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Shopping Day
Shopping Day

Today was the first day that all the pieces of the vision physically started to come together. We visited a bunch of showrooms and specialty stores with Alex’s mom to start picking out the kitchen island design, countertops, flooring, backsplash, lighting, and ideas for appliances (not to mention window quotes which we’ve been gathering over the past month and decor ideas that I’ve been compiling).

Just a few stores we visited:

On Sunday, we covered the garage in painter’s plastic and applied one coat of this BEHR ultra pure white semi-gloss to the cabinets. Starting with the edges and corners, we used a paintbrush to get all the crevices and polyester rollers to fill in the rest. We’re already loving how it looks with the gold hardware and can’t wait to start applying additional coats this weekend.

We’re also meeting with Shay the electrician tomorrow to start planning lighting.

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Demolition Day
Demolition Day

We’ve officially hired Jeremy Cooper as our general contractor! We met with quite a few other contractors, but we ultimately chose Jeremy for his rapport with Alex’s mom after helping her with quite a few projects.

The first order of business was removing the massive fireplace and water heater which occupied the entryway and living room. It was a 3-day process, but as soon as it was removed, the house instantly opened up with the light of potential beaming down on us. Now that it’s gone, we know that we have space for a 4 ft.x 10 ft. kitchen island with one support pillar integrated into it.

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Prime Time
Prime Time

Another 3-day weekend, another long day with the cabinets. We removed the doors from the master bedroom wardrobe and unscrewed the ugly round knobs. We also continued stripping the paint and applying primer (big day!). It was so refreshing to finally see some clean white surfaces. We used a from Sherwin-Williams and foam rollers from an Amazon kit. It was a 2-day process with Alex finishing up over half of the cabinets the next day while I worked a full day at the TCAs press event.

Highlights of the day:

  • While cleaning out the garage, we unearthed a fax machine and a box of floppy discs.

  • McDonald’s $1 menu + chicken nuggets + fries

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Byeee Termites + Early Ideas
Byeee Termites + Early Ideas

Termite removal started today and should be done today! Mold removal last week took a few extra days than expected because they discovered more that needed to be removed. Ew.

Last Saturday, we spent a few hours removing more dead tree roots and filling up all THREE of our trash cans.

Before dinner reservations at Fogo de Chao to celebrate Alex’s recent promotion, we stopped by Home Depot, Room & Board, and HD Buttercup for interior design inspiration and appliance research.

Also this week, we hired a caterer, we’re reaching out to decorators and furniture suppliers, and my wedding dress is ready to go!

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Byeee Mold
Byeee Mold

We started mold removal yesterday, and it's wrapping up today. It's mostly in the ceiling of the bathroom, lower cabinets in the hallway closet and kitchen, and one side of the garage wall. Ew.

We also moved the trash, recycling, and yard bins in and out for collection for the very first time!

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Backyard Clean-up
Backyard Clean-up

To celebrate the new year, we bought a shovel and trimming shears from Home Depot and set to work cleaning up the backyard. We only had enough time to get our hands dirty for an hour, but it felt so good to start making progress. Everything is incredibly dead, dry, and brittle, so every little bit of uprooting helps.

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Done Deal
Done Deal

We just signed all the paperwork and closing costs with escrow. Just a few more days to process it all and then we'll get the keys!!!

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1st Project: The Cabinets
1st Project: The Cabinets

Alex and I took advantage of the long Thanksgiving weekend to kick off the first of our many home improvement projects. After researching and testing the process out on one of the cabinets on our apartment balcony, we removed all the kitchen cabinets and doors. There were a lot.

We set up shop in the garage, blasted the “Hamilton” soundtrack, and got to work removing all the hardware. We put on disposable gloves and applied some paint stripper to each with a disposable paintbrush, scraped the paint off, applied another layer, scraped more, and discovered a goopy yellow paint underneath it all. Turns out, it’s some kind of wood primer that had a strange reaction to the paint stripper, turning it into a clay-like substance. After more scraping and wiping, Alex sanded them down with a Dewalt orbit sander. On the bigger pantry doors, we used Strypeeze which was much more potent and required us to wear a safety mask. Repeat repeat repeat.

After about 4 hours, we were ready for some Korean soup!

The next day, Alex and I went back to the house with our McDonald’s breakfast. We continued stripping the paint with sturdier tiling gloves and a more potent stripper. It was a little easier this time around, and we managed to get 90% of it done. Our plan is to start priming the cabinets this weekend.

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