When we moved into our home 17 years ago, it was pretty much a disaster. Peach shag carpeting covered the bedroom floors; dark cabinetry, with doors and drawers threatening to fall off their hinges, graced the tiny square kitchen; flimsy dark paneling covered the basement walls; the windows were ancient and you could hear the wind howl through them with chilly fierceness in the middle of winter; and the bathrooms were in MUCH, MUCH need of updating and TLC! Let's just say it never would have passed the stringent home inspections that are the norm these days. We weren't blind to any of it - we knew what we were getting going in, and frankly, were just fine with it because we knew what we could turn it into - eventually. There was absolutely NO way we could have remodeled it all at once, but by remodeling it in stages, it was both affordable and emotionally do-able.
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Doing your own demo work can save on the cost of your project.
We had a ton of fun as a family doing some of the work together. |
If your budget is limited, start with paint and flooring. We replaced the carpeting in the bedrooms and added colors to the walls. We also took a 4th, small bedroom and turned it into an office right in the middle of our home. Our office started out in the basement, and especially with the dark, panelled walls I mentioned before, that got very depressing and for me, a young mother needing to keep my finger on the pulse of what was going on in the house, working in the basement just wouldn't work. We had a half wall that led to the basement that we built one desk up against and used the closet for an office closet that we kept open and added shelving to. We painted the office a beautiful copper orange color giving it a warm, peaceful, welcoming feeling - a place where we would want to spend many hours in daily. Think ahead to what you are using your rooms for and be sure to make them as inviting and functional as you possibly can.
The next phase of our remodeling involved adding on a 14' x 14' addition to the kitchen and completely gutting the kitchen. We wanted and needed a space where we could gather with family and friends around a nice, big table (we had an 8' table built out of recycled barnwood and have surrounded it with mismatched chairs that we have found at garage or antique sales). With gutting the existing kitchen, we were able to add new flooring and paint the walls easily before cabinetry was installed. We kept the layout of the kitchen to keep costs down regarding moving plumbing and electrical, but we removed soffits and installed new, beautiful cabinetry in a layout that perfectly fit the way we live (baking center, coffee/tea center, bread drawers with liners for dog food, under cabinet lighting, wine rack, etc.). The new addition off of the kitchen is filled with windows all around, so now was also a perfect time to replace all of the windows in the house, which we did with beautiful,
Marvin double-hungs throughout the entire house along with a fabulous sliding door that rolls like butter, screen door too, to this day and two picture windows, one with an eyebrow window above it. It also made sense during this phase, since putting on the addition affected our old deck, to put on a new deck that we have enjoyed many, many meals and fun times with friends and family on.
A few years later, it was definitely time to attack the basement with a completely redesigned overhaul as we had teenagers coming up and needs of our own that we were ready to have met. Randy was tired of sharing a bathroom/shower with three females, so we added a full bathroom to the basement, complete in manly decor, so he could enjoy a bathroom to himself. It includes slate tiles, a rainhead showerhead and masculine colors. We turned another bedroom in the basement into an open craft room/exercise room. By taking down the wall seperating it from the rest of the basement, we gained even more space to comfortably fit a wall of craft cabinets and a treadmill with suspended TV on the opposite wall. Now, I too, have a space to call my own (I do share it on occasion).
Because we wanted our teenagers to feel comfortable having their friends over, we wanted the basement to be a self-contained area where they really had their privacy, so in a space next to the stairs, we included a kitchen complete with a microwave built in under the stairs and a full-size fridge also under the stairs. We even made the most of the bottom space under the stairs for storage of their toys they would want to keep for their own children someday. The cabinetry in this kitchen doubles as storage for our more formal dishes and silverware.
A new laundry room was also included in the overhaul, complete with folding counter, plenty of cabinets and a clothes pole. A new
Kenmore energy efficient washer and dryer set completed the job and the room actually makes doing laundry a pleasure instead of a chore.
We have a third phase that we want to tackle down the road that involves reconfiguring the front porch, turning the deck into a screen room, turning the single car garage into a two-car garage, reroofing the entire house and changing the chain-link fence into a nice, new wooden fence, creating a beautiful backdrop for our gardens. With the recession and the decline in home values, this phase will just have to wait, but someday . . .
Thankfully, with phased remodeling, we've been able to turn what was a disasterous house into the home of our dreams - one we plan to stay and grow old in. With careful planning, you too can avoid the stress of moving multiple times to accommodate the different phases of your life.
Thanks for visiting with me today. Randy and I are both Certified Remodelers and would love to work with you to create a home that is personalized to your life and that grows with you and your family. Visit our
website to learn more about our business and use the
Customer Contact Form to set up an appointment today.
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With death, comes the reminder, again, that we need to live life to its fullest and to enjoy that and those that we hold dearly before it's too late.
We teamed up with James Frangella and ServPro of LaGrange Park / N. Riverside and brought down with us one of our employees, Brandon; the husband of one of Women's Group friends, Steve; our daughter's youth pastor, Kevin; a dear friend of our's, Carrie; and our roofer sent down two of his employees. Along with Jim's team, we had a State Farm employee and her boyfriend, and two men who are part of a real estate investment club and one of their daughter's. Like I said, totally random group, but the most awesome group I could have hoped to work with. There was not one ounce of ego or attitude floating around and we got quite a bit of work done in a pretty short amount of time.
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