Our 2020 Project Goal List

Well, the cat is mostly out of the bag, but if you didn't know, we are so, so thankful and humbled to share that our sweet rainbow baby is on the way and will be joining our family in July. We are currently (just about) 15 weeks along, and things are going really well. I'm finally feeling better, have started feeling the baby move, and we are excited to make plans for this baby to join our family.

With our impending arrival in summer 2020, we know our "project list" is going to be shorter this year. We are planning to make the most of our time before baby comes, and really focus on projects that will either

1) Improve the safety of our home for baby
2) Improve the function of our home for baby,
3) Be less disruptive if we get them done before trying to navigate nap schedules, etc.

So, we have a shorter to do list this year than last year, and we are A-Okay with that! To be honest, we both are feeling like we are almost "done" with this home. We have a couple wish-list items (like moving the laundry from our garage to a room upstairs, and turning our deck into a screen porch), but we want to adjust to life and a budget with our new baby before taking those on down the road.

So, without further ado, here is our project goal list for (the first half) of 2020!

1) Renovate the guest bathroom
The previous owners took out the only bathtub in our house and replaced it with a handicap accessible shower. It worked for them, but it doesn't work for us and was a big issue when they were trying to sell this home! We have been saving up for a while and are excited to share that this is our first project for 2020! The contractors came yesterday, we made our plans, and work should start in the next two weeks!

Here's our current situation, and our mood board for what we are envisioning it becoming:

We are going to be:

- Removing the shower surround and basin, and installing a bathtub. Thankfully, it looks as if we won't need to move any plumbing to accommodate this. Fingers crossed it stays that way! We will be using a really cool system called the Delta Upstile system. It's an acrylic surround that looks like subway tile (but is way easier to clean because no grout!), and even has an inlay where you can lay REAL tile! You can select any tile you want, and make it fully custom. We are making our selection for that this week and are super excited. We really loved the classic look of subway tile, but the cost (and upkeep!) of laying real tile vs. the acrylic surround made a huge difference. This surround & tub kit cost us $600 vs. about $3000 to lay real tile. I ain't mad about it!

- We will be replacing the toilet in this bathroom, as well. The toilet is original (35 years old) and we often have plumbing issues with it. We've already replaced the other two toilets in our home and have seen our water bill significantly decrease, so we are going to replace this one with the same low-flow model.

- Replacing the counter top and painting the cabinets, and likely will be adding a little second sink here, as well! This cabinet has the plumbing already there (just like our master bath did) so we know at some point there was a sink here but they took it out for some reason. We figure for guests, it will be nice to have a kid sink and a guest sink for them to use! We're big fans of white counter tops, so will be going for that look again. However, in this bathroom, we decided to go for a bit more color. This bathroom sits at the top of the stairs, so you can see it when you walk in our house. We want it to be really pretty when the door is open, and since it will primarily be used by our kiddo(s), we wanted it to be a bit whimsical and fun. Spenser calls it "luxe whimsy" which I'm really here for!

This photo is serving as my "inspiration" for the room, but we won't be doing a tile wall or wallpaper. We may try to find a really color shower curtain though to bring in a similar vibe!

- Painting the ceiling and walls, and removing the saloon cabinet. Our master bath and this one are mirror images, so everything we hated about our bathroom, we hate in this one, as well. We will likely do the same beadboard treatment to cover the medicine cabinet hole, and hang a new mirror. Because we have recessed mirrors on our side of the wall, we can't do medicine cabinets in here, but will likely find a pretty new mirror to hang as the one currently installed has a large crack down the side and isn't safe any longer.

Some folks have asked why we are "rushing" to do this before the baby comes, since our tiny human won't even use a bathtub for quite a while. Obviously the main motivation for this reno is putting in a bathtub for the baby to use at some point, but the reason we are doing it NOW is because we feel taking on a bathroom renovation with all the noise, dust, and expense that comes with, would not be smart when there's a tiny person trying to nap on the other side of the wall. It just makes sense to us to knock this out before there's someone else's needs to navigate around!

