7.31.2012

Our First Home Renovation Journey...

The above picture was taken before we did any kind of work to the house. The country fence was probably one of the first things gone. 


Our first home renovation journey has been so amazing and the end is close. We started out with this home renovation thinking we were going to live here "forever" but soon realized we needed something more. 

I thought I would compile the very long list of changes we made to this place so that if I ever forget how much work we did I can come back here and read all about it. 

This journey started in 2006:


- Cut down 45 trees from front lawn. Including cutting off all of the branches and chopping the logs into pieces and stacking them and then burning what was left over. (probably the biggest job that we did on the property)


- Re-seeded the front lawn with grass and planted 20 new 7ft spruce trees 


Front yard before:


The point all of our neighbours thought we were crazy, yes we burned that all in the front yard:




Front yard after:



- Cut and cleared 20 trees from the back yard. 


- Cleaned up all 10 flower beds(ok maybe we added 3 or 4 more) but they were lacking everything and completely over weeded. 



- Built a 1500 sq ft garage, all of our sweat, blood and tears poured into this project. We did everything ourselves with no contractor's. 


- 32 Dump Trucks of fill so we could build the new garage 

This is the old garage:


This is what now stands in its place (the double door is actually cut off in this picture):



- Fresh coat of paint inside the entire house, including the bathroom (3 coats after bad colour choices - lesson learned)

- Installed a new vanity in the bathroom.


- Bought new washer, dryer, and stove 

- New carpet in both bedrooms 

- Kitchen counter top was removed and replaced (some ugly laminate thing) we also did the back splash. 


Our sweet little kitchen will be missed:





- Pot lights added in the kitchen 

   - Painted all of the window trim and doors on the outside ( from an ugly washed out green to black)

- New shingles on the house 

- Completely re-did the mudroom (new paint, new slate tiles, and new light fixtures) 


- Installed new well pump and water softener 

- Refaced the driveway with new 3/4 gravel (10 Gravel Trucks)

- Replaced all of the door handles in the house

- Replaced all light fixtures in the house and the 2 ceiling fans 

- Stained the back deck and the front entrance way steps. 

In between all of this we got married in 2010, made many trips to Florida for vacation, visited New York City twice and Boston once. (I agreed to baseball games on all trips and Branko agreed to shopping) 


Once we are completely done (which should be next week) I am going to post one final picture of the front of the house. It looks a bit different now. 


Till then....happy home renovating. 











2 comments:

  1. OMG!! That was awesome.
    You guys did a great job. What a project. I am very impressed and look forward to the final photo.

    Mrs White
    http://bringingfurmanhome.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete