I'm sorry to say that I've discontinued this blog. The home was sold in 2012.

You can see the listing video here:
http://youtu.be/Smg2qlhCuhA

Most of my investment in updates in the home did not pay off because of the adjustment in the market, among other factors. I wasn't renovating the home with intentions of making a quick profit or flipping it; I thought I'd be living there for longer than we did. But personal issues led to the decision to sell the house right away rather than stay in it.

I learned a lot from these renovations. Interestingly, at resale, the one renovation that plagued the deal the most was one that was completed by the homeowner previous to me. Always check on outstanding permits when buying a home! I believe your realtor should do this for you. I'm not sure who dropped the ball when I bought the home, but it haunted me when I was selling it and I almost got stuck paying for fixes from the one project I didn't even do.

I'm sad that I never got to make this plan a reality but am glad I didn't put any more money into the home than I already did.

Hoped for:

Before:

After:

I've since moved into a townhouse and continue redecorating, working in IT and spending time with my animals.

Currently getting estimates for interior painting. The whole house. After getting screwed by a Groupon painting deal (alert: Groupon only gives refunds in the form of Groupon 'bucks' and do not ever use Eric's Painting out of Franklin, MA, who never responded to my multiple attempts to contact them), I got all excited about having the bedrooms painted that I decided to just go for it and do the whole thing.

I also finally have an electrician coming this week to not only fix the baseboard heat that's been broken for forever now (thank G-d for a mild winter) but is also installing ceiling lights in the bedrooms where we currently do not have ceiling lights. I'm very excited about the lights I picked out so I'll definitely be posting pics of those once they're in.

Here's a preview:

For Emily's room:



For the guest room:



For our room (but will be flush mount):



If all goes well, these should all be installed on Tuesday. Cross fingers! (just one hand, 2 is bad luck!)

Better pics of the new backsplash... (and the new battery operated under-cabinet lighting which though looks ok, doesn't all stick that great or stay lit for some reason. oh well, it'll do)


Hubby needs a full pot of coffee while I like the single cups...




Just went shopping. Yeah, we like snacks and lack cabinet space...

Kitchen back splash is done - YAY! I absolutely love it - it's fun, fresh, cute, gives our bland kitchen so much character. Amazing what a simple update can do. So excited! I can honestly say that I love this house now.






But it's so pretty that we need to highlight the tile and get some under cabinet lighting. Something battery operated because I'm done paying contractors. (though my next call is to an HVAC person because we're having heating issues now).

Better pictures soon when we get everything cleaned up and all put together (don't I always say that?)

animals enjoying the fire...

Why don't I get notified when people leave comments? Hrmmmmm...

I should have 2 more updates coming up within the next couple of weeks. We are replacing the 30 year old wood stove and adding kitchen back splash. I think we're going with a glass tile mosaic from Best Tile:

http://www.besttile.com/index.php?mact=Products,cntnt01,details,0&cntnt01productid=338&cntnt01returnid=16



Ignore left over birthday decorations hanging from pot racks. And all the clutter. :-\

I've been to Best Tile about half a dozen times in the past few months. Coming home with many samples each time. Appreciate them letting me take samples home!


Can't wait for a new - EFFICIENT - wood stove.

I'd have that converted to a regular fireplace if I could afford to.

I ordered this: http://www.hearthstonestoves.com/wood-stoves/stove-details?product_id=11




Wasn't cheap but I love that it matches the new windows. :-) So many wood stoves out there are SO ugly!!!

Hopefully we get that installed before the first real New England snowfall.

More to come...

New lights! New appliances!

Months ago, I put in an order for outdoor lights at Lighting Showcase in Shrewsbury, MA - the ones I posted about before. They were on backorder until October, they told me. I put in a second order for a different light. Those were discontinued. I put in a 3rd order for yet another light, and although I was told they only had 3 left out of the 4 I needed, the complete order finally came in a few weeks ago. We went with the Tahoe series from Hinkley. Beautiful fixtures that appear well made.

I was intent on having a light post installed as it is very dark at the top of our driveway, end of our walkway. There is no street lighting nearby and it's heavily wooded directly across the street from us so there's not much indirect light to be had at night.

My husband dug out the trench for the wiring:

He and an electrician put it in yesterday:

Please ignore the front steps, that's another project that my husband is working on since the cement around the front steps had crumbled.

Closeup - this lamp is huge coming out of the box but the proportions are not nearly as bad as I expected it to be - in fact, I love it...

Now we just need to buy some bulbs for it!

I also originally thought I wanted to add 2 lights to either side of the garage doors, but decided against this. Instead I had the 2 ugly spots that were on either side of the backdoor replaced.





I'm not sure why they had spotlights there to begin with!

2 others were added to either side of the front door where we'd taken the old ones down.

You'll just have to use your imagination here, I guess:



So yay! We can cross that off our list.

Next grand purchase I decided to make was new dishwasher and stove. We bought a new Electrolux from the dent aisle of Percy's a while ago and the dishwasher didn't seem to be working up to par (and was full of mildew!), and the stove never worked 100%. And frankly, I wanted stainless. I walked around that store for what seemed like forever trying to convince myself that it was OK to NOT have matching appliances. But apparently I'm not very good at convincing myself of anything because I bought the matching Electrolux appliances. Oh, and you can't forget the stainless range hood either. Wow, that added up fast. Let's hope I can get it paid off before my one year zero interest ends (must mark the calendar!). Electrolux was also offering a 10% rebate. Must remember to send that in too.





Aren't they pretty?

So now that we have beautiful new appliances, and a portion of backsplash that is still left exposed behind the sink that we're unable to get a matching piece of granite for, and hideous old laminate all around the rest of it, the next and final expense and install to be had is a tile backsplash. I'll post when we get that done as well.

And finally, just because, an awwwww moment ...