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Randall Renovation Part 4: One Month Away from Completion

Hey everyone,

Just stopping by to give a few updates to those who are following along on this crazy renovation journey.

We are approximately one month from move-in day. Fingers-crossed, we are on schedule to be in the new digs by June 1st.

In our last post, I mentioned that we were over-budget, over-scope, but on schedule. Well, the saga continues…

Chris and I fall in love with the house more and more each day as it takes shape before our eyes. If I can get poetic for a moment, it has been emotional to watch these dusty bones crumble and witness our vision sprout to life. It has been breathtakingly satisfying to take the creative helm in designing our living space. I’m so glad we are experiencing this magical transformation together. And-to-date, no major meltdowns or threats of divorce. 🙂

Ok, here are a few highlights and then on to the pictures!

  • ALL the tile has been laid in the house (both bathrooms, the dining room and laundry room)
  •  We completely changed the guest bathroom from initially having a drop-in tub to now having a door-less shower. We are thrilled with the results.
  • The kitchen cabinets have been assembled and will be installed THIS week!
  • We decided to deal with the overgrown weeds and shrubs outside. By removing the bushes in the front of the house, we uncovered the natural stone facade. GORGEOUS. Why was that hidden??!!

 

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Building Our Castle Part 3: Money Pit

This week marks 2 months of glorious renovation.

To summarize our current situation, we are over budget, over scope, and on schedule. Hey, one out of three isn’t too bad.

When you buy a foreclosure, there are bound to be surprises. After repairing a water heater that decided to die last month, adding a new electrical panel so that our house wouldn’t be a sitting fire hazard, and countless additional “must-haves”, we officially feel like Tom Hanks in the movie Money Pit. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie before any major renovation project. We did, and we were still crazy enough to continue.

This diamond-in-the-rough house isn’t the only one to blame. My husband and I may have changed our minds a few times (sorry contractors) and changes always result in more mullah. Case in point: four days ago we thoughtfully decided to do an about-face on the guest bathroom layout.

After the crew installed a drop-in tub and built a sturdy frame around it, we decided the layout didn’t feel right in our bones. So we’re eighty-sixing the tub. We went back to the drawing board, literally, and sketched what we think will be the perfect solution. (hint: a door-less shower).

House Renovation/Life Tip:  If something doesn’t feel right, or function right, don’t be afraid to abort the mission and start over. You don’t want to spend money and time building something that doesn’t work for you and your home.

Well, despite the empty wallet feeling, there has been significant progress each day. Check out the photos below:

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Building Our Castle Part 2: Demolition & Dust

Welcome back…

We are 6 weeks into our MAJOR fixer-upper. You can read about how we found our dream home, a contemporary foreclosure that stole our hearts and see the BEFORE pics.

Well, the crew has knocked down walls, ripped up checkered tile, brought cabinets crashing down, and scraped messy popcorn ceilings smooth. This is definitely the dusty phase. Everyone time we visit the construction zone we leave with chalky sheet-rock smears. But, that’s to be expected.

A few highlights since my last post:

  • We have been to Home Depot more times than we can count
  • We ordered our pantry doors. They took 3 weeks to come in. We ordered the wrong size! Thank you LOWE’s in Madison for giving us a full refund and exchanging them for the right size.
  • As of this morning, we discovered the water heater has to be replaced. Sigh.
  • We also discovered this morning that the garage doors are buckling and need to be replaced. Sigh
  • Basically if something is on its last leg, it has definitely decided to die on our watch.
  • Hubs and I have pretty much agreed on all the renovation designs–pretty impressive I must say.
  • Still undecided is the wood floor stain color, but we are leaning towards Minwax® “Classic Gray”
  • Also, still undecided is the kitchen backsplash. We’ve seen a thousand options, and like a wedding dress, I believe when we find it, we’ll just know 🙂

Well, without further ado, here are the pics of demolition and early progress:

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Building our Castle: Randall Renovation 2015

My husband (Chris) and I have made an unfortunate discovery about ourselves: we actually enjoy home renovation projects. You can read about our first house-flip here.  As newbies, it was a reasonable project for us. We successfully purchased, renovated and sold a 700 square foot condo, which required mostly cosmetic upgrades.

