So You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about…don’t worry…I’m about to tell you.
Before I explain exactly what I’m talking about, I’ll give you a little background on the crazies (i.e. Gabe & I ) who took on this ginormous reno project we will hopefully, eventually call our forever home.
Back in 2013, when Gabe & I were young, childless DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids), about a year after we relocated to Kentucky for Gabe’s job, we decided to begin looking for our first home. I was teaching high school Family & Consumer Science at the time, and Gabe was a fresh PhD grad teaching Kinesiology at Northern Kentucky University. We moved to Kentucky not quite sure how we were going to feel about it long-term, because after all, we knew nothing about Kentucky, but we were willing to give it a shot. We were pretty broke from paying school loans and living on my ridiculously small first-few-years teacher’s salary while Gabe was in grad school, so we decided we’d rent for a year and let the pieces fall as they may. Well, the dang pieces sure fell, as we lived in an old rental house owned by the university. The house had character, but it was old and it was a rental. It most definitely had it’s own, well, shall we say ‘unique’ qualities (forest green laminate counter tops, creepy basement, airplane-sized bathroom, and orange living room, to mention a few). We were itching to buy our own home.
Fortunately for us, although we didn’t have a ton in the bank, we both had a solid employment history, good credit (which meant we could secure a bank loan), and we were willing to get our hands dirty and put work into a fixer-upper. In 2013, the housing market was on the rise, but was still flooded with foreclosures due to the residual effects of the 2007-2008 economic crash. For us, it was the perfect time to buy. We actually had no desire to look at move-in-ready homes because we knew that we’d want to put our own touches on whatever house we bought. As anyone who has gone through the home-buying process knows, we went through our share of ups and downs making offers and losing bidding wars. After nearly losing the house we eventually ended up buying (story for another blog post), we had found our diamond in the rough. And boy, was it rough! The chief problem with the house was the overwhelming (choking) cigarette smoke smell & tar caked everywhere, which is likely why it sat on the market for so long. You’d never know from the pictures, but the house needed a LOT of TLC. We scrubbed, primed, painted, ripped out, resurfaced, and reinstalled, virtually every surface in the house. Lots of dad-calling and YouTube-ing later, we learned a ton. Things to do, things not to do, and things we’d do differently next time. It took lots of elbow grease, plenty of tears, and whole lot of love to turn this house into the home of our dreams. We did it in about 4 years, all on our own, and only contracted out the granite countertop installation and a cabinet maker for our custom master bath vanity. For first time home buyers, it was a TON of work and we are HECKA proud of how far we’ve come. I’ll save the details of our first home reno for another post!
Our first home (2013)! Looks great, right?! If you oooooonly knew what it SMELLED like on the inside!
Our first home (2013)! Don’t you just love the mustard kitchen?!
Our first home (2013)! Notice the black spots on the wall in the great room? Yes…cigarette smoke!
Enough of that. Let’s get to what brought you here (I think)…our latest project.
After 2 babies and a few (as I like to call them) relocating scares for Gabe’s job, we were able to take a huge sigh of relief and make the long-term decision to stay put here in Kentucky. (And they all said, AMEN!) Prior, I preemptively left my high school teaching career after 9 years, in anticipation of a major relocation as well as a 2nd baby. Now that moving was off the table, we had to make a decision as to what to do next. Should we stay in our current 4 bed/3 bath house in a quiet residential neighborhood, or get back into the housing market and look for another fixer-upper with a little more land? Since we’re here, I think you can guess the answer to that one!
Although we were no longer DINKs, we had two kids under three, and had a perfectly comfortable, updated house, we started looking again. It took us nearly a year and some expectation adjusting to find what we were looking for. As Murphy’s Law would have it, we finally found (a little more than) what we bargained for at the craziest, busiest time of the year— an almost 40-year-old custom built house that sat on two beautiful acres on a residential street in Boone County. It was a cape cod/chalet style mother of all fixer-uppers that had good bones, but needed a LOADS of work. With a 3 year old and 10 month old in tow, we looked at each other and said, “why not?”. So, right smack dab in the middle of my busy craft show season and the holidays, we were under contract.
In the next post (part 2) , I’ll share the details of the house and our progress so far.
Our second & current fixer-upper (Photo courtesy of listing)