House Update 2: Starting to Rebuild

Today marks 3 weeks of owning the house. It kind of blows my mind when I think about all we’ve done in those weeks. It’s an incredibly short time but already feels longer than that.

This week has been filled with a bunch of progress that doesn’t exactly feel or look like much. You know–when electrical and plumbing stuff takes place. And it’s really a lot of work but it’s just not as easy to see or (if you’re me) understand the progress taking place. But we’ve also done a few more visible things along the way–like getting the studs out of the arch. 🙂

I’m really excited about how this is looking. When the living room curtains are opened, you can see an arched window inside this arch which is really fun.

This week’s decisions and progress on my part has included figuring out a lighting plan for the whole upstairs so all the wiring and boxes could be placed and figuring out where I wanted switches and outlets. Again, not much to show visibly, but lots of hard work.

We also had to figure out faucets/valves and tubs so the plumbing can be placed. And while I like to think about shower heads and faucets as finishes, apparently they come into play earlier in the process than I realized.

We also looked at our kitchen drawings so our fully custom kitchen cabinets can be cut. (Wahoo!) It’s going to be amazing. I’m also more opinionated about kitchen sinks than I realized. I went with an undermount with a low divide that wasn’t too deep so I can easily wash dishes but still have the option to use half the sink. Originally I wanted a 60/40 divide because to 60 portion is better for pots and pans, but I think the low divide in a 50/50 will still give me that flexibility.

Chad has also been framing in the new master, troubleshooting lots of electrical mysteries, and relocating the washer/dryer hookups since we had to flip the layout of the laundry room.

Picking up about 4 feet in the master bedroom and a more functional walk-in closet. The window will be split between the room and the closet.

And of course, you can’t forget date night. We got a babysitter so Chad and I could peel wallpaper–super romantic. 😉 But it needed to be done and it was good to feel like I was helping instead of just bringing chaos (i.e. children) into the project.

Date night peeling wallpaper. Now that’s true love.

So now we’re just about ready to hang drywall, which is always one of my favorite parts of a renovation because it’s when you really start to see the visual changes. Wahoo!