The New House - Reno Begins!

I can't believe it, but we're almost at the end of Month 2 of our New House Reno. It started off a little slow-- First we had to meet with many, many contractors, then of course, we got many, many quotes. We had to break out the ol' spreadsheet to do the apples-to-apples analysis. After a lot of negotiating (thank goodness The Mister is a darn effective negotiator because I'm horrible with stuff like that!) we decided on the contractors that we were going to use. We tried to coordinate as best we could with all the contractors but now I understand why you need to hire a good General Contractor if you're going to do a big remodel...It's a bit of a headache! Finally we gave the go-ahead to the chosen few so that materials could be ordered and schedules could be coordinated... 7 weeks out and it's all starting to come together!

New Crown & Baseboards - Installed and being painted as we speak. We have high ceilings, so we went with 6" baseboards & 6" crown. They make the rooms look grand and inviting... even with just a coat of primer on them!

New Wrought Iron Banisters - Installed with a new stain. Definitely the most bang for the buck. Our staircase is in the center of the house. Before the upgrade, you'd walk through without noticing it; Now it's the focal point of the interior.

Kitchen Cabinets - Not sure why the original owners liked everything shiny-- They painted their then new cabinets with a gloss (a really bad DIY job with drips and highly visible brush marks). We thought that we'd have to scrap all of the cabinets, but a very nice contractor (who we didn't go with because he was extra $$$ for crown moulding) mentioned that they could be salvaged with a little sanding. We had the ugly gloss removed and refinished with a satin glaze. They look AMAZING! I can almost hear the cabinets cheering!

Closet Organizers - Old stuff ripped out, new stuff coming in next week (hurray!)

Paint - After buying 14 cans of sample paints and painting them on foamboard (leftover from Happy Vee's birthday), we finally chose 2 lovely neutrals that will adorn our main living area and 7 other colors for the bedrooms, bathrooms and garage-- Shiny bright blue, blood orange and emerald green paint be gone!!

Garage - Floors are expoxied, and the walls are painted and ready for the cabinet install! Daddy Vee has a crazy notion of putting a lift in the tandem so that we can fit 4 cars in the garage. Yes, he is a car nut... Yeah, I don't even pretend to get it.

Entertainment Center - Ripped out, hurray! I briefly thought we could salvage it by giving it a nice coat of white paint, but it was really poor quality-- bowed cabinet doors; small, useless drawers; weird design. Another DIY project gone wrong.

New Kitchen Island - In the works. We're thinking of going Espresso to accent the now beautiful kitchen cabinets. I wasn't planning on replacing the appliances, but I just saw Daddy Vee surfing the web...TBD

New Master Built-in - Not sure what we're doing here yet-- self-contained fireplace? more cabinets? Anything is better than the DIY cabinets that are stained a strange yellow color.

Hallway Cabinets - The original owners didn't quite finish the cabinets that they had installed in the hallway. We're just going to have the uppers installed and call it a day.

Carpet - Ordered and should be here in a few weeks!

Powder Room - Wainscotting is in and just needs to be painted. With a new toilet, fixture and mirror, it'll look 100 times better.

There's still a ton of work to do, but it's now starting to feel like a home that we can eventually move into. Hopefully everything will be ready by October. Pictures coming soon!