Where to start

By the time we closed on our house, we'd already spent over a month listing projects, and pricing everything as detailed as we could. We wanted to know how to budget, prioritize, etc. Then, we closed on a Friday, but had commitments all weekend and couldn't start until the middle of the following week. We were so anxious to get in there and get busy! There is SO much to do.

It was certainly hard to know exactly where to start. So many projects, minor and major, and with a move-in goal of Sept. 1st, time seems short. At the top of John's list was the water problem in the basement. It was possibly due to a gutter that needed re-routing, and some cracks in the driveway in all the wrong spots. So that's where he got to work first.

On top of MY list was all the wallpaper. It had likely been there since the house was first built, and had to be taken down before we could do anything with the walls and ceilings. Thankfully it wasn't everywhere, but there was enough of it to last me a while.

1-1/2 walls in the family room

The kitchen

The entryway

The bathroom - groovy eh? This stuff come off the easiest, in big sheets requiring no scoring or steaming. Nice.

The rec room in the basement

....and what we'll call the guest room (1 of 2 bedrooms in the basement).

Before we had even decided for sure to move ahead with the house, while we were still pricing various projects, I happened to find a very nice wallpaper steamer on Craig's List, for about the cost of renting one for a day. So that saved us a lot of time and money - Yay! It took me about 2 weeks to finish removing all the upstairs wallpaper. The basement has a little over half left to be removed as well. But we're not focusing so much on the basement right now anyway. Our main goal is to get the upstairs move-in ready, and then work on the basement after we're settled in. The upstairs alone is probably twice as big as our current abode, so no complaints here!

So yeah, removing wallpaper was pretty much my only project at The Projects for a while - that and doing a bit of yard work, which I'll get to in another post. John on the other hand worked on one thing after another, all kinds of putzy but very necessary little odd jobs all over the house. Too many to list and probably too boring to read about. The biggest things he did though, which made a HUGE difference in the whole feel of the upstairs, were: adding a wide doorway from the Front room (aka living room) to the hallway; and taking out the upper cabinets and pass-through wall you see in the kitchen picture above. And, of course, re-framing both and drywalling over. At which he is a major pro. Pictures soon to follow!

Tah-dah!!!! As of May 13th, it's ours. =D

So amazing. 3 years ago, we were embarking on a new adventure - renting out our home, moving from 2,000 square feet to a 600 sq. ft. apartment, and John starting tech school. 2 years ago, he was in a brand new job in a new field for him, working and going to school full time. We hoped to get a new house within a couple years. 1 year ago we read Dave Ramsey's book and completely changed the way we did our finances, and were able to suddenly start actually saving real money for a home (now realizing we would get nothing from the sale of our last house). Then 8 or 9 months ago our looming suspicions were confirmed: our house would not be selling yet after all.

The time-frame of being able to purchase another house has fluctuated so much over the almost 3 years. At first we felt 2 years would do it. Last summer we had a sinking feeling that it could be another 3-4 years before we'd reach our goal. The more we scrimped every penny though, the more John got raises bit by bit, and worked many overtime hours due to the nature of his line of work - the more we looked into houses of a much lower price range - we realized we were much closer than we thought!

Things worked out so wonderfully for us as well in that we were able to get new renters in our old home, who signed a 2-year lease. So lo and behold we started looking in February, found this house in March, and decided pretty quick we likely wouldn't get it. We didn't even put an offer on it thinking it would be rejected. But after a week, it was still active and the offers that WERE on it had been rejected. So we gave it a shot. To our surprise, it being bank-owned, they actually counter-offered. We crunched numbers. We prayed. We sought advice. We were on our way to look at it one more time and make a decision. On the way there, John found out he got another raise. Wow.

So here we go! Another new adventure has begun. Not our first house, no - our third in fact. The adventure lies in desperate state the house was in, and in undertaking to save it from it's demise, with our own sweat and elbow grease. It has suffered 20 - 30 years of tobacco smoke, jerry-rigging, and neglect in certain areas. Lots of stains, smells, many needed repairs, outdated features to wazoo, water damage...who even knows what else awaits us.

But - it has lots of space. It has a great layout. Good bones. A big basement. It's in a nice neighborhood - nice houses and yards, friendly neighbors, and our favorite park just half a mile away. A fenced-in nice sized back yard, a fireplace, and a walk-in closet. ^_^ Plus all kinds of other little extras that we wouldn't have even thought to put on our wishlist, and would have purchased the home without them - and yet there they are. Thanks God!

Many pictures are to come - we're already in the thick of renovation and making great headway! It's been less than a month and boy have we been hard at work. So excited to post pictures of "before and now", muse over design plans and schemes and ideas, get opinions and advice. Our move-in goal is August 31st-ish, but we'll be working on various projects for months - even years - to come. Boredom? What's that? :-P