Renovation Projects

At this point I figure I need to occupy myself and make a plan for what we will be doing to our house once we close. Previously, I've looked for images of rooms and furniture for inspiration. Now, I'm looking for diy projects to educate myself about what we can do ourselves...expertise and time required to complete each... I have found a blog that is AWESOME (is an exclamation point really needed after all caps...probably not but I am really tempted to put one).

Remodelaholic features projects, crafts, and recipes of big and small sizes. The author and contributing writers are so good about provided detailed information and pictures for all of the steps of a project. The blog also has buttons that link to other's projects. What a plethora of ideas! As I know very little about diy beyond what we've done (crown molding, installing laminate floors, baseboards), I appreciate all of the steps and tips. Before Andy & I got married, I'd never even painted a wall. I've learned a lot with our first house but am going to have to learn a whole lot more with this house. Here are some of my favorite projects:

Make your own curtain rods out of conduit pipe

5 year kitchen remodel - that's a really long time, but they did amazing work

Doilies as wall art

Make a garden out of a pallet - I'm thinking herb garden

Make children's bookshelves out of a pallet

Hanging pots and pans inside of a cabinet - can't wait to do since our kitchen doesn't have the big drawers that are so popular today

Remodelaholic also has had multiple posts on re-doing stairs and adding molding/millwork ( board and batten, crown molding, baseboards, archways, pillars/columns, built in bookcases) that I found very informative.

The author also gave a tip that I think will really help us figure out what we want to do in each room. She recommends taking a picture of all of the walls and printing those out on paper. Then use colored pencils to draw in what you are considering adding or moving. This is beautifully demonstrated here.

If any of you have any diy blogs that you really like, please pass them on to me.

EARTHQUAKE

I feel like I have been initiated into California life now because I experience my first earthquake last week. Andy didn't feel anything at work though. It wasn't very strong; I just noticed the bed shaking a little bit. I thought that the dog was leaned up against the bed as he scratched.

Trying to buy a house

So after waiting a month for all of the utilities to be hooked up, we've had all our inspections and appraisal done. There are a few repairs that we have to make (because the bank selling the foreclosed property won't do ANYTHING) before our loan can be funded. So that is happening in the next week. We'll do the other repairs once we close on the house. Our bank has told us that the closing date is September 26, but we are working with them to try to make it happen a little sooner. I think that we wrote our offer on the house on July 15...how crazy!

We would love to be able to move in a beautifully refinished house but have decided that will not be the case. Paying for just under two months of our time and the hotel and the unknown cost of the repairs to our house after the cost of purchasing the home means that our bank account won't be thrilled. So, we've decided to be patient for most of the renovations we would like to do to the house. We'll replace the carpet in the bedrooms before we have our good delivered, but the other flooring will have to wait a little while.

We will be very excited to be able to move in to our house whenever that comes to pass! The house will stay a diamond in the rough for a while but will eventually start to shine.