That was a long summary because we have actual plans in place, but here's the rest of our 2020 to do list:

2) Replace windows. Our windows are original to the home, the only remaining "old house" item that need to be updated. We've been having issues with our windows not opening/sealing shut, or when they are opened, the top sash crashing down and then we're unable to keep it up unless the window is locked and shut. On top of that, our bottom floor windows go pretty much to the floor. The screens are old fashioned and mounted on a single screw, and our cat has pushed her way out the window more than once, easily. Our fear is that a cruising toddler could easily push out of a window and would fall 4+ feet from the house (the front is elevated) and could be seriously hurt. This wasn't something we had planned to do, but with the energy efficiency improvements, functional improvements, and safety improvements it would provide, this feels like another project we want to fast track to avoid lots of noise and mess when baby arrives. We are currently getting price bids now and hope to do this mid-spring/early summer.

3) Add built ins around fireplace. We have wanted to do this for a while, but got sidetracked. This is something we plan to DIY, and will be adding built ins and a new fireplace mantle at the same time. I expect this to happen mid-late spring! We'll be following this tutorial to get it done!

4) Obviously complete our nursery! This is a given, but we will be focusing on getting Baby Rubin's nursery set up before our due date. Babykins will be sleeping in our room for a while, but we hope to enjoy this room as a place to change diapers, nurse, and read books together. We'll share more plans about this soon once we share baby's gender... which we already know!!!

So,  those are our big plans for 2020! In summary:

1) Keep growing the tiny hooman
2) Renovate guest bath
3) Replace windows
4)Add fireplace built ins
5)Start/Finish nursery

Once little nugg arrives, we'll be focusing on adjusting to being parents for the rest of 2020. I don't expect us to get much else done on our house except maybe some landscaping here and there! TBD!

2019 Project Roundup & M.V.P.

I cannot believe 2019 is already coming to a close. This year has been a whirlwind for our little family. Much of this year was focusing on healing after the loss of our baby in April, and pouring our energy into working on our home with our unexpected free time.

We accomplished twice as much in our home as we expected to, so I thought it'd be fun to round up everything we did this year and share our MVP for 2019 -- Most Valuable Project!

1) We painted our house! Thanks to an unexpected windfall last spring, we were able to fast track having the exterior of our home painted. This was something we wanted to do as soon as we saw the home, but thought it may be a few more years before we could afford to it. We were so thrilled when we learned we could afford it, and decided to go ahead and do it. I don't think any project we've done in this home so far has made it feel more OURS than this one!

2) We finished off our master bedroom. This was a slow project -- we started in 2018 with scraping the popcorn ceilings, removing the 35 year old carpet and installing something new, but we never painted or decorated. We had water stains, dirt, paint, and holes in all the walls and it looked like a hot mess. We upgraded to a king size bed (hallelujah!), painted the walls, added decor, and really made this space a retreat for us. I don't think we realized how much we both needed that until it was done!

3) We did the same for our guest bedroom. Nothing like having guests come to visit to get your ass in gear! We had the same situation in our guest room as our master. We had previously scraped the popcorn, added a ceiling fan, and installed new carpet, but the walls were covered in water stains and paint. It needed to be finished off. We sold the furniture we had in here, moved our old queen bed into this room, and brought in new decor to complement the fresh paint. It feels so cozy and welcoming now.

4) We re-made our powder room downstairs. This all started with a toilet that wouldn't flush, and things escalated (as I've been known to do!) This was one of my most risky projects to date, but it really paid off and I learned so much. It's one of my favorite spaces now.

5) We removed & reinstalled a slate patio. Oh boy, if we had an award for absolute least favorite project ever, it would be this one. This took months to finish, in the hot NC summer (bad call on our part), and was backbreaking work. We saved about $6000 by doing the work ourselves, but damn was it tiring! The before and afters are incredibly gratifying, but I can't help but curse a little under my breath every time I look at it :)

6) We did a ton of landscaping. Well, Spenser did. He removed 6 car sized hedges from our front entry, and planted a beautiful Japanese Maple tree in it's place, making the front of our home look SO much more inviting. He re-seeded and re-leveled our front yard to improve drainage, installed a beautiful border around our mailbox, and went to T O W N on some really hard to remove Nandina. We have a ton more work to do with landscaping here, but this was a great start that really boosted our curb appeal.

