Let the Renovation Begin

Well, almost!

Thanks to an overactive imagination, my brain has officially become overloaded with a large quantity of DIY projects and ideas to turn our disaster-house into a home.

One of the first things we are doing is a good cleaning.  And when I say we I mean the well priced cleaning service that I hired.  After a good scrub down, the carpets will be cleaned so we can at least move our stuff in.

After that, the FUN part begins.  Due to my husband’s inheritance of a large quantity of carpentry tools and saws and other dangerous machinery, my imagination is the only thing that limits what this house can have in it.  Truth be told, we even discussed a slide downstairs or a fire pole (though chances of either of those are slim to none-just wishful thinking). 

So on to the “real” ideas.  One of the first projects we are going to do is paint.  I’m hoping that not only will a fresh coat of paint refresh the disgusting, dog hair covered walls, it will make the place smell a whole lot better (especially the master closest!)  Then it is on to refinishing the hardwood floors.  I unfortunately am a wood snob, and not in the sense of quality.  I HATE most colors of wood.  My husband has learned that this is just one of my charming quirks that makes me who I am.  I hate blonde wood, beech wood, pink wood, whitewashed wood and most other woods in between.  I have  preference for dark wood floors, but not too dark, and not too much red.  Can you imagine how fun I was picking out hardwoods for our last house?  And imagine my horror when not only did our last house have mint green carpet, the wood was stained a nearly pink color. 

So for our refinishing, I’m thinking a color like this:

To refresh your memory our current color is this:


To match my shiny (newish) floors, I have every intention to replace the cabinetry in the same delightful blonde shade to 42″ white cabinets.  Since I’m a girl dreaming of steak on a hamburger budget, there is a better change I’ll paint the cabinets white.  Scott and I did this in our last home and were quite pleased with the how economical and well this option came out.  One day I’ll replace the cabinets with 42″ uppers since the wasted space where the bulk head is drives me nuts.  I also want to rip out the kitchen desk (who ever thought it was a good idea to put a junk catcher in the kitchen) and turn that into a wall pantry.

For some reference:

And to match our new refreshed kitchen, we will most certainly need some new appliances.  Since the dishwasher is unusable, this may jump to the top of our list as I don’t think I’ll last long cooking if I’m washing dishes by hand.

If I still have some sanity left after all that painting, I’m going to tackle the banister.  What use is it having shiny, pretty colored floors if your banister is the old color making the rest of the house ugly? 

Now, I don’t think I will be able to get the dark wood on the stairs, but I at least want to update the railing to be bright, molding white with the floor stain to contrast on the handrail.  Oh how I would love to walk into a foyer like this!  This is another one of those projects that won’t take much as far as money, but is going to be hours of labor.

Phew.  Well I’m exhausted just thinking about all of my future projects.  That should keep me occupied for January at least.  More project wishes to come.