House & Backyard Tours BEFORE and the first stages of the remodel

 Hey Everyone!!

It's been forever! I knew I wouldn't get to posting on this as often as Instagram, but I've also neglected the Instagram. Oops. Anyway. Here's the house and backyard tours before we did anything to the house!

House

Backyard

The first thing we did, before the house was even officially mine, was take out the carpet. There was a dumpster in the driveway and they let us put the carpet in it. It was really nice to get the carpet out, especially in the bathroom and kitchen! The hardwood in the main areas is pretty awesome, we just have to polish 'er up and she will be good for the time being. I might want to re-stain it eventually, but we have so much other stuff to do that that's at the very bottom of my list. 

After the carpet was out and the house officially became mine, we started on the yard. We wanted to get the juniper bushes and the trees that were touching the house out in time for the Bountiful clean up! I think in the end we ended up taking 6 (maybe 7?) loads to the dump, 32 (+/- one or two) bundles (bundling tree limbs and bush fragments is really difficult), and 7 leaf bags.

Then we started a few things on the inside of the house! Martin got started putting lights in the living room (and eventually throughout the rest of the upstairs). Martin also took out two hall closets so we can make the bathroom bigger (10 square feet bigger, to be exact). It's still a bit small, but better. I've also started sanding kitchen cabinets so we can paint them!

 

The roof needed some patching, so we went to Home Depot, bought all the supplies, watched a bunch of videos, and Martin and I patched the roof ourselves! Tar and gravel roofs are not super fun. It was the last warm day of October and by the time we got off the roof it was 45 degrees and the tar was getting too cold to spread anymore. But by doing it this way, we saved me hundreds on a roofer. I will still need a new roof eventually, but this will do for now.

Now we are working on lights in the bedrooms upstairs, washing walls, encapsulating the lead paint throughout the whole house, and prepping for paint. David and I got all the baseboards and door trim taken off to be replaced, I caulked a couple windows to help us "winterize" them until I can buy new windows, and we are working with an engineer to see about taking the wall out between the kitchen and the living room. We will also be redoing all the plumbing for water coming into the house to replace the galvanized pipes. 

There's A LOT to do and I've had a couple meltdowns about it all, but over all, I have to keep telling myself it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's going to be a very long marathon with the very few hours I have to put into it. I am very lucky to have Martin who is willing to help and David who does what he can after work and on weekends I'm working at the lab.

If you've made it this far, thank you :) I will try to update this more often.