This is going to be a blog about my home renovation.
I moved into my boyfriends house around August 2011. The house was built around 1996-1999, so it is/was not terribly old or in terrible shape; it is/was just desperately in need of some updating and t.l.c. It consists of three levels, four bedrooms, three and a half baths, a "finished" basement, general living, and a "two" car garage (at our last calculation it is around 2300sqft-ish). It currently houses me, my boyfriend, and five cats (yes I said five). So needless to say we have a lot of room and not all that much to do with it, which got my creative wheels turning!(At this point it is important to note that this is not our dream home and we don't plan on living in this house forever. Therefore a lot of renovation ideas are double edged. i.e. we love this...will other people love this? And how the heck are we supposed to know.)
My boyfriend, Kevin, moved into the house around three years before me. He managed to put some curtains up and had a heavy bag in the basement, and four cats. I have had a pretty much blank canvas to work with for my very first home design. It's not as easy to decide my style, incorporate Kevin's style, and to have a flow throughout the house as I had once believed. I am a lover of white and gray neutrals, Kevin's more into bronze and old world, yet we both share a desire for a modern look. Half the battle is shifting through the mounds of information and ideas to produce a product that we both love, is high quality, and makes sense. I never thought a man could have so much input in home design, little did I know, and much did I learn. :)
So to start, might as well start at the beginning:
As soon as I moved in back in August 2011 I started painting. Kevin despises painting, so I have literally painted EVERY room in this house myself, with some help from a few choice family and friends. I have a few rooms left to paint and some detail work in specific rooms (which I fear I may always have). The previous owners tried to touch up molding in most of the main living areas with the wrong color paint, which resulted in spotty molding and doors throughout the entire house that were multiple colors. (Yes, they let their kids paint the backs of doors and the molding in the bedrooms, dark purple and blue no less). So in every room I have had to paint the walls AND the molding. It was my choice to go with a white molding throughout the house, because I like the sharpness of the look and it is fairly in-style (right now). It has been a lot of work and I now have a slight hatred of painting which is a bit sad. I will go into details of each different challenge room by room, which is how I've decided to finish this renovation so we can start living a bit more happily.
Home renovation IS stressful, on your body, on your relationship, and on your mind.
Beyond painting we have replaced around 1400sqft of flooring thus far. We started around September/October of 2011 and we are still not completely finished with the cork in the basement (we have about 6sqft left) but, we had finished the tile (200sqft), the bamboo (500sqft), and all of the rest of the cork (700sqft) by January 1st of this year. We have done all of the installation ourselves, including the replacement of sub-floor in a room. We have also "completed" one room thus far, the dining room, or as we like to refer to it now, the "Command Center." I will upload pictures and go into details about that room in my next post.
Right now, we have just started to try and finish the kitchen. It seemed like an important room to try and finish because I am sick of having to eat out every time we attempt a project in there. There are only so many microwavable dinners you want to eat (our microwave is actually on the couch right now). So update on that later on this week. I still have to figure out how to actually use this blog thing.
I am here looking for input and advice, willing to share experience and offer any help I can for other home renovators.
