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