4th of July weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend along with their indepencence!
What a gorgeous one! But I'm EXHAUSTED! We were able to spend the entire weekend working at the house. Dad and Connie came out and we spent all day Sat/Sun/Mon working.
Let's see....
Outside we: cut the lilac bushes back from the deck so they're not a wild mess anymore. Cut back all of the dead branches off the apple trees. Wow, they look so much better! The deck got a power-wash and is ready for a new set of stain. We saved a few pine trees that some nasty vines were choking. The entrance to the drive was cut back so we can now see when exiting (very important!) and the driveway was blown clean. Oh, and of course... the lawn was mowed.

Inside: The last bit of carpeting left in the house came out, trim was taken off all of the doors, paneling taken off walls, tiles came up off of the floor and all of the electrical outlets were taken off (that was my job....BORING!). The oven and refrigerator got a good cleaning and may actually be repurposed now!

Thor came up last night and will work on more demo this week... that'll be GREAT!

All of the quotes from the subcontractors are FINALLY in, so we need to crunch the numbers and see where we're at...

It's coming along!!!

Bank approved... waiting for numbers...

Haven't posted in awhile. We're pulling numbers for the loan. We've been approved through underwriting. Next step is to submit all of the bids and get the appraisal!

We've had some great help from friends, co-workers and family along the way.

For any of them stopping by to read the blog... THANK YOU!!!!
We truly appreciate everything you have done.

Now, let's get that money and get to business!!!!!!

Dumpster!

Well, today the dumpster was delivered! That means the bathtub, kitchen sink and matress that are in the yard can now be thrown away... Yay!
Sometimes it's the little things...

Running Water!

We finally got a plumber out to fix the last leaky pipe! The water is up and running and the upstairs bathroom is completely functional! Great news, because tomorrow we have someone coming out to look at the basement bathroom and we can start ripping that apart and getting it repaired.

It will be so nice to be out at the house and not have to drive somewhere to go to the bathroom! (Guys are so lucky...)

So, this is what we'll have to live with for awhile. Looks like heaven to me right now!

Month One- The Official "Before" Pictures

The garbage is gone!
The first couple of weeks were spent just removing garbage from the home and getting rid of most of the old carpeting. Wow! What a difference it's already made.
OK, in keeping an open mind... I'm posting the "before" pictures.
We have an idea of where we want it to go, but we're still in a bit of shock! There's so much to do.

Front of house

Basement fireplace and entrance into bathroom

Basement shower... EWWWW!

Current "entrance" to house

Laundry room

Stairs to basement

Kitchen

More kitchen

living room with fireplace

So... ALL of this will change... but the one thing that will stay the same...

THE VIEW!!

Will update as soon as we know our next steps!

Week One- Introduction

A brief history of how we found our way into the Renovated Life.

My fiance and I had been eyeing a piece of property that was for sale a few miles from where we lived.  We loved the land, but at it's initial list price, was a bit outside our budget for a remodel. A couple of months later, the house became a short sale and a month after that the price was drastically reduced.  It was a long shot it would be accepted, we knew, but at that price, we could afford (barely) our current home and also the mortgage on what could become a home to renovate into our "dream home". We put in an offer. At this point, the story takes a strange series of twists, turns, ups, downs and loop de loops.  Instead of boring you with the details, I will just say that after 6 months of strong negotiations with banks, Realtors, appraisers, MORE banks and on the rare occasion, my finance (sorry honey), we finally closed on our new project and what would become, our new lifestyle... The Renovated Life.