Our First Home - Phase One of Renovations

Last week, I posted the Before photos of Matt and my first home that we bought last October.

Today, I'm posting the first series of photos in our renovation process: ripping up the carpet, filling holes in the walls, and getting ready to paint!

Before I continue, I have to say how incredibly thankful Matt and I are for the generous help of my parents. They were at our house every night for over a month as we renovated our house to be ready to move in. All the thanks in the world wouldn't be enough to show our gratitude.

Let's begin the renovation process!

First, we removed any nails, screws, curtain rods, mirrors, outlet/lightswitch plates etc that were still in the walls.

  Then, we filled all the holes with several coats of mud.  Lots of holes = lots of mud, sanding, more mud, rinse & repeat. We ripped up all the old carpet and donated all the clean, unstained portions to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  Being the overachieving people we are, we removed all the staples and little bits of carpet pad that were left over. Turns out we didn't have to be this nit-picky but oh well!  Bare floors, ready for new carpet! In the front entry way and the bathroom, the linoleum needed to be ripped out so that we could tile later. That was not a pleasant or easy job. Poor Matt. Our first load of goods from my parent's garage. They are happy to have their space back! :) And all of the wood for our hardwood floor! Just getting started and we're already tired!   While the hardwood was acclimating for several days, we started painting. Thankful for my dad's stilts because we didn't have to use much for ladders, and he's so precise, there's no paint on our ceiling! Priming the spots we mudded. Matt wrote me a love note with the paint. Testing out which colors we wanted to go where. Painting my craft room. I picked a sunny yellow color that everyone hated at first.  The lights down there are florescent so everything looks greenish, but it's not. It's a great buttery yellow color. Very peppy! Once it was done, it grew on them. Matt still calls it 'mustard' but it's not mustardy at all. I love it! Laying down some floor boards to even out the height of the floor for our wood and tile. Fixing squeaky floor boards.   Paint is done! Except for touchups, which are still on the to-do list today. Putting tar paper down. Dad raised our door up so that we can have a rug there and still have the door swing freely.  So incredibly handy - we wouldn't have even though of doing that if it weren't from him. We'd just have complained daily about the door catching on the rug. So now, the living room, dining room and kitchen are ready for the maple hardwood to be installed. The wood is acclimated and the wood nailer is rented! Up next, phase two of renovations: installing the hardwood floor!