If you've been looking for me lately...you would have found me in here -
Stripping wallpaper off the walls.
It's a totally miserable, thankless task thanks to the 25 year old wall paper, glued directly to the wallboard! Renting a wall paper steamer from the Home Depot saved us a little, but it still took 3 days! Sunday night we were able to finally start priming the walls which is the first step before we can patch all the holes, sand and then paint.
Here's a listing photo of the breakfast nook off the kitchen.I guess I haven't told you much about our new house we just bought. It's an older home, 25 years old situated in a nice area. I bought it mostly for the location, the backyard backs onto a golfcourse and is a lovely little utopia back there. The dogs love it, and they don't chase the golfers...much.
The house is across the street from a large park where I can take the dogs and run every afternoon. I'll show photos of the park later. It has a large lake in the middle, lots of birds and wildlife and more. We're just over the bridge from downtown new orleans, right by the ferry you can take across the missippi. You can go biking along the levvy and we often walk there in the evenings.
Listing photo: We call it the barn house - as in we're the first barn house on the right. Which is a joke because we're the only barn house on the right! =)
The house itself needs updating. Much of it hasn't been touched in the last 25 years. It was built solid, so it has tons of lovely architectural details including 3 (!!) fireplaces, built ins, wood beams and more. The layout is very solid and wide open which I love. It's about 2750 square feet, 3 bed, 2.5 bath. The bedrooms are all upstairs. The downstairs is wide open with a large kitchen, breakfast nook, living room/great room and then a more formal dining room area that I use as my office. Yep, my office has a fireplace in it - not like you'd ever need it in the 100degree heat!
The bones are good but the details need updating. In the next 6 months or so we will be renovating the kitchen, all the bathrooms, painting every wall, replacing every light fixture, handle, laying new floors, etc. And don't forget about replacing the blinds! It's a LOT of work but I'm excited to get started. We've done this before, but I always forget how much work it is until I get started.
I have been watching way too much HGTV!
We're starting with the kitchen. I have some big plans for this kitchen. It will be done on a budget, just like we do everything else. Rather than tear it out, we will keep the cabinets and paint or refinish them. I'm leaning towards paint. Anyone ever painted their cabinets before? Have some recommendations?
The walls will be painted "Quill" which is a lovely grey/tan color, very neutral, very re-sellable. We'll do granite on the kitchen counters and bar area. Reuse the existing cooktop. A new wall oven will get put in, and some sort of undermount sink. Floors too - new ceramic tile throughout the first floor which will sweep into the kitchen. Total renovation costs? Less than 10k for sure, probably closer to 7k as I have it estimated now. Granite will be about half that budget as the bar is a huge area on a curve. The other major budget breaker will be the new wall ovens which will be 2-3k typically, unless I can find one on a deal. Other than that, paint is cheap. I will refinish the existing handles on the cabinets and put them back on with silver spraypaint. A sink and new hardware along with garbage disposal won't cost more than $500 for all.
Let's see how well I can stick to that budget, eh? I'll report back later with final costs. =)
