Introducing Our Farmhouse Remodel

Our Farmhouse Dream

Not quite two years ago, my husband and I bought a house.  Up to that point, we’d lived in rentals and I always hated that we couldn’t really customize the house to fit our personalities!  White walls are boring, y’all.  Especially when you can’t hang anything on them.

When we bought this house, we were lucky enough to be able to buy the house that we had been living in for the past year, so Adam and I already had some pretty good ideas about what we wanted to do with the place.  Our house is barn red and we both love the country/farmhouse look, so we set out to remodel our little house into a farmhouse themed home.  

It’s been quite a journey.  We’ve done everything ourselves – which means my handy hubby has cut and sawed and fitted and done almost everything while I stand back and watch.  I do help catch boards as they come off the table saw.  That counts, right?  Oh, I also do a good share of the painting and staining.  Distressing wood is one of my favorite things to do!  I’m definitely the finish gal, adding the final touches to most of my husband’s projects.

Turning our house into a home

It’s been a lot of work, and there is still a long way to go!  We are so blessed to be able to work through this process, though.  While working on our many projects, we’ve learned a lot about how to DIY our way through all kinds of problems!  We’ve also learned a lot about ourselves and each other…While we have very similar tastes, we don’t always agree on what needs to happen and sometimes need to compromise.

Another challenge we face is money!  We both are passionate about staying out of debt and are intentional about not spending money we don’t have on the remodel.  Sometimes (ok, let’s be real: LOTS of times) this creates tension.  My hubby is a “let’s do it now and get ‘er done!” kind of guy.  I’m a laid-back “let’s think this through and calculate all the costs” kind of girl.  Se we sometimes clash…but each time we don’t see eye to eye is a wonderful opportunity to talk through our differences and grow to each other more deeply.

To date we have:

• Painted the bathroom, living room, and kitchen
• Replaced all the faucets
• Replaced our kitchen sink
• Framed out the bathroom mirror
• Made and hung floating shelves in the bathroom
• Made and hung open shelves in the kitchen
• Built a raised garden bed
• Replaced a giant single pane window with an even bigger vinyl window
• Replaced ill-fitting, miss-matched french doors with a sliding glass door

Some of these projects are still needing a few finishing touches.  We are also in the middle of the following projects:

• Re-facing plain plywood cabinets with a faux beadboard look
• Building and installing a new bathroom vanity
• Trimming out the new windows and door
• Making curtains out of canvas drop cloths
• Leveling and re-seeding our yard
• Landscaping

And still on our to-do list:

• Replacing the last two old windows with new vinyl ones
• Tear out the old carpet and replace with distressed wood floors
• Fix and re-paint the siding
• And more…

Wow…that list makes me tired just thinking about it!  However, it’s been an amazing experience, and we’ve learned sooooo much!  We are looking forward to putting our home on the market next spring and selling it as we are planning to move to a new area.  While we’ve accomplished a ton, we have a long way to go still before we are ready for the next step.  I’m looking forward to sharing this journey with you all!

And now, the good stuff!  I’ve included a few snapshots of our house when we first moved in so you can get an idea of where we started.  These are in no way professional shots, they are real people photos taken in real time as we were moving and settling in, so no staged, prettified pics here!  I’m also going to sneak in a couple of teaser photos of some of the projects we’ve been working on that will turn into blog posts soon!

The living room as we were moving in and painting

Our kitchen before we started tearing into the cupboards

Our ugly old bathroom vanity

Bathroom Vanity Sneak Peek!

And now, onto the sneak peek at one of our current works in progress, the bathroom vanity!!  This project has been a monster in a lot of ways, but we are so excited that it is almost finished and we’ll get to install it soon!!

The vanity as it was being built.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out our remodel!  We are so excited to share more of this journey with you over the next few months.  Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to get updates on new blog posts!