I struggled for a few hot minutes on what to title this post. Should I title it, "The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Home Renovating" or frankly, "Home Renovation Turned my Preschooler into a Monster"? The first seemed a little too vague and the latter a little overdramatic and harsh. The reality: home renovating is totally fun, awesomely rewarding, and a complete life ruiner of well-established rules and good intentions. Let me paint this picture for you (Eminem? Why not?) Here are the ways
Read MoreIntroducing how I trusted my own gut and thought it would be a barrel of fun to paint a massive brick fireplace and then realized I had been completely duped by my own risk vs. reward meter. Our lovely 1980's home would not have been a true renovation if I hadn't addressed the huge elephant in the room. That elephant was brick. One big ole wall of it. Brown, black, red, and outdated. I knew right away I was going to be searing Pinterest for inspiration. I'd seen it a million times, it couldn't be too hard. I considered renting a paint sprayer to tackle all of the paintwork throughout the house, but our small town resources provided nil. Because I was trying to do my part and be frugal, buying a sprayer didn't seem within reason.
Read MoreOnce we'd decided that we would take on a "fixer upper", I immediately envisioned myself taking a hammer or ax to the walls that we would want to remove. Heck, maybe I would even try to remove the wall by running through it. That's how it's done on tv right? Wrong. Our "new" house was built in 1980 and the number of updates that had been done prior to our name being added to the Deed was mostly superficial. The master bathroom had been redone and at some point, the carpeting had been replaced. What was still intact was the dark stain, original dark oak-ey cabinetry, some chopped up rooms, and wall to wall wallpaper that
Read MoreI NEVER want to build a house. Ever. I took on a kitchen renovation over the summer and it just about killed me. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to many more renovation projects in my future, but I will use some major lessons learned from this little endeavor and get myself a serious grip on reality before just jumping right on in there. One of the most important things I learned was..
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