We just moved in, and before I could unwrap the newspaper from a plate, Matthew had kicked a hole in the wall between our partially cooked pizza-dinner and the football game on TV in the living room…
Now that we’re in the AP (After Pia) days, all house renovations have seized and baby proofing the house has taken over. When we took a break from stuffing diapers in coffee table holes and positioning hand sanitizer bottles in every room we looked around and realized how much reno we did in such a short period of time. The not-so-genius idea of us hosting Christmas for both families that year was the main reason we renovated on sonic speed (5 months), not to mention we found out baby was on the way. The most surprising of it all was the fact that we did this with no prior experience. We didn’t even own a hammer and the extent of Matthews’ handiwork was hanging a TV mount (which was a complete fail by the way).
Despite our amateurish skill-set, we pulled it off with the help of LOTS of YouTube videos, a million Face-Time calls to my dad, and an unhealthy amount of trips to Home Depot.
That wall you see to the right, yeah, that is the wall that was blocking Matthew’s view of the game (RIP to all that drywall).
The previous owners liked brown… as you can see, we did not.
We tore down two walls and built an enclosing around the fridge (drywall is… not for us). 50% of the cabinets were no good and the other 50% Matthew destroyed pulling them off the walls. Luckily, Lowes sells cabinets you can just “easily” build. And we can’t be Fixer Upper fans and NOT have a farmhouse sink.. so there you go.
The layout of the island changed several times; basically, Matthew and my dad brought me realistic measurements to my unrealistic imagination. But LOOK… we can see the TV now. Very important.
The angled “breakfast bar” really irked me and it had to go. We lengthened the countertops against the wall and wrapped it around the side for EXTRA storage… because who doesn’t want extra space to hoard things?
Although we are not finished, we thought we’d share our progress so far! What do you guys think?
Special note to my Dad, THANK YOU times a million for flying down here from Idaho and helping with the renovation. Also, extra thank you’s for answering every FaceTime call & email at all hours of the day. There will always be beer and gin & tonic stocked for your every visit. We love you!