Well, our current project is a bit larger, both in scale and scope. I plan to blog about the progress, the ups and downs, the lessons learned and of course, post lots of pictures. So stay tuned!

It all began with a search on Zillow one November evening. We had an interested buyer for the 700-footer, which we were currently living in. Our rental property around the corner was occupied with a tenant. Well damn, we needed a place to live!

House Hunters: Huntsville, Alabama edition was not fun, whatsoever. With our pre-approval letter in our back pockets, I made the grave assumption that finding a home would be easy and exciting. The first Zillow search produced hundreds of results, and right before our eyes glazed over, we found our dream house: a foreclosed, abandoned beauty.

We made two offers to Fannie Mae, but she was holding the reins with a firm grip, unwilling to budge much on the price. You see, the house needed so much work that the purchase price had to be MUCH less, in order to justify renovation expenses, and still make this a wise investment. After accepting the reality that Fannie Mae wasn’t bending anytime soon, we dropped our heads and reluctantly began the house hunt again.

NOTHING was right. We almost gave up. Maybe we’ll rent an apartment for a while until we find something. Maybe we’ll build a house from scratch. All we could think about was the foreclosure that held our hearts.

Chris loves modern architecture, perhaps it’s his Chicago roots. Think Frank Lloyd Wright. I’m an Oregon Girl and have always loved the stylish, rustic homes of the Pacific Northwest. This house was an uncanny fusion of both styles. The bold angles of Frank Llloyd, rugged cedar siding like a Northwest chalet, a plethora of large windows offering gorgeous natural light, and a soaring 30 foot ceiling at its peak.

On Christmas Eve, with almost all hope gone, we took a peek at our dream house on Zillow one more time. The price had dropped $40,000 from the original asking price. It was a Christmas Miracle (Fannie Mae was quite the Scrooge). We made our third offer, one that Scrooge couldn’t resist.

Three days later, on the way to Kevin Hart ‘s Comedy Show, we got a phone call. The house was ours! We can’t say enough good things about our Realtor: David Trueb. Thank you Dave!

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Pictured: Chris and I celebrating with our Realtor, David Trueb on Feb 6th, when we officially got the keys to our new home.

Soooo, we got the keys on Feb 6th. On Feb 9th, with a renovation loan approved, a general contractor in place and countless Pinterest images, we hit the ground running. On DAY 1 as the new homeowners, we encountered a gas leak outside and a broken mainline water pipe at the street. A home that was abandoned for two years comes with a few surprises. Have you seen the movie Money Pit?

We have chosen to do a TOTAL renovation in 4 months. Needless to say, we are not living in the construction zone. I can’t even imagine. So, while we rent a temporary spot for a couple months, we make daily trips to the house, (AND Home Depot) to make sure all is flowing smoothly…one can wish.

Here are a few highlights exactly one month after purchasing our perfect fixer-upper:

  • Chris went to check on the house one evening and discovered the upstairs toilet leaking onto the hardwood floors downstairs. A perfect cold night to figure out where the shut-off valve was outside 🙂

  • Discovered our HVAC system is older than the hills.

  • Demolition began. Bathrooms gutted. Kitchen gutted. Back deck stripped of old wood.

  • Bye bye popcorn ceilings!

  • We had our first “fight” regarding window trim size. Fun times.

  • Learned how expensive replacing ALL the windows in your home can be. More fun times.

  • Went to Home Depot. Spent 45 minutes trying to get the right recessed lights. Went back to Home Depot to return recessed lights (wrong kind).

  • Designed our master closet to accommodate Mr. Tall and Mrs. Short, and both of their shoe addictions.

  • Designed our kitchen cabinets. Got the measurements wrong. Went back and re-designed them. Changed our minds about having a seated bar area. Went back and changed them again. Thank you for being patient, Michael, the cabinet guy.

  • Chris built an exact replica of the mailbox I wanted from Etsy. Major points.

  • A guy showed up with tile samples in the back of his car.

  • Picked out our shiny new appliances. There will be some serious eating going on in this kitchen.

  • To date, Chris and I still like each other, the house is still standing, and there is a high-probability the work will be finished by Summer.

Without further ado…here are the “Before” pictures. Thanks to our dear friends Antoinette and Breanna Pelt for the awesome photography.