wait for more trips like this with the rest of the fam! 

We ended last weekend with our very first happy hour at the new house, on the new patio. The first of many to come and I can't wait. 

Thanks for bearing with me y'all! Have a happy weekend.