Hoarders House....Honestly!

Happy Wednesday all!  Okay so I know this blog is supposed to be about our house renovation and all of our DIY projects but I just couldn't help myself.  Our good friends Jared (our personal contractor) and his wife Jaclyn also just bought their first house.  Since they are both creative and talented people they wanted to buy a complete "fixer upper" and flip it so they can make money for Jared to build their dream home.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  Well they have been telling us about their house for months and months (while they were waiting for the short sale to go through) and how the people literally left trash/belongings everywhere.  I know that they have been saying this, but to actually see it for myself....I ....I have no words.  I made it all the way to the upstairs until I started to have a small panic attack, not for myself, but for them (and the realization that people really do live like this). 

...and this is just the garage!...a 3 car one at that!

Bless Jared and Jaclyn's heart and their willingness to put forth all this work to make this house (well walls and a roof) a home again (aka a livable space).  All I know is that if there are any two people who can take on this project...it's Jared and Jaclyn. 

 Someday will be dining room and kitchen expansion...

 ...lol good thing we brought over champagne for them!

 (Above) Current dinging room now but they will be expanding the kitchen to this area

 (above and below) Current kitchen before expansion

 Some day this will be the master bedroom (above) and master bathroom (below)

 Future kid's rooms (above and below x2)

...and of course one of the many closets that were still filled with clothes!

So the immediate days after they closed on the house what were we doing?  We took our tush's over there and started cleaning all the s**t out of there!  4 days and 2 (HUGE) dumpsters  later their house is cleared out!  

(sorry I don't have any after photos yet)

We are so excited to see all the transformations that will be taking place in their house within the next year or so.....!

Adding a Little Bit of Character

We are still far from complete on our kitchen but now we are just taking little baby steps to make it more of a "Gilfillan" feel.  The last couple changes that we have made have been adding hardware to the doors/drawers and changing out some of the light fixtures. 

First thing's first....new hardware!

 Workin' hard!

Yay!  So happy with the new hardware.  It definitely adds a more "homey" feel to the kitchen :)  We had to get 18 knobs and 18 handles...whew!  The knobs were $1.97 and the handles were $3.47...so definitely not cheap!  I think in total with our Lowe's discount we spent about 90 dollars on hardware :(  I will admit though...I didn't really shop around too much.  I knew what I wanted and got wayyy to antsy and went out and bought them.  I justify it though by saying that we are still wayyy more under budget than if we had just gone out and bought new cabinets instead of putting the work into these.  From what we have calculated so far (excluding a future countertop) our kitchen redo it totaling us $400 (for a space that holds 18 cabinets and drawers and lighting fixtures!)....speaking of lighting fixtures....

Here is a pick of my amazing husband taking down the 80's light in the kitchen. 

 Yuck look at all the dirt/bug guts on the ceiling!  I swear I don't think that light was ever cleaned....

Bug guts....!

Since there were sooo many bug guts and dirt we washed the ceiling and repainted it before we put up the light fixtures.

Very IMPORTANT:  Make sure you turn off the electricity to the light before messing with all the wires in the light.  Don't worry, we did remember to do that...wheww! 

This is our new light about the stove...

We are happy with it :)  AND I was able to pick it out one Friday afternoon when we both had off work without second guessing umpti-million different times!  Progress is being made...!

(Matching light above the sink)

We are planning on (at some point) buying darker counter tops for more of a contrast.  We are thinking along the lines of a brownish/tanish color?  What do you all think??

Staircase Reveal

I am so so sooooo sorry that I wasn't able to post this on Friday.  Life can get the best of us sometimes, right?!  Well, here is the big reveal now!  The moment that you all have been waiting for...the completed staircase!!  I just want to make another special shout out to Jared for all the hard work that he did!  This project was wayy bigger than Tony and I could have ever done on our own!  He did such and amazing job and we are so very lucky to have such a great friend like him! 

Picture of the half wall....and picture of the finished product!

Look how much it opens up the space!

We absolutely love it! 

We love all the small detail that he put into the staircase....

(Jared did a molding type design)

We love the fact that we went with the thick wooden balusters to give it the country feel versus iron spindles. 

Now, the only thing left to do is to get the carpet guy out here to lay the carpet back down in the areas where it had to come up (minute thing) and paint where the old railing used to be hung....

.....good thing we are planning on repainting the entire room.....once we get the guts to decide on a color for this HUGE room!

Best thing about this project being done is that now we can finally talk about the main bathroom redo!  More to come on that...

Fall Fun

Ahh... I did it once again, I haven't blogged in a week!  I blame it on the day job...er..wait I mean the night job...er...oh shoot you all know I work days/nights so you know what I'm talking about! 

Anywho, I hope that you all had a Happy Halloween!  Before I went to work I was able to dress Biggs up in his dinosaur costume.....

....so precious! 

Tony told me Biggs had no idea what to think of all the trick or treaters...I am sure he was probably thinking somewhere along the lines of "why the heck are all these people coming to the door and no one is petting me!"  Good thing I cuddle and play with him as much as possible on my days/nights off.

So before Halloween came around Tony and I were able to decorate some pumpkins.  Mine, well didn't turn out as well as I had hoped...Tony's on the other hand turned out great!

Can you guess which one is who's??

I thought it would be a really cool idea to put glow in the dark paint on my pumpkin instead of carve it.....obvious fail...

Tony's ...well his is amazing and he didn't even use a tracer which makes me feel even more jealous when I look at his compared to mine.

 ...and Bigg's looking up at Tony thinking "why is that crazy lady taking so many pictures?"

Now that Halloween is over its on to Thanksgiving!  Another awesome holiday, which you all know includes lots more calories to consume!  I love this time of year because I love all the fall colors.  I had to take a couple pictures of the trees in our yard and all their pretty colors. 

 

 Our yard is full of multicolored trees...this picture doesn't even do it justice!

Trees unfortunately means leaves, leaves, leaves!  Here are a couple pictures of the day Biggs and I decided to rake the leaves.  More like I raked and Biggs just played!

"ahhhhh help me I am drowning in leaves!!" 

 ...getting myself out...

...Okay this is better!  I can pose and look cute for a picture now!

Oh and I want to tell you all...the stairs are finally completed!  The final result will come tomorrow!  Happy official Thanksgiving season everyone!!