7) We renovated our master bathroom! This was another unexpected update we had not planned to do in 2019, but we are soooooo glad we did. This project has improved the daily function of our lives x1000. Having two sinks to get ready in, plenty of off the counter storage, and a clean, bright space seriously makes our mornings and evenings so much more peaceful. I really can't explain why it affected us so much, but it truly does. It feels like going into a peaceful spa every time we use it.

So out of these projects, which one is our MVP for 2019? 

Without question, the winner is...

Our master bathroom! 

The makeover in this room has been so valuable to us for a few reasons:

We each have so much more space to get ready and can actually share the bathroom and use it at the same time, we doubled our storage space by adding the recessed medicine cabinets, the overall look is so much more "us" than the red and beige look before, and more importantly, it's genuinely cleaner. The previous owners were so sloppy with painting that there was hair in all of the walls, and it just looked dirty and gross all. the. time. We are so happy we took this budget friendly project on and are excited to finish the LAST bathroom in the house in early 2020!

Happy New Year everyone! We will be sharing our 2020 goal list soon!

One Year In Our Fixer Upper

This year has truly flown by. Sometimes it feels like we've only been in this home for a couple months, and sometimes it feels like we've been here 10 years already (mostly when I'm annoyed a renovation is taking too long). We have officially hit one year in our wonderful fixer upper, which has truly become home for us.

We were blessed to have been able to accomplish so much in our first year -- way more than we expected to. I think we surprised ourselves with how much appetite we actually have for home renovation and DIY. We *hoped* this would be the case, but we truly love it. Our home has become our shared hobby; a shared canvas that we get the work on together to make our own. It's been something that's brought us closer together, and makes us so proud. Sometimes we stand in the driveway and look at it, all shiny and blue, and say "Can you believe we did this? Look how good it looks now!"

We have really enjoyed focusing on one project at a time, giving it all our energy and focus, and then moving on to the next. We are so excited for the things we have planned in Year 2, and are so grateful you're coming along for the ride!

I thought it would be fun to see before and afters of every single project we've undertaken in this home over the last 365 days of owning it, so here's our Year 1 Review of what we've accomplished!


Year One Project Roundup 

1. Installed hardwood floors

2. Installed our pantry

3. Painted our staircase 

4. Added entry storage

5. Made-over the dining room 

6. Made-over the fireplace with sticker tiles. Next year, we hope to re-do the fireplace and add built-in shelving on each side. 

7. Patched a wall to fill in the "baby jail." It really brought our house out of the 80s!

8. Painted the exterior & installed new gutters

9. Removed shrubs and re-landscaped

10.  Installed new carpet, fans, and made over the master bedroom 

11. Installed new carpet, fans, and made over the guest room

12. Remodeled the powder room 

13. Painted tile floor. It's holding up SO well! I am planning to repeat this upstairs because it looks so great in this room. 

14. Removed and re-installed a slate patio DIY (Never. Again.) Post coming soon! 

This year has truly been a labor of love for us in so many ways. We've poured all of our extra time, money, and energy into making this house *our* home, and bringing it up to it's full potential. We absolutely love this neighborhood, love our neighbors, love the location, and love this home. We see ourselves here for a good long while, and are loving making this home "ours" early on, so that we can enjoy it for many years to come. We've had more time than we had hoped to give this home our undivided attention before have kiddos, so we are taking advantage of that and just plowing through our to do list one thing at a time!

At the end of the day we are so thankful to have been able to do as much to this home as we were, and are excited for the projects we have remaining. I'll be sharing our Year 2 "hope to" list as soon as we are able to get our priorities in line, and of course keep you posted along the way. As always, thank you for reading!