Over the years, Kevin and I had become pretty big HGTV fans. It wasn't unusual for us to spend several hours on a Saturday morning watching episode after episode. And there may have been a few Saturdays (back in the day when I lived alone), that I had HGTV running in the background for the entire day while I set about working on various projects around the house. SO, the opportunity to "live the HGTV dream" with our little fixer upper of a house was pretty exciting.
Fast forward to this year, and we've realized a few things:
1) Fixing up a house is NEVER just like HGTV. For starters, all of the "projects" that are chronicled on HGTV are tidily wrapped up in 45 minutes or less. They always have all the supplies they need on hand and their designer knows just where to go, or just what to do to create the "perfect look" the homeowner is going for. In real life, everything takes forever and there are a million decisions. Just figuring out what you're going to do and getting the supplies to do it can easily fill up a Saturday afternoon. Never mind actually DOING the project.
2) As a result of #1, watching HGTV shows now just makes me feel anxious. So many decisions! And they finish everything so deceptively quickly - entire house remodels, finished in 6 weeks! [sure, if you hire a contractor to do all the work for you and a designer to decide how everything should look].
3) We have a love-hate relationship with Home Depot. It is simultaneously our #1 destination on the weekend and The Devil. They have everything and yet any contractor will tell you that most of the stuff they sell is crap compared to what is available from distributors.
Of course, there have been many other lessons - too many to chronically here after my delinquency on the blogging front over the last year. I've done a fairly good job of chronicling most of our triumphs on my Instagram account, so I encourage anyone interested to follow me there @dulceadventures.
For now, I'll share some then & now photos to share some of the progress we've made since the photos from my original post (which were pulled from the realtor.com posting).
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| Power washed concrete, removed ugly gray paint from top step, painted door, added blingy brass hardware, installed storm door (hello light!), tore out ugly box wood and landscaped in front of patio, added flowers to flower box, and set out patio furniture that we already had. |
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| Removed gobs and gobs of ivy (and planted grass from seed in its place), removed one giant tree stump (that was previously covered in ivy), removed dying tree (and planed a big-ish new one nearby), relocated shed to back corner (instead of middle of yard?), planted evergreen shrubs at back fence and along left fence near house for privacy, planted crepe myrtle for extra shade/privacy. |
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| Paited the walls a less boring greyish beige (greige). Unfortunately this was the only place for Kevin's huge TV. I'm still kinda sad that the cute woodwork details on the stairs are mostly hidden, but overall this is the best use of space for the room. I painted the risers on the first two stairs at one point last winter, but not very happy with how it looks and planning to strip it down to wood again soon. |
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| Basically we just added all our stuff. Pretty happy with how this space is shaping up. Next up: shutters for the front windows to replace the hideous vinyl blinds underneath the bamboo shads. |
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| My favorite before & after pictures. So. In. Love. With. This. Kitchen! |
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| So I think these pictures make the "now" look worse than then "then", but it is actually a huge improvement on the nasty scale. Before, the basement was stinky and just generally sketchy. Now, every surface is clean/freshly painted and all our stuff is well organized. Eventually we want to re-finish this area, but for now it is serving nicely as our workshop for our various projects! |
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