Day 2 Progress (12/1/10)

We started our morning running up tp Home Depot to get a wall paper steamer and then going to Papa Murphy's with Evan, his preschool had a field trip there.  They got a tour and then got to make their own mini pizza's to bring home.

I took off the border in the kitchen quickly with the steamer, those things are amazing and well worth the money!  Then I went on to fix all kinds of holes in the walls.  Mike replaced light fixtures and removed all kinds of old things in the house. 

Pam came over to check out the new house and we convinced her to come back and help us!  She came back for the evening and I had one of the bedroom's ready to prime!  This was so exciting to paint over the ugly pink sponge paint!!

Evan got to help, he was so excited!!!  He went through a couple paint brushes and managed to get it on him jammies so we made a rule that he could not paint in him clothes so they wouldn't get ruined.

This was just the start of our late nights!  We setup a pack and play in one of the bedrooms and put Kate to bed at her normal time - 6:45.  Evan gets to stay up, we always hope that he will get tired and fall asleep but that is not happening!  So we normally stay until about 10:00 and then go back home.

Keep your eye on the prize

Plans for the future of our home:
1) Add a larger garage (double deep and 2 cars wide) - Mike's want :)
2) Add a front porch, which will probably wrap around the side of the house due to the setback rules in Inver Grove - Renae's want :)
3) Add a second floor above the house and garage with 4 bedrooms
4) Convert the main level (current existing level) to kitchen, dining room, living room, office, and half bath

We're hoping to do it in stages to keep the costs down each time.  All area's kind of tie together so it will be interesting to see if we can do them separately.  I keep thinking 5 years in my head of when we would have it done, I'm hoping sooner though!

Day 1 Progress (11/30/10)

The stinky broken dishwasher has been removed!

The laminate flooring in the kitchen has been removed...bring on the layers of old vinyl!

Lovely flower border - GONE!  It was not fun to remove, so I have plans for a steamer in the morning to take off the kitchen border!

Oh sad the lighthouse cabinet is gone!  Any takers on that one???? :)

Our little helper and his setup! 

I spent way too much time removing the floral border which cemented my decision to rent a steamer in the morning.  I woke up with very sore fingers the next morning from all the peeling.

Before Pictures (11/30/10)

Living Room

Kitchen

Eat in Kitchen Area

Dining Room or 3rd Bedroom

Bathroom

 

Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Downstairs Family Room

Downstairs Bathroom

Downstairs Bedroom

Storage

Laundry Room

More Storage



Closing Day! (11/30/10)

On Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 we closed on our new house!  Our closing was early afternoon, it went fairly smooth - one hiccup with the payment amount and as it turned out it was lower than expected so we will take it!  We went right over to the house and started working!

We look excited to start working!!  I have the rest of the week off work and Mike has the rest of the week through Wednesday of the next week off work!  It'll be a good start to our project!

Let's Buy a New House! (10/23/10)

I've been wanting to buy a new house for some time now.  I do like our house on Conroy Way, however there are multiple things about it that I dislike :)  Just to name a few....the DRIVEWAY, the hill of a street, the bedroom situation (only 2 on each level), carrying my groceries through the whole house just to get from the garage to the kitchen, the steps - whatever I need is ALWAYS on the other level, it never fails my cell phone always seems to ring from downstairs while I am up!  I could go on, like a master bath and walk in closet would be nice!  This house doesn't have much potential to do what we want with it because of how it is setup, can't really add onto the back because then we would be doing up and down due to the split entry and that would be very expensive.  I'd like to add on above the garage, but really in the end it is still not EXACTLY what I want so why keep putting money into the house when we will never get it out!

In late October I started asking around to my friends and family if they had any idea's of how we could sell our house in order to buy a new one.  Due to the poor economy at this time our home value is much lower than what we owe on the house, therefore we are not able to sell the house for what we need to get.  My cousin, Erin, suggested we eliminate some debt in order to help us qualify for another lower mortgage while we still own our current home.  Mike did some checking online and lone behold we do qualify for another mortgage!  At the same time there was a house for sale on 73rd Street in Inver Grove that would fit our needs.

I have been saying it would be nice to get a small rambler in a nice location with a flat yard, then we could add onto it and make it what we want.  This house on 73rd Street was that house!  We called on Saturday, October 23rd and looked at the house and by end of day Sunday we were putting in an offer!!  Now it was a little scary, the house needs some work and is SMALL!!  I have to keep telling myself to keep my eye on the prize and dream of what it will be like in the future.

In a week's time we had an accepted offer from the selling bank and approved financing.  This was a very stressfull week and a lot of waiting! 

So now we wait until the end of November - the 30th - to close on our new house.  One month of relaxing before the work begins!!  Mike and I love projects so we will definitely be busy with this one!

The new house!