Our First House

And now:

Clearly the seller's photography skills and wide angle lens exceed my capabilities as we will see. I think the biggest improvement we made this year is the little red thing sitting in the front.

So we did it! We finally made the exhilarating and blindly enthusiastic jump into mortgage slavery! I'm so happy with our new house, it is so much nicer than I thought we would end up with, and my favorite part is the perfect location in Murray. We decided early on to buy a fixer upper house and put some sweat equity into it because.. why not? There's nothing holding us back right now and both of us are motivated. As I write this post a month after buying the house, the value seems to have already risen. A house with the same floorplan down the street with a much smaller yard just went up for sale for 110k more than what we got ours for. The problem with this house was it showed terribly, and the owner just couldn't sell it with the cosmetic issues. It also had a good animal stink, so it sat on the market for a while. We saw through the stink, and got a great deal.

  We made our reno budget and set out at full speed to get started. So far we've made lots of progress. First thing we did was rip out that nasty carpet and scrub SCRUB the walls and bathrooms. Garrett introduced me to the SLC landfill.

Now that the floors are sealed and the cabinets ripped out, the smell has vanished. We came across an unexpected mouse problem that made the cabinet change a requirement. Once the cabinets were out, we set traps, and now that they're out we can stop the holes with steel wool.

 Hopefully they don't ever come back. I'm glad we get a brand new kitchen out of it. Yay for sudden expensive surprises!

Garrett and I spend every day now after work going to the house and staying late, alternating between quiet hard work, having fun, and fighting about what changes to make. It's such a huge overwhelming project, thank goodness we don't have a move-in deadline.
Currently we're working on patching all the walls before paint, and the process seems never ending. It probably doesn't help that Garrett is perfectionist and won't settle for a hair less than professional. I love it. And his dance moves.

Painting the ceiling was an adventure. I think we probably would have hired that one out if we knew how much work it would be, but I guess there was something empowering about tackling the challenge. We have a lot of vaulted ceilings throughout the house.

Luckily we have some awesome friends who volunteered to come help us out. Spencer came and was a huge help with the ceiling, and Mitch came and helped with the endless walls and edging. 

Garrett finally got tired of waiting for me to tackle the basement and geared up to face off with the mice once and for all. He tore out all the ceiling insulation, all the wood on the shelves, and scrubbed it all with bleach water. I think we might actually win this one.

We were pretty ragged by the time we got to flooring. I must admit I was shamelessly useless with this part. I tried to help but it usually ended up with him frustrated at me, and me frustrated with myself. There's just not a lot two people can do at once since you can only lay one piece at a time. I also was shamefully afraid of using the big saws. I opted to use most of my time more usefully by picking up extras at work. We found our underlaiment was terribly uneven, and Garrett spend about 3 days just trying to fix the bad parts with leveling compound. What a headache.

Once we got the carpet in we both breathed a huge sigh of relief. It looked so much less like a construction site. It was deceiving though- we still have a lot to go. Garrett also installed the sink and plumbing/gas lines in the kitchen. His hands were always covered in band aids from all the bleeding sores he got while trying to install things. It was terrible.

Ken was kind enough to come and help us out every weekend and whenever he could. He pretty much knows how to do everything. 

I will post some before and after shots of the house here, but I will be adding to it during the next few months. The living area is coming along, but I want to have it finished before I try to show it off. The other rooms are not finished either, but I'll post pictures anyways. We still need to add all the finishing touches like rugs and wall hangings. I also need to find some small tables and chairs to fit into empty spots in the house.

Update 10/9/17:

I finally posted the "finished" pictures. I say that in quotations because is a house ever really finished? Just when a room fits my initial vision, my vision changes. Oh well. I will say that I was really actually all worth it after all! Not a day goes by that I don't think of how grateful I am to have my own little heaven on earth for baby-lou to explore and grow up in. I often reflect on the fact that my 'wants' at this point are truly non-essential for happiness, and only there as a goals to work towards rather than deficiencies of some sort. And the reality is that it should have always been that way from the beginning. Perfection is an attitude, and I feel like I've learned that nothing satisfies me more than gratitude and contentment with the wonderful little world available to us, here and now.

Front room before:

Front room after:

Family Room before:

Family Room after:

Kitchen before:After:

Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

I couldn't resist the pic showing off my favorite part of the master bath...

Master bathroom before:

After:

Nursery before: 

Nursery after:

I'm thinking with kid #2 we'll have to move the nursery into the office room, because this space is too small for the nice rocker couch Garrett got me. It just seems too crammed.

Kids bathroom before:

Kids bathroom after: (just paint is all)