Trading a house for a home

If you're not familiar with my adventures in restoration, read my love story post first. Actually, even if you ARE familiar... go re-read that post. It's good context! (I'll wait...)

If you're the kind of person who moves into a house and never changes the paint colors, this post won't resonate with you.  But for the rest of you, you know how it feels to put a little bit of your style into a house. Maybe you've stripped wallpaper or pulled back the carpet to find hardwood floors hidden underneath. A few hours worth of work and you've fixed, cleaned or replaced something. You've made it better.

I bought my last house when I was a young, optimistic, single woman. Over the next four years, I would repair or replace every single wall, ceiling, floor, door, light fixture, electrical outlet and piece of trim. That's no exaggeration.  I gutted all 4 bathrooms and rebuilt them from the floor up.  I gutted and rebuilt the kitchen. I put in all new lighting, floors and major systems (HVAC, roof, electrical panel). I took down walls, fixed beams, and sistered joists. I had help from friends, family, and a few contractors. All told, I spent 208 weekends working on that house.

I saved the place.   And then, not long after I finished, I decided to sell it.

I think a decaying house is like a bad marriage. It takes years of neglect to create the problems, but with hard work, you can almost always fix it. And I believe in fixing what can be fixed. Saving what other people deem "a lost cause."  But, imagine spending 4 years in couples counseling.  After 4 years of hard work, you wake up one morning, look at your partner and realize you have the exact marriage you've always wanted. It's perfect and you're content.  And then you ask for a divorce.

That's exactly what I did.  I sold my house in January of 2014. I just went back for the first time a few weeks ago. Driving up to the house, I felt so many emotions.  The new owners painted the exterior, replacing the sunny yellow with a shade of grayish blue. I'd like to tell you the color is all wrong, but in fact, it looks lovely.  Other than that, it's exactly the same as the day I left.  But, what was once the "love of my life" was now, just a house.

That's the lesson, I think.  A house is just a house. It's 4 walls and a roof.  It keeps you warm and safe and dry. I realize now that after 4 years of restoring that house, I loved it, but it still wasn't a home.  A house becomes a home when it's filled with love, family, memories, laughter, tears, fights, make-ups, dreams and hopes. A home holds all the beauty and love and heart that you bring to it.

After I sold my house, I traveled Europe for 3.5 months. Read about my European meltdown here. And then moved back to Michigan.  I fell madly in love and my life changed forever.   We moved to Chicago and we've created a home filled with laughter, the pitter-patter of little feet, with squeals of joy, family dinners, fights, make-ups, forts, bedtime stories and long discussions about our future.

Rich and I will buy a house soon enough, a place for our family to put down roots. But now I know...anywhere I go with these boys, I'm home.

Let me 'splain...

Wow... my last blog was 3 months ago. May and June were two of the busiest months of my life. I have been putting off updating the blog because I want to tell these long stories for each item.  So, 3 months has gone by.

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. 
Buttercup is marry Hum... wait, that's not right.

Oh, here we go...

I started a new job in late April.  I enjoy the work and really like some of the people I work with.  I miss my old location, my friends, my gym buddies, but I'm meeting great people here, too.  Change is good, right?

I finished my master suite "refresh" (since I didn't knock down any walls, I can hardly call it a renovation.)  It's amazing and everyday, I love walking into my little sanctuary.  I'll post pictures of the finished product soon. 

I also finished the renovation of the upstairs master bedroom and bathroom gut renovation.  I laid new flooring, new vanity, toilet, mirror, plus new closet organizer systems in both closets, new paint, trim, and a new ceiling fan (with remote!).

My new tenant, Amanda, moved in successfully.

In early June, I reached a massive goal... I became a triathlete!  I 'll post a full race report with photos soon.  But, I will say that I'm very proud of myself and I'm training for my second triathlon which is in September!

All in all, life is good. I made it through a busy two months without pulling my hair out.

I'll post more soon, dear readers.   How about you...how has your summer been so far?

Renovation chaos

Renovating always involves chaos. But my current situation takes the cake. In the next 6 weeks I'll renovate my downstairs master suite (bedroom, bathroom, closet and sitting room), move into that master suite, renovate the upstairs master bedroom and bathroom, my current tenant will move out, one new tenant will move in, I need to pick a second tenant and move them in, and I'll refinish my back deck. Oh, and I'll paint/create my own headboard, complete my first triathlon, start a new job and host 2 dinner parties.  Whew! I'm exhausted just typing that.

As stressful as this current situation is, like most renovations, the end result will be wonderful. The send upstairs area will really be the "tenant area" (plus the laundry room and my office) and I'll have a lot of  privacy in the (huge) master suite at the back of the house.

I've made good progress so far.

Step 1 - renovate the master suite downstairs so that I can move into it and begin renovations upstairs.

I started with the closet since it's a small room but packs a lot of punch.  I've updated it with fresh paint, a new light fixture, plush new carpet and a new shelving system.

             

I love it!  At 8'x5', it's also much larger than the closet upstairs and I FINALLY have an area for hanging long dresses. Yay!

Next, I turned my attention to the master bedroom and sitting room.  The walls and ceiling were painted 1980's Miami-Vice inspired blue and pink. Isn't that rad?

i decided to go with a warm neutral palate instead. I painted the ceiling crisp white and the walls a warm taupe color by Behr called Pebbled Courtyard. 

The result is the serene, calm space I was hoping for! 

Next, I updated the blue can lights (that were falling out of the ceiling) to a more sleek, flush mount white can.

I love how they just disappear into the ceiling, the way can lights should!

