Crazy right?! I can hardly believe it myself.
We are approaching the 1 year anniversary of living in our “new” 100-year-old home and I just realized the other day that I’ve never got around to updating you, my subscribers, on all the changes that occurred since then!
The point of this post will be to catch you up on what’s been happening…well, the highlights anyway. It’s been a whirlwind of events and I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath up until now.
They say it takes a year to get settled into a new home and I think that is true!
I’m finally starting to feel somewhat settled but there’s still plenty of hurdles up ahead. I’ll be mentioning some of what those hurdle are in this post as well!
Lots to cover so let’s dive in!
The Brick Bungalow
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For the sake of time, I’m not going to get into all the reasons we chose to move but a lot of it had to do with the fact that, even though I loved our last home, it didn’t have much of a backyard.
I have 2 sons and a husband that live for the outdoors so the location of our last house wasn’t going to cut it long term for them. We decided to look into selling because of the peak in the market and figured it would be a good opportunity to look for a home that would give my guys plenty of yard space to roam and play.
Once we listed our house, we did an aggressive search for our new home. After combing through a small selection of options, it was apparent to my husband, our real estate agent and I that the houses I was most drawn to were historic. Newer homes just felt so “blah” to me!
We kept holding out for any new listings of charming old homes but all of them were either in terrible locations or beyond repair.
We got discouraged very quickly in the process and I thought for sure I’d have to settle for a home I didn’t really love or back out of selling our current house.
By some miracle, a colleague of our real estate agent made us aware of a new client of hers who wanted to list a darling brick house built in the 1920’s.
Though it would be a few weeks before they were going to put the house on the market, we immediately tried to get our foot in the door by asking for photos of the inside just to see if it would even be worth our attention.
The estate agent delivered with a video tour and, let me tell you, it was love at first sight for me!
The original beadboard ceilings, large lot full of mature fruit and nut trees, massive front porch, and unique windows stole my heart immediately!
I knew right away this was our future home and, to make a long story short, we shot and we scored!
The Kitchen Flood
We moved into our “new” house the very beginning of June and immediately got to work to make it feel like a home.
The property wasn’t handed over to us in a livable condition so it took about 3 weeks just to remove all the trash and clean before we could dig into any projects. It wasn’t a fun start to our new adventure, as you can imagine.
Once we finally cleaned up after the previous owner we started painting and displaying our furniture for the first few steps.
A few days into the month of July, I walked into the kitchen to find water gushing out of the the sink wall. The floor was covered in water! Apparently, the flood occurred due to a decaying faucet.
I knew in that instant that we would have to start the kitchen renovation much sooner than planned.
We immediately started the process with a restoration company and insurance claims thinking we’d be able to get our kitchen back up and running before the end of the year. Ha!!!
Nothing could’ve prepared me for the grueling, slow process of renovating a 100-year-old kitchen. The more we peeled back, the more we realized how much work actually had to be done to do the job right.
One thing led to another and we ultimately ended up with a full gut job on our hands. We had to tear out the plaster walls, subfloor, and even the ceiling!
Most of the work was DIYed by us other than demolition of the floors/base cabinets and installation of drywall. Very exhausting to say the least!
The only items we are able to reuse from the original kitchen are the upper cabinets, beadboard from the ceiling (I hope to use as the kitchen wall treatment), and the cute farmhouse sink (though I won’t be able to put it back in the kitchen, unfortunately).
We decided, if we are going to do this thing, we are going to go big! Every detail put into this room is to eventually achieve the goal of having our dream kitchen.
At this point in time, We’ve just finished assembling a majority of our white oak RTA cabinets . The next phase is installing the marble black and white harlequin-patterned floor tile!
As we work on tiling the floor, we are saving up for soapstone countertops that we hope to install in the next phase. Once the countertops are installed, we’ll have a fully functioning kitchen. After 11 long months of going without a kitchen, I cannot wait for that point in time.
My hope for our timeline it that we will have this kitchen renovation wrapped up before the baby arrives!
Oh, yeah…that’s another life update I should mention. We are expecting baby #3 at the end of August!
Updates We’ve Made In the Past Year
During the renovation of our kitchen, we have been able to make some small but impactful updates to the main living spaces of our home.
I’ve mainly been focused on getting the first level portion of the house aesthetically pleasing before working on the upstairs which mainly consist of bedrooms.
Formal Living Room
The first room to get some love was the formal living room. It didn’t take too much to get it looking nice. Lot’s of paint did the trick!
The only issue I came across in the process was the peeling lead paint on the windows and trim. It was a ton of work removing it safely but worth the effort!
The only thing I’m waiting on to complete this room makeover is a new chandelier. It seems that every light fixture option I wanted for this room was on backorder so I decided to be patient and order one I really wanted here. It is scheduled to be delivered in July!
Formal Living Room Before
Formal Living Room After
By the way, this room was feature on Apartment Therapy! Check out the post here!!!
Dining Room
Again, this space really just needed to have some peeling lead paint removed and a new paint job. The apple green walls weren’t doing it for me.
To make it extra special, I added some wainscoting wall treatment. I think it really leveled it up in there!
The furniture in this room is what took my most of my time to accomplish. Most of the pieces you see were DIYed or thifted and given a makeover.
For more information on the furniture pieces in this room and how I created them, click the link to my Instagram page here and scroll through my highlights for tutorials.
Here is a link for the gorgeous raw brass chandelier I purchased from a small shop!
Family Room
This room was my latest project and took the most effort but mainly because we had to close up an odd doorway (that served no purpose) so we would have a bigger TV wall.
It is also the room that had the most peeling lead paint around the windows. I wanted to take care of it immediately!
For some reason, I got it in my head that I could completely remove the original wood windows, restore them and then put them back…in the dead of winter!
A few weeks into said project, I quickly realized I bit off way more than I could chew, especially being in the early stages of pregnancy.
To my luck, I came across Universal Windows Direct and found out they make custom vinyl windows and install them for you!
One big reason I didn’t want to get DIY replacement windows is because I adored the unique grid of the original windows and didn’t want to lose that beautiful feature.
Another appeal to me is that Universal Windows Direct backs all their products by a true lifetime warranty that is transferrable to the next homeowner up to 30 years.
With Universal Windows Direct, I was able to customize the new windows to replicate the originals. It gave me a huge sense of relief to have that option available.
I reached out to Universal Windows Direct to see if they’d be interested in a sponsorship and they agreed to work together!
Within a few weeks our customized, double-hung windows went into production and about a month after, our new windows were installed. BEST. CHOICE. EVER.
Window Before
Window After
Not only are our new windows stunning and give our old house a fresh feel, they also muffle the noise from the busy street, save us major bucks on our energy bill, and we no longer have to deal with a drafty living space!
Family Room Before
Family Room After
During the process of squaring away the window situation, I decided to build myself this gorgeous TV Console and it was fairly easy to make!
DIY Console
Click here for more info on how to make one for yourself!
Conclusion
That is where we are a year later! I feel like we got a lot done in such a short time, don’t you? Makes me excited to see what we will be able to accomplish in the year to come.
The next update we will be working on (other than the kitchen Reno) is a room currently being used as an office space. I’m planning to go bold with color and restoring all of the original details so stay tuned!
Best way to keep an eye on what we are working on in real time is by following along on my Instagram or TikTok but I’ll be sure to be better about updating you here on the blog going forward!
Comment below to let me know what kind of content you’d like to see from me and don’t forget to subscribe to see the latest updates!
