We Bought a Fixer!

As someone who is admittedly addicted to home renovation shows on TV, I will be the first to point out that as much as I admire the creativity and hard work that it takes to renovate a home, I am undeniably not qualified to do any of it myself. I wasn’t born with that gene. When I see a home that needs a lot of TLC, I have a hard time seeing past the gross carpet, the outdated kitchen and fixtures, the 30+ years of dust and grime… it makes my skin crawl.

Some people are extremely talented at imagining the potential in a fixer. They can spatially design every inch of the home in their minds and it comes out looking like a shiny new penny! They can see how to transform the space if walls were knocked down, flooring replaced, and how a fresh coat of paint will brighten up a dark dingy room.

I am not one of those people.

So, what did we do? We bought a fixer. A major fixer.

The popular vote among our friends and family on Facebook was to choose House #2. Truth be told, we originally chose to put an offer on the Move-In-Ready Ranch. We were the first of 7 other offers on the table. We tried to offer more and convince the seller to accept and take the house off the market. But, we lost :(

I was pretty bummed out because that house was surely one of a kind. I broke my own rule, I got attached! I told you that would happen! But, then I started thinking about that beautiful ranch house… it didn’t always look that way. Someone took a chance on a plain, outdated 80s style ranch and turned a piece of coal into a diamond. So, if they could do it, why can’t we?

Luckily, about a week later this Colonial fixer popped up on Zillow and I looked at it from a different point of view. It’s on the lower end of our budget so we could put money into renovating it. After I started thinking about the changes we could make, this house has the potential to be even more beautiful than the ranch. We could totally turn this house around from really ugly to really stunning with the right amount of courage, patience, and creativity. We totally got this!

… Right?

I imagine that our renovation adventure will be a lot like some of those entertaining TV shows that I love so much.

Fixer Upper meets Design on a Dime, with a combination of Property Brothers and Rehab Addict, and a whole lot of This Old House! That’d be a great show if all of those renovation gurus got together! We have definitely learned a lot from all of them.

We have a vision for this house. A plan. A goal. It’ll be a lot of hard work to get there since we’re doing the majority of the work ourselves. We’ll probably need your advice, feedback, and encouragement along the way. It’s hard to see the hidden beauty right now, but I can actually see how it can be transformed into a beautiful home!

Believe me, when it’s finished it will look nothing like it does now. Luckily, I have Michael on my team. He is a genius at technical design, he’s the smartest and most creative person I know. He and I share the same brain when it comes to design aesthetic. Actually, he’s better at it than me, because all of his ideas are really amazing. Plus, he knows how to use all of those power tools while I still have a lot to learn!

Michael has had a lifelong dream to build a home. Apart from the existing framing of this house, we are completely rebuilding it. We’re ripping everything out, changing the layout, modernizing the interior, replacing everything on the exterior and adding new structure to it…. so, everything else about this house will be new. Oh, and we’re completely redesigning the landscaping as well. It will become a perfect home for us… soon.

Welcome to our new home! I’ll be happy to give you a tour once we have the keys later in the week. And I’d love to let you in on the amazing plans. Stay tuned!