As my time in this house nears the end, it’s more important than ever that I’m updating the blog. Regularly…even if it’s just small posts with tiny updates. No matter the project scale, it all matters greatly to me. I’ve mentioned my want to chronicle the journey – for all the reasons already expressed. No need to rehash. But ultimately, I’m sharing to have a historical view back on the journey, to bring you along with the updates (you’ve been here with me from day 1 too!) and because it’s an emotional outlet. Writing blog posts is my therapy.

Well, that and the gym…which I desperately need to get back to. This girl needs some serious mental therapy in the gym AND my body is showing signs of someone who hasn’t been to the gym in a year.

Since updating the front yard last month, I’ve been busy gathering quotes from contractors, painters and landscapers. After communicating with my real estate agent about my dream list of projects, I’ve narrowed my focus to the most critical improvements that will certainly make the biggest impact…and hopefully, bring in the best sale price.

BIG IMPROVEMENTS

There is going to be a TON of work going on this month. It’s all getting crammed in. So be ready for a high volume of home improvement type blog posts!

The BIG improvements I’ll be focused on for the month of April are:

New Flooring

New Kitchen Counter / Backsplash

New Shower / Vanity in the Original Master Bedroom

Interior Paint Touch-Ups

Exterior Paint

New Trees, Mulch, Outdoor Clean-Up

SMALL IMPROVEMENTS

Thinning out the house contents I’m keeping

Selling items I’m not keeping

Organizing the crap out of this place (no pressure that a pro organizer lives here or anything – ha!)

Little handyman fixes

Repairing a window pane

Other small randoms…

NEW FLOORING

Basically, if I wasn’t already busy enough or on my feet all day as is…it’s about to ramp up big time. Heck, I may not even need to hit the gym afterall. 🙂

Anyway, today we are talking about the new flooring. Because it started today!!

Finally – TODAY!

After weeks of talking about it, new floors are going in on the lower level. It’s the main level / original structure of the house. The previous owners added the 2 story portion of the house. What used to be the garage is now the playroom….

And where you see the screened-in patio outside the french doors…that used to be a garage utility room…

You can see more of the patio here…

The 2nd floor leads to my home office, the master bedroom and bath.

While I don’t love the flooring upstairs (which is the same flooring as the playroom), it was cost-effective to leave it alone and focus on getting the downstairs flooring to be all one type.

Couldn’t be more excited to see this transformation because it will truly be exactly that. Wait until you get a glimpse of the before. It’s downright bad, guys!

Pretty sure in the almost 6 years of living here – I’ve never shared the flooring situation. Other than adding carpet to 3 of the 4 downstairs bedrooms back in August 2013…

And adding carpet tiles in the screened-in patio early Spring 2014, nothing flooring-related has happened…

The main level of the house has a variety of flooring – both good and terrible – and am so excited to see it streamlined and beautiful!

These images aren’t pretty. I snapped them while we were demo’ing the baseboards today and they are unedited. Excuse any background messes. It’s going to be a fricking mess around here for the next several days.

The playroom and upstairs has this hickory flooring…

It’s really not my favorite. I definitely prefer something lighter, less orange and a wider plank. But I’ve made it work all these years.

From the playroom, it connects to the kitchen where there is original parquet in a totally different color. There is one pattern here in the kitchen…

Yet another pattern here in the entry…

Then there is something totally different heading up the hallway to the 4 bedrooms…

And something different between the living room and the kitchen…

Yep, I’m scratching my head too.

Oh – I can’t forget to mention the 2 large sections of flooring that were cut out and replaced (in crap-fashion) by the previous owners during inspection. There was powder post beetle damage in 2 sections of flooring in the living room and kitchen. We were at the tail end of inspections and the previous owners had a long list of costly fixes…so at the last minute they threw this together and it stayed this way for 6 years. Why? Remember that dream of ultimately updating the kitchen? I figured when the kitchen happened, the flooring would as well.

So bad, right?

You can see why updating the flooring my top priority and also the biggest cost on my improvement list – coming in around $16k. I’m putting in new baseboards, with the old baseboards coming up this morning. They are all off now…and it’s making me very VERY excited! Progress…

For the flooring, my floor guy (who is AWESOME by the way) helped me locate a few options on clearance. I went with the lighter of the 2 choices he suggested. I chose an LVP flooring – Luxury Vinyl Plank Flooring – and chose a waterproof option due to the pool. I’ve always wanted better flooring that could withstand the kids running in and out from the pool, so the new owners should appreciate that.

Can’t wait to share the progress as this unfolds.

Hope you guys are doing well! Back soon with more!

xx,

Sam