We purchased the house we are living in twenty years ago. It was a fixer-upper, and we got a really good deal on it. However, it took all we had to get into it, and we didn't have the money to make very many changes.
Over the years, we have made the necessary, but not-noticeable changes and picked away at some of the smaller projects. In the meantime, we had kids and life got busy!
About 5 years ago, we did a total makeover of the master bathroom and bedroom. We also recently redid a smaller bathroom and the laundry room. All this time, the most public rooms, the living room and kitchen, have been begging for a makeover.
It's amazing to me that we've been saying "When we do the kitchen..." for 20 years now. Knowing that the kitchen would be the most expensive project, I've been squirreling away money for years.
Honestly, I feel a little guilty about spending the money. However, it is necessary for the future resale of the house. The kitchen and living room would both have to be redone before we could ever consider listing this house (not that we're planning on doing that).
We finally scheduled this project with our contractor to be done in September. I've been busy with the planning and shopping this summer. This is the reason for the light posting lately. Most of my mental energy has been consumed by these decisions.
We've also been packing up kitchen stuff and will begin removing the existing cabinets and flooring soon. It might get pretty interesting when we get into the middle of the project to see how I will feed a family for a few weeks without a kitchen.
If any of you have built or remodeled a kitchen, you already know the many choices that have to be made. Many of these choices took me weeks to decide, often changing my mind obsessively. Whenever I reach a final decision about something, there is a feeling of accomplishment.
I'll try to post before and after pictures when it's done.
I know this is quite a deter from your regularly scheduled programming here. Maybe when I finish figuring out the kitchen, I can return my attention to the church.
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7 comments:
I understand completely. When we built our house, doing so much of the work ourselve, I made all the kitchen decisions. At the time I was too tired and strung out to process those decisions for long- I walked into the home store, said this, this this this and this. I guess the cabinets took a little longer, but that decision was mostly about price. Now that I think about it, they were all about price. The cheapest ones that matched!
All that to say, I have an idea what you're dealing with. Will you keep your frig running in a different room? That would help, but it makes for a curious lifestyle. I''ll have to do that soon when I tear off the wall paper I put on the wall next to the frig in a fit of last-month-of-homebuilding induced insanity. What was I thinking?
I'm one coat into my bathroom painting and had to abandon it to make a fancy 50th anniversary cake for my inlaws for a party tomorrow. I was hoping at least that much would be done in the bath when keith gets home tomorrow, for all 30 hours of his home time, but alas, I don't think it's going to happen.
glayou are going with a stainless steel sink.
we did our kitchen over a few years back (we used our basement kitchenette for 2.5 YEARS while my husband was doing all of the work himself!). I completely understand the money guilt, but just think, it will be your kitchen for life.
I had sentimental ties to the existing sink ( a giant, double bowl with the drain things on both sides) and so we had it re-glazed. 3 years later, we are spending more money to replace it with a stainless one, as it has gotten very chipped up and dirty, even just 3 years later....
oh, the joy of being a homeowner.
I'm with ya.
In the last 12 months we have built a new deck (2nd level), replaced the slider in the dining room and transom and sidelight windows of our front door, remodeled 2 out of 3 bathrooms - including tearing out and walls and floring (dryrot) and installing a new shower - and been retrofitted with a/c. We too have saved and scraped for years in order to do these updates.
I know all that goes into these kinds of decisions and all the time it takes (including the fact that everything takes twice as long as you anticipate.)
Wish you the best and hope that all goes smoothly.
Hope it all goes well, home projects can certainly get out of hand. I know you'll be excited when it's all over and done with.
B~
Cool!! Sounds like a really big project. Good for you. Hope you are very happy with the final results. My kitchen desperately needs some help. Hey, when you're done with yours come do mine- K?!
Thanks for making me smile. :o)
cindy,
When we bought our house, I removed wallpaper from every room in the house, and replaced it with different wallpaper (because it was the 80's and wallpaper was still in). I spent the recent few years removing all of that wallpaper and prepping my walls for texture and paint. I hope to never have to deal with wallpaper again in my life!
I'm not sure exactly how we'll function without a kitchen. We have a couple of dorm sized refrigerators and of course the microwave. I imagine we'll do breakfast cereal, sandwiches, and grilled meat with salad or vegetables for dinner.
trace,
I can't imagine 2.5 years! My husband will be doing the plumbing and electrical, and hopefully that will go smoothly. I hate do-it-yourself projects, but typically also hate paying for someone else to do stuff we could do. Our floors and cabinets will be professionally done.
lily,
Today, I am especially wishing we could do the AC. We're in the middle of a heat wave with temps approaching 110. Our house doesn't have ductwork, so it's kind of a difficult and expensive prospect.
bruce,
I will be excited when it's done, if I survive. :)
trailady,
I would love helping you with yours. I actually love this kind of stuff when it's someone else's project.
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