A few months back, a friend helped me install a new ceiling fan which I think looks great in the new space. It's not crooked in real life... bad photographer!
I also LOVE that the fan has a remote for the light and fan! It makes me feel spoiled for the low price of $129.

Now that the bedroom, sitting room and closet were up to par, I turned my attention to the small deck off the master suite. I day dream about drinking my morning coffee out there, listening to the birds chip, maybe doing some yoga.

The deck, however, does not inspire me to do any of those things.  It was filthy, covered in mildew and algae, filthy and had no redeeming qualities.

 After a 90 minutes and the business end of a powerwasher, it was at least clean and free of mildew.

I decided to use a deck paint instead of stain to get great coverage. The wood is not in great shape and I really wanted a uniform surface that covered the grain. I decided on Porch and Deck paint in a color called Chocolate.

This is how it looks in indirect light (and still wet).

This morning, in direct morning sunshine, it looked like this.  

I can't decide if it's too light or just right...

So there's a bit about my progress.  I have a LONG to do list and not enough hours in the day. I need to get back to work.

To be continued.... 

Renovation, a love story

It's been 3 years this month since I bought my house. And that milestone has me doing some reflection. I'm 34 and single, so this house might just be the greatest love of my life.  The story of how we met is a story worth telling...

I bought my first house when I was 24. It was a gorgeous little Craftsman bungalow in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta.  At just 984 square feet, it was my tiny sanctuary in the big city.  It never felt quite like home, though.  It had 3 fireplaces, tiny closets and no insulation.  In the winter, my feet froze to the floor and I could see my breath in the air.  It was more of a "fixer- upper" than I could handle, so I sold it 18 months later and pocketed a nice profit.

After a few years of renting in the 'burbs, I decided to come back to the city.  Rents were high, so I started looking for cheap houses to buy.  Once day in the fall of 2009, I saw my house and fell in love.  It was a gorgeous day and I pulled up and snapped the below picture. 

 

A beautiful yellow 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom 2-story Colonial Victorian.  All I could see was the charm, the porch and the space!  2300 square feet... including a huge 500 square-foot master suite added on to the back of the house. (It's hard to see, but you can just make out the roof line above the top of the fence in the above photo.)

But once I opened the front door, I was shocked back to reality.  This gorgeous exterior hid a myriad of issues inside.  The entire house was run down and in need of a ton of TLC. I learned it was bank owned and had been vacant for almost 3 years.  The house had been on the market for 1.5 years with no offers.

The kitchen drawers were full of business cards from realtors showing the house... along with rusty old razor blades and packets of jello. Standing in the disgusting kitchen, I took out my hand sanitizer because I just felt dirty.  Wouldn't you?

  

The windows were boarded up, the tile floors were cracked, the french doors were boarded shut, the walls were smeared with god knows what. In the upstairs master bedroom, hundreds of eyes were drawn on the walls. That was so creepy, it almost sent me running.  The fence and retaining wall had fallen over on one side of the property and the crawlspace was completely full with books, debris, and thousands of cans of paint.

There were dozens - no, HUNDREDS- of problems with this house. Big things like the kitchen and small things like every single closet door was missing. Every room was painted drab, dark colors or crazy neon green and orange. Most people would walk into this house and walk straight back out. But I'm not most people.

I didn't see the problems. I saw the potential. 

I saw a gracious southern front porch just begging for a rocking chair. 
I saw a 21'x15' living room filled with light from 7 windows!
I thought that if I tore down 2 walls on the main floor, I could create a large open concept kitchen and dining room that opened into the living room. 
I knew the very creepy eyes could be painted over and the crazy tile and laminate floors could be replaced. 

It never occured to me to run (though maybe it should have).  But, I was in love!  So, I made an offer that day and closed 2 months later.

We've had a rocky love story, my house and me.  In the beginning, I would wander from room to room and feel a crushing sense of dread.  "What have I gotten myself into?" I'd ask myself. Every light fixture needed replacing, every outlet was painted over. If I touched something, it broke. Fixtures fell off the ceiling, toilets leaked, one of the sinks only provided hot water, no cold.

The sheer volume of work that needed to be done was so overwhelming I couldn't breathe.  In those early days, I'd come to the empty house after work and busy myself until the wee hours, sanding, staining and installing new cabinetry in the kitchen.  One night, I sat in the middle of the empty living room and cried. I like to think it was exhaustion, but my house and I know better.  I was scared to death.

It sounds silly to say I made a deal with a house that night. But that's what I did. I made a deal that if the house would trust me and give me time, I'd fix it all. Not overnight, mind you, but in time, I'd fix it all.  I picked myself off the floor and walked from room to room slowly. It was like I was making peace with the house and with the task at hand.  My earlier tears were gone.  I was calm.  I wrote lists in each room of everything that needed to be done. When I was done, I had 33 pages in my notebook of things to be fixed, updated, repaired, or replaced.  So, I got to work crossing items off the list one by one.
I haven't stopped for 3 years. Almost every weekend, this is what you'll find at my house...

When I think back to those early days, I think of how much I've changed, how much I've accomplished in this house, and how much my neighborhood has changed. When I moved in, several houses across the street were boarded up and covered in grafitti.  A few others were abandoned.  I used to drag my mower across the street every week and mow the lawns of the abandoned houses. I shoo'd my share of homeless people from my backyard and from my neighbors houses and yards.

I've restored my house room by room with love and it looks great. I've spent more time and money than I care to admit.  I still have a lot of work ahead of me. 

But, occasionally, I look around this house and realize that I brought it back from the brink. Lil' old me! 

The best part?  I feel like I'm exactly where I belong.   I'm home...and madly in love.