My head is spinning sometimes from all the projects I can do in my new old house. As much as I'd like to do one room at a time, it's not very possible.
Most of the rooms don't have furniture and shipping takes time these days. Even if I'd want to find something second-hand, the right thing needs to come up to market and it takes time.
So I'm not putting hard dates on most of the projects, but following the loose line, these are the rooms I'd like to finish in the next 6 months.
1. Library room
I already have a mood board and would say the project is in the works. I'd need to paint the room, find the right furniture, and unpack books(can't wait for that moment!!!)
2. Mudroom
When you enter the house from the side door; there is a space before you get to the kitchen, it's kind of resemblance to a mud room.
It's quite small for our needs and it doesn't have any place for shoes. I can already envision how my kids come in and dump all their shoes in the mudroom. To avoid that I need to create build-ins for the shoes and other items. It probably will be in the form of drawers to save space and to hide all the clutter.
3. Kitchen nook
As I predicted, we already spend so much time in the kitchen and it needs a bit of TLC, nothing major, but I'd like to build a breakfast table and change some of the elements, maybe even paint color!
And of course, to sand the floors. This room has the worst floors out of the whole house, no surprise, it's the most walked-through space.
4. Sand down floors
I won't lie, this project intimidates me, but I feel the impact of it will be tremendous. I was thinking to fix the first floor completely, including very worn-out floors in the kitchen and in the drawing-room.
I did a bit of research and what I need to do is to rent equipment from Home Depot. It doesn't strike me as a super complicated job but it seems like a lot of physical work.
I was researching to hire it out but it looks like a very expensive project to get help for. And since we have already so many projects that we want to do, DIY is the only way.
5. The staircase
As I mentioned in my previous blogs fixing a staircase is a priority. The railing is so low that it becomes kind of a hazard. We are a family of tall people LOL
It is also shaky in a few places and the header has to be removed. Plus this green color of the stairs already becoming very annoying. I'd like to change the stairs as well for wooden panels.
I saw on Chris loves Julia blog how they did their stairs and I'll be using that as inspiration for my stairs. I said that sending floors is an intimidating project, well, this one scares the shit out of me. I feel I need to talk to contractors and see how much it will cost.
Or I should try it myself and if everything goes wrong then call the contractors haha the only thing in this plan is if I won't fix the stairs in a timely manner how would we go up to our bedrooms?😁
6. Change windows
This is another project that came out of financial thoughts. We invited a contractor to estimate how much it would cost to change our 25 windows. Turns out, in our ZIP Code, it will cost you roughly $80,000, I don't know about you, but to me, it seems a bit too much.
So as avid DIYers we decided to make it ourselves. I'm not worried about the process, it seems counterintuitive. My biggest concern is about the right measurements. The house is old and I'll be very surprised to see that the windows are even. So we'll have to take special attention to ordering the right windows.
Since there are 25 windows, I feel the smartest way would move to change windows room by room so it won't be a quick thing.
But this will be a great project to complete, it would definitely change the look of the house.
And will save us money in the future on heating and electricity.
7. Hearth around the wood stove
I wasn't planning on it, but it seems that this project will be the first I'll complete.
For insurance purposes, I have to bring this wood stove up to code, which requires having 24" of noncombustible materials from all sides. For this one, I didn't plan to start anytime soon but insurance was giving me a hard time so we had to start immediately.
Stay tuned for how it will come out!
This is the plan for home improvement projects that I hope to finish in the next 6 months. As much as I'd like to follow these guidelines, most likely I'll finish other projects as well.
I feel I should start taking bets if these projects will actually happen ;D
Follow the process of renovating this house on my Instagram @ifonlyapril and on my YouTube channel.
If you'd like to see a video tour of the house before we moved in, you can do it here.
xoxo,
April
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