Hey, hey, hey! Fall is here and I'm finally getting my life back in order!! I wanted to get back into the swing of things by giving you an update on my summer.
So our rental property became vacant in June and after painting the whole place from top to bottom we decided to do a little more work and put it on the market. The rooms needing the most work were the bathroom and the kitchen. We started by gutting the bathroom almost completely to the studs.
With so much going on getting before pictures just didn't happen. The walls were covered in white ceramic square tiles that were looking very old and dingy. The shower walls had white subway tiles that were moldy and popping off the wall and the casing around the window was deteriorating badly. It was time to gut.
After tearing everything out we went on a major trip to Home Depot and bought almost everything needed to put it back together. With no plan and no time we actually pulled together a great looking bathroom in the end :)
Our other headache, ahem I mean project, was the kitchen. Again, no actual before shots. Just during.
These were taken after already painting the walls. They were covered in grease....covered. Did you see the side of that stove?? The bathroom's problems were just inevitable after years of use, but this kitchen was just the result of someone not caring enough to clean for 3 years.
The hardest part is this is the first home Scott and I bought and lived in together. We had both our babies here and our wonderful old St. Bernard, Max. We made great memories and lovingly took care of the place and renting it to people who pretty much trash it is heart wrenching. But such is life and it was time to get over it.
The kitchen was to get new high definition laminate counter tops, some "new" hardware for the cabinets (spray paint is my friend), and some new appliances.
I found an ah-mazing Kitchen Aid counter depth refrigerator on Craigslist and decided it was to live in my house. So began the great refrigerator swap of 2012. We drove over a half an hour to pick it up and then back home to drop it off at our house. Then our current refrigerator went to live at the rental house.
The white refrigerator at the rental house then came back to our house to live in our garage. Then our old garage refrigerator went to the curb and was picked up by junkers in mere minutes. After all that work Scott went back to the rental house to work for a couple of hours and I sat back and stared at (LOVED) my new refrigerator that was still sitting in my driveway waiting to come inside. Then I went in the house to imagine it in my kitchen and noticed something...
How tall was this new fridge?? Oh dear. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Measuring, running outside and measuring, then measuring some more and more and more. That top cabinet was in the way. I was short by 2 inches. And Scott was going to be home soon. Stomach ache.
After some sweet talking and begging and convincing Scott decided to rip out the cabinet. He loves me, he really loves me :)
It came out so cleanly and without much muscle. Finally something went well!
We will build a cabinet box for display purposes at some point but I promised Scott he had at least a year to do it. This was part of the convincing I talked about earlier ;)
Meanwhile the rest of my house looked like this the whole summer.
And there were other important things going on in the midst of it all...
(7th birthday)
(5th birthday)
(family vacation)
The rental house has been on the market for 3 weeks now. The kids have gone back to school and life is finally getting back to normal. Having time to cook a family dinner or play games in the evening is something we won't be taking for granted for a very, very long time.
Tomorrow I will post all of the afters!!
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