#AJoyfulReno: Our Home Renovation Begins!

We bought a house! If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that we got the keys to our home back in December. It’s crazy to believe that it’s already been 2 months since that day. By the time I came to the house to snap photos James had already started doing some of the demo (such a hard worker my husband!) So though these are the “before” photos there had already been a bit of construction happening.

This house was built in 1907 so it’s well over 100 years old! With 3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms it’s the perfect size for our family of 3 – well, 4 if you include Buffy 🙂 We are planning to hire a home remodeling company in Everett Washington to completely gut the house and start from scratch, which is both exciting and totally terrifying. So what does that mean? New electrical, plumbing, drywall, kitchen, floors, bathroom, windows and doors. Whew! We’ve got a lot ahead of us!

This is a view from the living room into the dining room area. That 70’s wallpaper is amazing! We knew right away that we wanted to knock out that wall and open up the floor plan. The original hardwood was in somewhat decent shape but once we looked into the cost to refinish them we realized that replacing them wouldn’t cost much more. Unfortunately, the floors weren’t very well taken care of so we felt like starting fresh was the best option. You can actually see lines on the floor where a wall was removed at some point and it left some pretty significant grooves in the floors.

Yes, that is carpet in the kitchen people! Carpet! While we were really scared that something bad was hiding under that carpet and after examination by Carpet Cleaning Louisville professionals and we found out that it was actually just old tile. The countertops were broken and quite literally falling apart! Everything about this kitchen was strange, including the layout. We planned to move things around and add a lot more counter space. Plus once the wall is knocked out it will make the whole flow of the main floor more open. That was a huge necessity for me so that I can keep an eye on lil’ Piper while I’m in the kitchen!

It was impossible to get a photo of the whole bathroom at once because it’s just so dang small! Off to the right is the toilet and some built-in cabinets. The bathroom is one of the nicest rooms in the house as it was updated (as in, within the last 30 years?) and fairly well-maintained. This tiny bathroom actually has two skylights, so it’s super bright and sunny. We are planning to completely change the layout and make it bigger as well. That means the spare room would loose a little square footage, but we feel like enlarging bathroom is an investment we won’t regret!

Girl, that banister is NOT to code! 😮  We are tearing up that carpet and replacing it with the same hardwood we are using on the main floor. So much to do and not much time to do it. We have a great construction team that has been working away for a month now and things are really starting to come together. I will post more soon with updates and some of my home decor wishlists!

*Don’t forget to follow the #AJoyfulReno hashtag on Instagram and Twitter for more updates in real time!