Fixer Upper

This post spans over what became a very long 3 month period. And now that I type that, I still had to count to make sure it was only 3 months, because it felt like a whole year... I learned a lot doing a home update. I mostly learned that I hate making decisions for my own home, but it's totally easy for someone else home. And I learned that I should become a contractor! 

This whole project started when we kept getting leaks throughout the house. We discovered our master tub was sitting on a lot of molded and disintegrating wood.  We decided that we should gut the master bathroom and just redo the whole thing. It was pretty outdated anyways. But once we discovered other leaks in other places in the house, we decided the whole house needed new plumbing.... in the meantime, we had already decided to upgrade our kitchen and got the ball rolling on that, but decided we also wanted to refinish all the wood floors. This home project just kept snow balling! 

I started by moving us out completely from the main floor of the house. Carmen was a big helper with some of the bigger furniture. David unfortunately was traveling during the majority of this time. We did a lot of Facetime trying to pick colors and hardware together, but he mostly just left it up to me to decide. 

We couldn't be at the house for a week, or so we were told. So we moved into an Air BnB down the street to stay close to schools. It worked out really great actually and sort of felt like a vacation, but we still had to do all our normal stuff. Soccer, school projects, piano, pack lunches, cook meals, take care of the dog. Here we are at our gorgeous home away from home. Little did we know, we would end up spending another week away from home. In total it ended up being 2 weeks out of the house. Once our Air BnB renal was up, we spent the weekend in the basement, but just about all died of fumes from the stain. Our kind neighbor is the manager at a large hotel here in town and got us a dog friendly room for another few days at Boars Head Inn.

Then I had to pick a color for the floor!!!  Talk about a hard decision! It's such a big choice and I just kept hoping I was making the right one because we were spending a lot of money on this. I consulted with many friends and family and even conducted a Facebook poll. 

I believe in this picture below we picked #3, but in the end we ended up altering that a more. The color ended up being something like 75% Jacobean and 25% Classic Grey. The color swatches are the kitchen cabinet colors. In hindsight, I wish we had done the cabinets first to better match the floor, but it still turned out beautifully.

Once we were able to get back into the house, we could start on the rest of our projects. The kitchen wound up being the next one that really got rolling quickly. I poured over counter top choices and cabinet colors. I researched sinks and faucets and cook tops and even bar stools. Our kitchen was in this condition for several weeks. 

  

The FINAL decisions for the bathroom were made in the meantime. This was such a process! 

 Goodbye old ugly white sink that I could never get clean...

Once cabinets were done, we waited a few more weeks for counter tops.This was hard because we couldn't set anything down anywhere! 

Then those beauties finally arrived! But they cut the hole for the cooktop too large....so another two weeks passed before they were able to deliver a new slab of quartz for the island.  But poppy could in the pendant lights over the island, while we waited for that. And that was just the right touch!! I love those things. 

And as a reminder, here is a before and after picture. I was too impatient to wait for the cooktop to be installed (or for it to be day light) to get the picture. I love the floors, I love the countertops, I love my new sink, I love the pendant lights, I love the cabinets painted lighter. I never did get my new barstools though. The above picture has daylight and the cooktop!

While this was all wrapping up, the bathroom was just getting started. Here are some before pictures: 

 I hated this accent tile from the very time I ever looked at this house. It was finally disappearing! 

Day 1 of demolition really made an impact!

And AFTER! It's beautiful and so spa like and I'm in love with everything about it. I honestly can't pick my favorite thing. The tub? The floors? The counter tops? The square under mount sinks? The barn door gliding shower doors? The spa like color? The mirrors? The silent exhaust fan? I just don't know, I love it all!!!!

And after months of having men in and out of my house ALL DAY LONG, and water cut off for days,  and no kitchen to cook in, and no toilets and having to move out, and SO MUCH DUST, and waiting and waiting, and doing things over again, and lots of phone calls and tons for money - it's all over and I'm so happy with it all. It really has given such a different feel to our home. It's light, airy, modern yet very neutral.