How to Tackle a Home Transformation One Project at a Time
Hi everyone, it’s Melissa here, writing to tell you the story of our first home journey! I thought it would be fun to show you the transformation and struggles that we had along the way. Back in 2014, my husband and I purchased our first home together. Here in Western Massachusetts, there were tons of older homes that needed some TLC! But we only toured one other home before making our decision. It was perfect! It was right next to my parent’s house (which my saint of a husband was totally fine with) and, since we knew the seller, we were able to purchase it before it even went on the market. We got a good deal on the house, but we also acquired a bunch of furniture and items that were left by the previous owner. We had a lot of work to do on this fixer upper.
Now, there are some advantages and disadvantages of buying an older home vs. buying a new home that I’m sure you’re all aware of. On the positive side, they’re typically less expensive, unless they’ve already been remodeled. They tend to have more character than a new, builder-grade home and you get to work on it and make it your own! On the other hand, you have a lot of updates to make that, for someone with expensive taste, can be very costly. This fixer upper needed ALL of the cosmetic updates. I mean ALL OF THEM. Take a look at this blog about keeping your renovation costs down!
It was covered in wallpaper, carpet, and linoleum. I will never understand why anyone would put carpet over hardwood floors. Luckily, the day we closed on the house, we were ready to go and ripped out all of the carpet. What a difference just doing that made! Once we had it all cleaned out, we moved in.
We started with the master bedroom. All I remember is that it took about eight different wallpaper removal methods to figure out that steam worked best in this house. The walls weren’t perfect after the removal, but we just wanted a comfortable place to sleep. At this point, I honestly can’t even remember what room we fixed up next, maybe the kitchen or the dining room. I’ll never forget when some of the wallpaper in our living room started peeling, so I began pulling it and got so excited when it was just coming off no problem. It took maybe half of the room before I realized the backing of the wallpaper was still attached to the wall. The original owner of this house didn’t skimp on the wallpaper install!
The living room was an ongoing project, changing one thing at a time. My husband cuts down trees for a living, and he really wanted to get a wood-burning stove. It was free heat, so clearly that was on our list of priorities. Somehow he and his friend managed to get that thing in the house, and every winter since then it was about ninety degrees in our living room. Next, we painted the room, and eventually turned the window into a sliding door so we could access the backyard.
Our next project to tackle was the bathrooms, and not too long after we moved in. At the time, I worked for a flooring company and got to see new, pretty tiles and products coming in all the time. So somehow, our half bath wall turned into a mosaic wall. We added a vessel sink, new toilet, floor, cabinet hardware and paint. Voila! That bathroom was complete.
Our main bathroom had a horrible bathtub that we couldn’t stand anymore. That sparked the shower remodel. Luckily my parents were right next door so we could use their shower while ours was being worked on! And then, of course, that turned into the rest of the bathroom needing an update.
We had that linoleum floor changed out, ripped down the wallpaper and wall tile, painted the cabinet and walls. We ended up getting a new quartz countertop, sink, mirror and hardware. It was perfect. This bathroom ended up being a little relaxing getaway at the end of a long day.
Our two spare bedrooms didn’t get updated until one of them wasn’t going to be a spare bedroom anymore. We took that project on when we were expecting our daughter in 2018. The wallpaper removal was left to my husband, which turned into “we need new walls”. He ended up tearing the walls down and putting up new drywall and crown molding. What a project! We added a ceiling fan, since the house didn’t have central air, and it all came together!
Our kitchen was finally complete just before we sold the house. I had taken on way more than I should have and totally procrastinated on painting the cabinets. But we changed the floor, stripped all the wallpaper, painted the walls and painted the backsplash with chalkboard paint. I loved the chalkboard paint because you can write your menu or your grocery list on it for the week! My husband is pretty handy and installed a new, huge sink! We installed some lighting, replaced the appliances, and in the end, our little kitchen looked pretty cute. Read here to learn how to create a timeless kitchen!
We made a bunch of changes to the exterior of the house too. We removed a white picket fence, got a new garage door, painted the front door and shutters. We planted tons of plants and flowers during our time there, and cleaned up the yard as much as we could. There was also a screened-in porch, off of the kitchen, that we ended up giving a facelift to as well. It had some old indoor/outdoor carpet that we ripped up and replaced with a water-friendly vinyl product.
All in all, we enjoyed this house for about four and a half years. I’m really glad we did all of these updates, because it sold in two days! We were sad to say goodbye, but glad to move on to our next adventure. Thank you, first home!
