Home Improvements

I started to write this post & realized it needed to be broken out into 2 posts.  So, here is an explanation of WHAT we did. Tomorrow I’ll post the before & after pictures.

6.5 years ago when REF bought the house we share now he bought it at the height of the market.  The couple he bought the house from had a giant dog, a boxer.  They let this boxer do whatever it wanted including ruin the carpet.  Since it was the height of the market the sellers weren’t going to pay to replace the carpet.  So, for 6.5 years we’ve dealt with gross carpet.

We now have all new flooring throughout the house.  I cannot fully express how excited this update has made us love our house again.    We did a lot of word of mouth research & found a great local company who is both reliable & affordable.  We ended up putting real hardwoods down in the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and hallway to the bedrooms.  We put giant 12×12 tiles down in the laundry room. & brand new carpet in the bedrooms.  Everything just seems so much CLEANER!

At the same time we did some painting.  We painted the living room, the dining room, the kitchen walls (not the cabinets), the laundry room, the family room & what will be the baby’s room.  

Originally we really wanted to scrape our popcorn ceilings, but it was just SO expensive (more than the hardwood floors!). My mom (a real estate broker) also told us that while it is nice to have smooth ceilings we wouldn’t get the return on the investment if we sold the house in the future. So, we skipped it & I don’t miss it.  We had the painters touch up & paint any areas of the ceiling that need to be freshened up.

Needless to say this was a huge project.  We REF worked really hard on cleaning out the attic to make room for the stuff that is currently in the baby’s room.  Then, we both boxed up books and picture frames.  I then decided to pack up all of our breakables & bring them to my parents’ house.  I’m so glad that I did.  Not because the workers were rough on our stuff, but because there was stuff EVERYWHERE.  We basically packed as if we were moving.  It was insane & I was still having VERY bad morning sickness.  

We were really lucky to be able to move into my parents’ house for a little longer than 2 weeks.  The painter came first, then the flooring people, then the painter came back to touch up.  After all of that we had the cleaning people come do a really deep clean & then we got the house put back together.  Unfortunately, since I was so sensitive to smells at that point I could smell the paint  & carpet for days after REF could.

Stay Tuned for the before & after!