A quick year in Review…
January, I decided to step away from blogging at The Mustard Ceiling after three years, to start Fresh Living blog, which was geared towards a holistic approach to living. Little did I know, I would be starting a new renovation project. As the new project started, I decided to fire up TMC again as a way to share progress and updates along the way. In 2015, as we get into the more fun aspects of renovating, I hope to share more updates.
February, I put a contract on a sweet, little stucco bungalow in need of a lot of TLC.
June, I closed on my house, after months of going through the loan approval process. Dad and I started renovating soon after I closed on the house.
July, I moved out of my rental house and lost my sweet Jackson (10 year old Pyrenees/lab mix) to bone cancer. Losing Jackson was one of the hardest things I have gone through. He had been my constant companion for 10 years. I was blessed to have had him by my side as I grew, explored and found my way back home. He truly was a gentle giant. He provided me with unconditional love, protection, and loyalty every step of the way.
The rest of my summer was spent juggling the house renovation, my graphic design business, blog updates and settling into temporary living with my parent’s during the renovation.
I spent most of my fall enjoying the last couple months of nice weather. I took quite a few breaks from the house renovation and decided that instead of pushing to get the renovation completed as quickly as possible, I wanted to relax my timeline and focus on enjoying the process of the renovation, taking pressure off to finish as quickly as possible.
After six months of working on the house, I feel we have finally settled into a routine of work. I am not going to lie, this project has been huge! Much bigger than I originally anticipated.
Most of the summer and part of the fall I felt incredibly overwhelmed by what needed to take place to make my dream of renovating this home a reality. Throughout the process, there have been many times when I have felt completely overwhelmed by it, times of frustration and times when I have loved it.
In the beginning, I thought I would live out of one room of the house during the renovation. However, as you will see from the progress photos below there is no way that goal could have been realized as much work as we have had to do. Fortunately, I have been able to live with my parent’s over the past several months during the renovation. My new goal is to be living in the house by mid-March.
Now that the sheet rock is up and 7 rooms have been mudded and sanded. I am finally starting to get excited again about the design possibilities and am beginning to envision the house coming together. We still have a lot of work to do, but it is coming together slowly but surely.
The progress photos were taken at the beginning of December, we have continued to make progress since then, but these will catch you up to date for the new year…
Entry
The original floor plan was one big room as you walked into the home. We enclosed it a little bit to make a separate entry/living room. The opening on either side, and across the top of doorway will be built-in bookshelves.
Living Room
In the living room, we moved the doorway from my bedroom to the right side of the fireplace and will close up the opening to the left (it is now a closet in my bedroom). We also increased the doorway opening from the living room into the dining room and ripped down the awful drop ceiling. The ceiling will be re-sheet rocked within the next couple of weeks.
Office
Framing, insulation, sheet rock and new flooring have been completed in the office. Now we are Jenny Linding the walls. It should be ready for paint in no time!
My Bedroom
Door ways were moved and added in my bedroom, the exterior walls have been framed and insulated, I got a new closet and the room has been sheet rocked.
My Bathroom
Framing, and insulation have been finished. The shower stall has been installed and hardi-backered. I have been removing mastic from the floors and we’re almost ready finish sheet rocking and tile the shower stall.
Guest Bedroom 1
TV Room
Yoga Room
Kitchen
Since these photos were taken, the sheet rock has been finished in the two guest bedrooms, craft room, and kitchen. Now that I have finally found a solution that works well to remove the mastic adhesive off of hardwood floors. I am tackling mastic removal in my bathroom, dining room and living room (more on that later).
Next week, I plan to order the kitchen cabinets and purchase the vanity for the guest bathroom, plumbing fixtures for the master bathroom and hope to have the mastic fully removed from the master bathroom floor.
I hope to update progress more often once the new year starts and the project moves into more photo worthy territory. After 6 months, we are slowly starting to put the house back together after a lot of demolition, framing, insulating and sheet rocking.
Stay up to date on the latest progress by following along on Instagram. To see how we have progressed since August, check out the last Progress Update here.
Happy New Year! See you in 2015