Our yard was finally cleaned up from the massive hurricane and we could let our minds return to the work we wanted to tackle in the interior of our home. I mentioned earlier that although the home gave us so many feels when we bought it, I couldn’t stop myself from visualizing changes I wanted to make to our 1991 colonial so it felt more like us.
Thanks to this pesky thing called a budget, we had to prioritize our list of updates. It would have been impossible to tackle it all in one remodel. While we debated how quickly we needed to tackle certain line items, there were a few we immediately agreed to complete before we moved in…namely scraping all of the popcorn ceilings, updating the flooring, removing a wall, widening a doorway and updating the kitchen. We know any home improvement project causes disruptions if you are living in the house while it happens, so we felt great relief being able to cross these major jobs off the list before a single box was moved in.
Almost every surface of the house, including the garage, was covered in popcorn ceilings. We couldn’t wait to see them go.
Original hardwood floors in the front of the house ran into carpet and faux tile throughout the rest of the home. That would all go…along with the wall above separating part of the kitchen from the great room.
The door to the left in this photo would be removed, and the opening into the kitchen would be widened to 6 feet.
Here is a view of the kitchen from the eat-in area. To the left, right out of frame, is the wall that would come down. And visually hidden by the wall oven is the door into the dining room area that will be removed and widened.
We also wanted to give the entire house (ceilings, walls, doors and trim) a fresh coat of paint and swap out all of the outdated and mismatched door hardware, light switches and electrical outlets. Updating all of the lighting and ceiling fans throughout the home was also on our list.
By the way, I can almost feel some of you shaking your head at the thought of us replacing ceiling fans instead of swapping them out for more visually appealing light fixtures haha, but I stand firm on keeping the ceiling fans in our home…especially since we are living in the south. I am not saying it is the right choice for everyone, but I’m pretty sure Pete would riot without one in our bedroom. ;) Don’t worry. I promise the replacement fan looks a little bit better than this one.
