7 Month Update in Our New/Old House

It’s been seven months since we started calling this new/old house of ours home (again). I don’t know how that’s even possible. If you missed the story about this new house and why it’s so special to our family, you can catch up with it here. And, if you didn’t catch the tour of it, you’ll definitely want to take a peek at what we’re working with here.

Somehow through these seven months, it feels like we’ve accomplished so little here, yet so much all at the same time. Let me explain. If you’ve been following along with our updates along the way, you’ll know that we’ve tackled a looooong list of maintenance jobs around here that desperately needed doing – replacing leaky faucets (yes multiple), installing new wall ovens, fixing the garburator, the eavestroughs, window latches, “properly” installing the washing machine drain – honestly this list could go on for miles. For the first 4 months of living here, it felt like we were spending every spare minute fixing something. Before that, it was a whole lot of cleaning. And of course, in between it all, we tried our best to unpack and settle in as best we could. We’d never seen a house in such rough shape. It was very clear that this house just hadn’t really been taken care of since it was sold out of the family, so I guess you could say that we walked into ten years worth of cleaning & maintenance to catch up with.

While Brady was repairing/replacing all the things, I got busy with the paint brush and managed to make my way around the entire main floor and even all the way up to the bedrooms and hallway upstairs – all before November rolled in I might add.

And then we kind of stopped for a few months. We wanted to enjoy the Christmas season together and frankly, we needed a break after three months straight of hard (and often unrewarding) work. So, instead of focusing on the long list of things that were still left to do inside, Brady started working on the outdoor rink out back. It was SO much more time & effort than either of us had anticipated, but in the end, it was SO worth it. We’ve already spent so many hours enjoying it together as a family and of course, Carson’s spent even more shooting pucks on his own and playing pick-up games with his friends. It’s been really special to have our very own rink to enjoy, just outside our back door.

As January rolled in, we were feeling much more ready to jump back into house projects again, albeit smaller ones. Brady totally reorganized and reworked the garage – setting up walls of storage cabinets, work benches, and even shoe cupboards by the door for us. It was a huge undertaking, but everything functions so much better for our family in there now. And of course, he’ll have a much more functional space in there for working on renovation projects to boot.

As the new year rolled in, I found myself feeling much more ready to jump back into things too. After some time away, I was able to come back into our renovation and design planning with a much clearer vision about what exactly we want and how we’re going to make it happen. With the help of my amazing sister-in-law, we came up with a floor plan for upstairs and, with that finally in place, I’ve begun playing around with design options for all the things. I’ve really struggled to make decisions since moving into this house – it’s felt really hard to commit to one thing and know it’s the right choice, which is new for me. I think it’s a combination of our emotional attachment to this house and also wanting to push myself outside of my comfort zone design wise – I really want to bring in colour, texture, & character to create a collected, cozy feel and not just play it safe and easy with white, greige and matching finishes throughout. I guess the breakthrough here for me was finally ordering some new doorknobs (here’s the ones I chose) – I know this sounds so trivial, but it’s the first design decision that will carry through our whole house, so it felt really big for me!

We’ve also been chipping away at this list of quick & easy projects I shared last month. We’ve only just started with a few things like installing a few smart light switches around our main floor (here’s the ones we went with), but we’re already SO in love with the convenience of these brilliant little switches that we’ve ordered up the supplies to change almost every other switch in our house out now. There’s a lot of switches in the house, so this project will likely be in the works for a while yet.

I did also manage to get the desk in our study painted last week. I’m SO happy with the colour, it’s absolutely perfect in there! I want to wait to share it with you until the new hardware I ordered for it arrives next week, but here’s a little sneak peak to tide you over.

While I had the paint out, I decided to paint a couple of doors on our main floor as well that just weren’t sitting right with me. It was a bit of whim, but considering it’s only paint, and pretty easy to change my mind about down the road, I decided to just go for it.

What do you think? I’m not sure I love it – I think the fact that the trim is a different colour than the door is what’s bothering me, but I’m going to live with it for a bit and see what other ideas pop up.

And finally, I think the last update I have left to share is our new coffee table. I’ve been on the hunt for a new coffee table for years now and, though the shipping on this one took months, it was worth the wait. I am really so happy with the way it warms up our living room and the functionality it brings for our family. We still have a couple of end tables on their way to us too, though it sounds like they’re still a couple of months out yet, but I’ll be sure to share them once they do finally make their way here.

Whew, I think that’s it for now. That felt unreasonably long for such little updates, but I guess I just wanted to be honest about where we are in the process – it’s a journey my friends and when progress feels slow, it helps to shine some light on all the little ways we really are moving in the right direction. Hopefully we’ll have more to share again soon!

Wishing you SUCH a lovely day my friends!
 

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