Phase 1: Demo Prep

The project got started on a Saturday night...we sure know how to have a fun date night :) We ripped up all the carpet and tacking in the formal living room. 

The sub-floor in the formal living room was in great shape, which will make our lives easier when installing the hardwood. We bagged up all the old carpet, padding and tacking and made our first of many trips to the dump. 

We moved most of the furniture from the dining room up to our spare bedroom upstairs, but not without putting a hole in the wall on the way up the stairs :)

We had a collage of picture frames going up our stairs and while carrying the top of the buffet up the steps, we knocked a picture off the wall. Thank goodness for spackling. We were going to paint that hallway anyway, so its not a huge deal.

We were able to borrow this secret agent tool from our awesome neighbor, in order to check out what was inside this wall. We poked a couple holes in the wall and snaked the camera in there, and didn't find anything unexpected. We'll probably poke a couple more holes in the wall to play with the camera some more before we expose the back wall, but either way, it was great that we were able to borrow it. 

We also set up the beer pong table...here to find you can use it for much more than just beer pong. It will come in very handy to store things from the kitchen during this whole project. I guess we are growing up. 

It will probably take a couple more weeks before we have anything further to update with this project, but we'll post some other things that we've done to the house to entertain you until then. 

D&L


P.S. Don't worry Momma Dett, we took the quilt pictures down :)

Starting a Blog

Hi Family and Friends! 

As you all know, Dan and I bought our first house almost two years ago...its amazing how fast time flies by! We have known since we moved in that we wanted to make some changes to the layout, but thought it was best to give us some time in the space to see how we would use it. In our current lay-out, the kitchen opens up to the family room, sharing a wall with the dinning room, and finally opening up into a formal living room. We hardly use the formal living room for its intended purpose (right now it's housing random furniture that we didn't know what to do with when we moved in) and occasionally someone sleeps on the couch in there when have parties or cook outs. Here are some pictures of the kitchen, dining room and formal living room as they are now to give you an idea of the layout:

Formal Living Room from front entry way

Formal Living Room back corner

Formal Living Room with windows facing out onto the street

Doorway into Dining Room

Dining Room with doorway into the Kitchen

Kitchen view from Dining Room 

Kitchen view from Family Room

We thought that it would be a better use of the space to make the formal living room our dining room, and have the kitchen extend into the current dining room. Our plan is to knock the wall down, and flip the cabinets and stove to the area between the two sets of windows, reusing the cabinets and counter tops. We then plan on putting hardwoods floors throughout the whole area. We got an estimate from a contractor which turned out to be outrageous, even for the greater DC area, so we decided we are going to tackle this ourselves. Nothing brings a couple closer together like a good old fashioned DIY home remodel, right?

We thought having a blog would be a good way to keep those of you who are interested in the project updated, as well as a keepsake for us of this whole experience. It will be fun to see how things transition throughout the whole process, and document the trials and tribulations of undertaking a renovation project. It will be a bonding experience for us, as well as our parents, who I'm sure we will enlist for help along the way! We also can't forget Karen and Steve, family friends that live close by, who have tackled their own home renovation and are pretty much experts in DIY projects!

I also include other pictures of projects we have done, including Dan's masterful concrete floor staining project in the family room :)

Hope you all enjoy it as much as much as we will (fingers crossed)!

D&L