Kitchen

So, it turns out when you are remodeling a house you don't have much time to blog. Now that the fall months are upon us I will finally catch up on the progress we have made over the summer. Our first big project was the kitchen. Oh....the kitchen. The previous owners obviously had some type of vision for this kitchen, but to us it was the most ugly depressing room imaginable (besides our bedroom, but that's a future post). The ceiling was gold? copper? something shiny, dark and weird. A wall paper border lined the top of the wall which I dare say was SUPER ugly and the walls were an awkward green. The cupboards were a whole other story.....just take a look at the pictures.....oh and don't forget the plastic "copper" back splash...and the whole thing was cast over with a dark green hue from the light fixture.

I had plenty of time to decide on the paint colors. I looked at probably thousands of pictures while we waited endlessly for the closure process. I knew I wanted something light a bright to wash away the dark sad colors that were there, but I could never find the combination I wanted online. Yellow walls with blue-grey cabinets. I searched and searched but it seemed no one was doing it. So I went for it! My lovely mom, sister, niece and my friend Liz came to help and we transformed it on a hot and humid weekend at the end of June.

We made finishing touches with some curtains my mom had made me for a previous apartment which matched perfectly, some old spice containers from my grandma's kitchen and of course a hand crafted island table and bar by Adam. We picked up some used appliances from a local dealer and put up a shelf to hold my cookbook collection. Not bad for our "small remodel". It will definitely hold us over until we put in our dream kitchen in a few years!

Week 1: The Money Pit

Sooooo the drama is finally over! I lost count of how many closing dates were set and passed. On more than one occasion it became almost certain we were losing the house. Our landlord got confused or forgot that she agreed to allow us to lease month to month until we closed, and we were homeless! Holding on by a thread we moved in with my cousin Amy and her husband Nate for just over a month (THANK YOU!). Drama ensued, the banks were crazy, and our realtor and mortgage broker were at each other’s necks! The whole thing was so up in the air that the day before closing we were still handing in applications for apartments, just in case. But a little over a week ago, on May 30^th, we turned the key!!!

It’s been almost comical since then. I was fully away that we would basically be “camping” for the first week, but I had no idea how literal that would be. Without a fridge or stove, we had a cooler and a grill. No problem. Then we realized there was no hot water. Then we realized only two electrical outlets worked on the entire first floor! Haha, it certainly is a fixer upper!

After a week of cold showers a plumber came to fix the hot water heater (thanks Pete Baker!). Thank the Lord! And the same day our fridge and oven were delivered (thanks Vern’s appliance, Lodi, WI!). Unfortunately, the plumber was being careful not to over tighten a plastic fitting, but ended up not getting it quite tight enough and I came home to literally an inch of water in the kitchen floor! It took some time to clean up but does not appear to have done any damage (contained to the linoleum) except perhaps to the plumber’s ego. He came back and fixed it right away though. No worries! We will for sure hire him again.

Then the stove would not heat up…. we discovered the electric was worse than we thought. Only about 100 amps going to the 220 amp outlet so not enough power for a stove. Good thing its summer and we love to grill!

After how hard we fought to get this house, all the troubles we have encountered so far have not even fazed us. We are so happy and excited to make this place our own! We even have already had someone come to our door and ask if we wanted to sell! In less than a week! We obviously have a good thing going here.

Roof get’s torn of tomorrow! Let the demo begin!

Emily

First Post

Hello internet,

I have never had a blog before, I always thought they were pretty dorky and a little narcissistic (do you really think the whole world cares?). I still kind of feel this way, so I'm slightly embarrassed to be writing this, but I also thought this would be a fun way to keep track of the progress on our first home and share the experience with family and friends (and the whole world!?!)

We put in an offer on the house in early January. It was the first and only house we ever looked at. Not very typical in this housing market I'd have to say! After a few days of back and forth and a few other offers pending, our offer was accepted! Ah! What did we just do? It's a giant four-square house that needs to basically be gutted and completely remodeled top to bottom. And it's a foreclosure, so what we see is what we get. But with Adam's carpentry skills and my fantasy of living out an episode of anything on HGTV, we are ready for the challenge.

 Since then it has been nothing but missed deadlines and a waiting game with the stupid foreclosing bank. Our closing date is now set to a week and a half from today. We've been sketching and brainstorming and dreaming up plans for the remodel. I told Adam we definitely needed to buy some books on electrical and plumbing work, and joked that maybe we should get a book on how to make a relationship survive through your first big remodeling project. He joked back that we'd be writing the book on that. I sure hope so!

Okay I better start packing,

Emily