First Steps
Well, after years of pining over a blog and website, I've finally made time to get the ball rolling. I am a procrastinator at heart. Oh, I don't procrastinate on things that really interest me. To tell you the truth, I would rather be digging in the dirt, tilling the garden or painting and caulking some room of my house than blogging. That said, I have made a committment. A committment to regularly post photos of in progress projects and ones we finally complete (there will be fewer of those). I would describe my style as a fly by the seat of your pants kind of gal. So things can get really exciting (and messy) around here. (I am meticulously organized when necessary).
When we first bought this house, I affectionately described it as the rat hole. Probably because it was previously lived in by rats, feral animals and any other filthy creature (humans included), which left nasty, disgusting messes for someone else to clean. On the night we moved in, one of our neighbors' sons came to offer his mowing services, to which we agreed. (I mentioned this in a previous post). Let me remind you, this was a bank owned foreclosure. Only when absolutely necessary, and prior to a contract on the house, mow or maintain the property. We had this house under contract for about 8 weeks, maybe more, during a very rainy, warm time of Spring. The grass was up to my thighs in the area they had been mowing, which was only around the permimeter of the house. The pasture was worse! Back to the neighbor's son. While speaking with us, he proceeded to give us a bit of history on the previous owner, his tenants and their pets. Needless to say, this necessitated immediate removal of the carpet. This was a slight problem. We had intended to close on this house weeks earlier so that we could do a thorough cleaning and a few repairs prior to moving in furniture. Well, the house we were selling sold so fast and asked for such a quick close, this was impossible in light of the continual failure of the bank to complete the agreed upon repairs. We unloaded several U-Haul loads of furniture and cram packed the house. We had to sleep upstairs during this time, on matresses, on the ratty floor. (I don't recommend this for those with young children or the faint of heart.) Ah, the good ole' days...... The carpet was ripped out within a few days and a stick down, easy to install and cheap vinyl strip flooring was laid with the help of our two teenage boys. Whew! What a start. (Initially, we were thinking that renovating this house while we lived in it, would only take a year or so. Two-and-a-half years in, we are still at it. Lol.)
I will be posting some photos of the early days and including after pictures as well. You can follow our progress as we complete the rest of the house. We have champagne taste and a beer budget, so most of our projects are real world friendly. You won't find a $30k kitchen remodel on here. That's a third of the price we paid for the house. Hillarious. Both our cars didn't even cost that much.
Perhaps you might be inspired to give some of the projects we do a try. They will all be budget friendly, and most are for the novice. I like to refer to them as high creativity, moderate labor, low price. Sounds do-able, right?
