**This post was drafted April 28th, so I’m just posting it now. I’ll post an additional update of what’s happened between now and then. (:
It has been a hot minute since we last posted. Mostly because we decided to go to Big Bend State Park. And then Zach went fishing. And then I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off this past weekend when my mom and sister helped me finish up some bridesmaid surprises that had been in the works since February (oops) and meet with my wedding planner. Side note: this whole let’s-have-a-wedding-and-renovate-a-house-simultaneously was very ambitious and I am starting to feel it. And if you’re wondering what it feels like, it’s basically like if you put aimless wandering and indecision in a blender and pressed the ice crusher setting. That’s where I’m at.
We’re also at the place where all these things keep magically disappearing — these things being money and drywall. Every day I yell across the house “Last day of demo!” Two things with this — 1) I don’t know why I yell because our house is tiny and there are very few walls now, so you can definitely hear me and 2) I have always been naive. Every time we visit the house, we demo something — or as my sister put it on her most recent visit “it looks the same, just a little bit less house.”
But we are making great strides — we’ve reframed the bathroom, we’ve replaced our entire HVAC system, and ripped out the kitchen wall where we’re going to build a bar. And after much “discussion” AKA bickering like children, we finally agreed on and ordered our bath and shower fixtures.
**side note: I didn’t realize how many pictures I haven’t posted. Granted, there isn’t much to look at, but I’ll try to get a little caught up over the next few days.
**and a little anecdote for the road: My sister and I were talking about what my mom’s would reaction would be when she saw the house (update: it kind of looked like :-O ) If you know my mom, you know she’s a gem. If you don’t know my mom, just picture a sugar cube and then turn it into a human, and that’s her. (Hi Mom!) We couldn’t decide what she would say because we realized there is absolutely nothing to compliment in this house. Walls? There aren’t many and those that exist are mint green and have some mysterious stains. Smell? Nope. Ceilings? Nah. Windows? Cracked. Alas, I bring you some updated photos. You’ll quickly see what I mean.
So our attic is very, very short. We thought about getting rid of it to raise the ceiling, but there’s very limited storage as is, and we just aren’t really sure what that entails. It seemed pretty ambitious for first-time home renovators. The attic above the master bedroom is closed off by supporting beams, so you can’t access it from the rest of the attic unless you’re a skilled contortionist, which my 6’3″ fiance is not. So to get rid of all the mouse poo that was there, we decided to just rip out the ceiling. So here’s a picture of that happening. You can also tell we used to have a super sophisticated ceiling fan.
We also were pretty grossed out by the old HVAC that was in the house. We cleaned out the main vent and it was full of hair. Because we are all about air quality (more on that and our other hippie tendencies later), we basically decided we didn’t want to live like the people on the Febreze commercials — you know the ones where everyone describes how they feel like they’re in the mountains smelling dandelions and rivers and then they take off the mask and figure out they’re sitting on a 10 month old pizza box.
That’s how we felt our lives would be, so we just decided to install an entire new system. Once we run the A/C, we’ll let you know if it was worth it, though I’m sure it will be.
We also removed the upper cabinets to make space for a very small (tiny actually) breakfast bar. This is happening because of Zach’s imagination and I’m excited to see what it looks like.
That’s all for now, folks!
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