First of all, thank you for sweet words yesterday!
And don’t worry – the move doesn’t mean I’m not blogging anymore! If anything, come June 1 I’ll have a bit more time to be blogging and getting back to regular posting.
Kip and I initally tackled the kitchen cabinet project because it is something we had always wanted to do.
next, we moved on to bigger things.
oh I jest.
With the basement, we were super happy with it as it was. It had the extra living space, fireplace, and a large side space (with huge walk in closet) that Kip used as his home office.
We had a huge walk in laundry room, and from the moment we looked at the space – before we had even moved in – Kip had said we should make the laundry room a bathroom and take the side space + closet and make it a bedroom. That way it would take our 2 bed 1.5 bath to a 3 bed 2.5 bath without sacrificing any living space.
We never did it because we simply didn’t need to. Why spend the money when we had 3 floors with plenty of space for the two of us.
But then when it came time to think about moving and selling, we knew it would be smart move.
So, we bit the bullet. And I channeled my inner Jeff Lewis and ran with it.
seriously though is taste is way too modern for me, but damn do I love him and when is Flipping Out coming back on!? or even better, Interior Therapy?!
It was a circus, as you may remember me posting about.
2/3 of the basement was destroyed and covered in saw dust, and the other 1/3 was tarped off like Dexter’s crime lab yet still has 90 pounds on saw dust on everything the tarp was supposed to be protecting.
and let me just say, spending practically every night at a Home Depot store until closing time after work for like 10 days straight was not my idea of romance.
We had contractors for the large part of the project, but thank goodness for my handy husband because many nights were spent fixing things and re-drywalling when a not-so-great job was done. And then, after the contractors were done, he did all the molding and all of the painting and dry-walled probably 1/3 of all of it. I contributed of course, but I can’t pretend to even have done half of what he did. But DAMN I had no idea how much work it would be (when trying to save where we could). Patching nail holes and painting – especially the glass french doors – took so much more time and work than I ever knew.
OH, and he replaced the whole deck in 3 hours one Sunday too.
SO. I don’t have the best before photos because they literally decided to start the next day after we met with one of the contractors so the basement was half way destroyed already.
:: BEFORE ::
the before photos are the listing photos from the previous owners when we bought the place.
you know me, never prepared with pics when I need em!
I can’t find any right now that show how we had the back part laid out.
But, where the previous owners have the large wooden piece under the window is where we had kips desk against that back corner wall, and the walk in closet before renovation was behind that.
:: DURING ::
framing out of the new wall, for the bedroom, with the old walk in closet ripped out in the back
laundry room gutted and ready for bathroom
we moved the washer and dryer to underneath the stairs {and were able to keep them side by side instead of having to switch to a small stackable which I was super excited about}.
we had to pick out tiles twice (two nights in a row after work, we had zero time and weren’t given much warning for things so we had to do it quick) because our first picks were too slippery for the shower floor and then something else with the other one, but I love what we ended up picking out.
:: AFTER ::
I have one photo from my phone, the others are the listing photos.
ignore the treadmill in my photo we hadn’t moved it yet and I was SO excited to finally have it back in action to watch my shows on.
I was also so happy to have a couple of those black mirrors above the mini-fridge hung because those were my favorite in my old apartment when all five were across our back wall. (They are my Ballard Designs knock off from Target, but they are a pain to hang all 5 level, so they hadn’t been hung in our new place the last two years)
ANYWAYS.
There it is!
I have no problem being honest and saying I was in love with our place before the reno, and I am completely obsessed with it now.
You know what they say:
“do everything you always dreamed of doing to your home in the last two months of you living there, so that your last two months of living there it is completely destroyed, and then when its finally done and perfect looking and everything you could have ever wanted in your dreams, sell it to someone else so that they get to enjoy it and you don’t.”
no? that’s not what they say?
Oh.
just kidding. kind of. but now we know what we are capable of and can do it all over again in a new house that we will love even more!
{haha JUST KIDDING I seriously am not painting anything I don’t know how my husband got me to do 746 hours of manual labor after coming home from work……. I seriously need a break from renovations and construction of any kind. or even just like a hammer for that matter.}
OH. but one nice aspect to this was I looked like a cute twin of Jo from Fixer Upper every day because I wore my red hunter boots all over the house with my jeans and pretended I was, like, super handy and helpful.
it looks so great! and at least you made that equity back! (you should have enlisted property brothers to help you find something in atlanta and do this reno!)
Y'all did amazing work…I can't get over that gorgeous bathroom!
Loooove how everything turned out! You're going to make your new home even better!
I need those keys. Where are they from? <3
unfortunately they are super old! I got them in the clearance bin at Z Gallerie about 6 years ago!
This is awesome! I've been trying to do some bathroom renovation , and this gave me some great insight for things to try. Thanks for sharing!
This is really an awesome article. Thank you for sharing this.It is worth reading for everyone.
Home Renovation Services
I like the light and roomy feeling you achieved. When we renovated our guest bathroom, my husband insisted we keep the bathtub and shower curtain. I like your glass shower walls better. The sink you installed is tasteful, I like the clean lines. I am looking for a similar one for our master bath remodel we are about to start.