Sunday, September 27, 2009

Starting again

Many, many times I have wanted to re-start this blog as a way to document our adventures as homeowners doing not only general upkeep, but some serious remodelling, as well. We bought a craftsman built in 1917 and really had NO idea what we were getting ourselves in to. Some days I want to run screaming from this house but most other days I want to give this house the TLC that it hasn't had in a long time and make it a really, truly, lovely home, not only for us, but for any future homeowners who live here.

When I left off this blog, almost exactly three months ago, we had just moved in to our new house, had realized how serious the issues were with our basement and needed to get it remodelled immediately.

We hired a contractor and the remodel that was supposed to be done by August 10th ("at the latest") was only just completed this past Wednesday. Our contractors were basically bumbling idiots. Many mistakes were made on a few parts of the job which pushed the completion date welllll past what it was supposed to be. We won't be working with them again, needless to say, and it was quite the headache, but alas, our basement is remodelled.

The only thing now is that while we have new walls that are all lovely and dry-walled, that is about it. We have no trim and no permanent flooring. After spending thousands of dollars on a remodel you would hope to have a living space that is, well, somewhat more livable, but it is what it is, which is still a work in progress.

Since the remodel was completed, which is just under a week!, I have been painting the girls' room. Tinkerbell green walls and bright pink closet doors. It's pretty darn girly! The floors will be painted, for now, and that I will start doing tomorrow. I chose a dark brown for the floors, we'll see how it goes.

In addition to all of that work, other work has been going on, as well! We've been digging and digging and digging in our yard. Removing lots of wayward, ill-placed plants, widening our dirt driveway, planting irises in our front yard, taking out many MANY pieces of cement and bricks out that were buried in the lawn and grading the north side of the house to help keep water damage at bay. We've met with some guys to have our cedar shake siding washed and stained as well as getting a real driveway poured. Hopefully at least the siding will be done very soon, though money certainly isn't limitless.

We still have many things in boxes that are piled in various corners of our house. I never imagined we would be here for three months and not be fully unpacked-- UGH! Everything is sort of waiting for something else to be done, however. Once the floors in the girls' room are painted, I can start decorating in there and moving in their closet stuff and their dresser. Once I finish painting the master bedroom walls and floor I will also move in the clothes to that room. Once all of that is done, the giant upstairs closet that is storing all of our clothing will be free to become the all-purpose closet that we need it to be to unpack lots of other things. I also need to get the living room painted so that I can hang the curtains and the art work. Oh, there is soooo much art work waiting to be hung!

All of this and we're still looking forward to the spring when we can get our deck re-built. The one we have just isn't safe-- it doesn't even have a railing or the right steps, plus the weird material it was built with is super slippery when wet (hello, we're in Seattle!) and well, it's just ugly. So that will be great to have done. Then, maybe, eventually, we'll get the cabinets re-done in the kitchen. I figure if we're doing that, then we can move stuff around a bit too, no? Oh, yeah, then there's the garage I want to build, re-do our front steps, rip down our shed . . . so many things.

If you've made it through this novel I hope you'll stick around and be a part of all of this crazy fun!

1 comment:

  1. Gosh sounds like our first house! We loved it because it was ours and part of the dream. It was a constant work in progress. Got a new front porch but never did build a garage. Had a garden, chickens (which is another whole story) and a horse. We were so proud of that humble little place. We learned alot about home repair and ourselves. You will too.

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