Have you ever seen the show "Sarah's House" on HGTV? She buys a house and then remodels it one room at a time to make it her own. Well, I love that show and have done a very mini (at least budget-wise) one of those projects of my own.
Perry and I decided that moving all of our things was getting pretty tiring and we needed to find a home-base and start traveling lighter. (we've had 13 addresses in just over 11 years) So we bought the house he'd grown up in and moved all of our things to South Carolina and moved to Vegas only what we could take in our cars and rented a furnished townhome.
We knew the house in SC was going to be a real project because it had been neglected for some time and had been vacant for several years. But we were not prepared for just how much it would take to make it our own. We have been so blessed with family and friends who have helped along the way, and other than having the floors redone, we haven't had to pay for any labor. (I told you it was a blessing!) Our budget was blown the second day when we realized we'd have to gut the entire kitchen and replace all of the windows immediately.
We've replaced all of the windows, interior and exterior doors, lighting, electrical sockets and switches, thermostats and plumbing. We had to gut the kitchen and replace all the appliances and have gutted a 1/2 bath and took a closet out of the full bath to create a shower, thus making the 1/2 a 3/4 bath!
Every room has been painted, ceilings, walls and trim and the carpet removed and hardwoods stripped and refinished. We also had to clear a jungle out of the yard just to get near the house and even replaced the mailbox! The punch list keeps getting shorter and shorter and is now less than one page on a steno pad. We started on October 9th and even though we are not completely done, it is fully functional now.
This is just the first round of changes to be done to the house, I, unlike Sarah Richardson, have a limited budget and limited time to put into the job and my family has spent so much of their time working, we all need a break, maybe we will start again next spring. In the meantime, I'll share with you some of my favorite projects so far.
Let me say that the best part of this entire endeavor has been doing the work (sometimes really nasty work) with my Mom & Dad, Aunt Pat and Uncle Ray, Lauren, Aunt Judy & Uncle Del, Margaret Dunn, Aunt Ma, Uncle Melvin, Charles, Robert, Woody & Josh, Tyler and, of course, Perry. Aunt Pat kept reminding me, when it felt overwhelming, that we were just making memories and boy did we! I can't walk in a single room in this house that I don't see all of them there!
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| Before |
The outside before and after shots, shown here, are from last month. We took down the mismatched shutters and replaced them with all matching ones.
The closed in front porch will be coming off so we can have a rocking chair front porch like a true southern house. And in the spring we hope to do some beautiful and much needed landscaping!
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| During... |
The weather has been so yucky, I don't have more updated photos, but stay tuned, more to come!
