Holy moly this has been a long road, but I am finally updating the renovation!! Okay! The great news is we are on budget!! Thats what happens when you live in the project, shop out everything, and do all the labor yourselves. However, this is one project that we don’t plan on repeating “this way” again. We really do love the renovations, but the extreme to which we are doing and living here is out of the question again. And that is Tim speaking mostly- not just me, his crazy wife.  For him, since he does most of the labor, a home is hard when its also a job. The labor intensity of this house also caused a pretty serious physical injury for me, but now I am good to go! Anyway, we plan on more houses in the future …. just off site. Real estate is deep in our blood now!

Anyway, our entire budget for the house is $10 to $15k. That includes a complete bathroom renovation down to the studs, same with the kitchen, and same with this “addition” we just finished. We spent $1000 on the bathroom and $3k on this room. We also had to put in an entire HVAC system. Tim put a very high efficiency system in for $2k. Our biggest expense is the kitchen that is left, but we are on track! Basically the dining room and bedrooms we are leaving alone. We did turn the old den into the new dining room. It will also have a small office space framed in that is just down from the bedrooms, so excited about that!

The picture you are looking at was the infamous “Addition” that was added onto the house…. and never finished, no telling how long ago. The fireplace is not real- its a heater with a mantle. The sliding glass doors were classic in the middle of the house. The drywall was bad. The room had leaks and you could see outside through the cracks. It was an electrical nightmare. We ripped the room down to the studs and the floors down to the cement. Here is the before… And yes, I sold everything you see on craigslist! Love to sell and love recycling.

Here is a view standing in the kitchen looking down through the sliding glass doors. The door the kids are standing in was in the middle of the room… and there was a lovely HVAC window unit above the door, along with a massive window that looked into the garage. Because who doesn’t want windows that look into the garage??

Oh my. We ripped out the HVAC unit (before Tim had a heart attack), door, and massive window. Instead, he made that double window into french doors that lead out to the cute little porch!
Those windows became french doors and he turned the other window into a cute sitting area with a window seat.

This was the first exterior wall to come down. Bye bye garage window, door, and HVAC unit! And hello outside world!

Next, we re-wired the whole room. Thank you John Weaver (and thank you Uncle Bob!) for the help again and knowledge you gave. The room also had zero insulation so this picture shows the new electrical and insulation. Also the framing for my window seat! Oh! And the floors- we ripped out the carpet, plywood, and scraped them smooth.
Tim was very proud of himself for re-wiring this room!! Let there be light!

Lord have mercy, this was a giant mess. Out went the wall, window, and brick!! Here is the lovely porch! There is something now laid back in me about when someone leaves the door open. It really doesn’t bother me anymore because… Hey! We had exterior walls down for small periods of time. Good times.This was getting it all sealed up and ready for drywall. This is a shot of the sliding glass doors that were gone, yay! Also, to the right of them used to be the front door. Tim re-worked the front of the house and made me a foyer and way prettier front door.This is the drywall going in!Drywall up!!Sliding glass doors now a distant memory and ready for the new built ins Tim made me.He has become quite the carpenter…Love this man.

We then decided to stain the concrete floors ourselves! We cleaned, sanitized, and neutralized the concrete and then went to town! They turned out great and it only cost $80.  We kind of fell in love with the exposed brick so we are leaving it.Here is the after shot of the addition!! The hallway to the left of the front door leads to the kitchen (directly behind this room) and that is all currently being drywalled after we ripped all of that out.  The doorway to the right goes to a mudroom Tim built me and has a door out to the garage! This room just flows and makes so much sense!! Something I thought would never happen!!

Front entry way! As you can tell the trim is not in and the floors are not done yet. We are going to slate the foyer-
Different angle of the family room! No more window to the garage and no more door in the middle of the room!Loving the french doors with all the light that comes in. We can go straight outside to the screened-in porch that looks out to the backyard.   

And really, really love the beautiful window and my window seat! The backyard is fenced so I can easily watch the kiddos from this room as well.

The room is painted Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige. We mixed the paint up ourselves with my awesome mother in law! Would you believe I am still using all the paint we got off craigslist for $40 back at Nellie Mae? We haven’t spent any money on paint this project and I have painted a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, and the addition. Crazy!
And thankful!
Kitchen should be done in a few weeks. I am going to post a walk thru video soon and also the blueprints Tims architect cousin did for the new floorplan!

So thankful for family and friends and our sweet Lord that really does look after us every step of the way. When we literally have no strength left, He steps in and has given us the passion and energy for our eachother, our children, this home, and ultimately our dreams.