My husband and I have been married for a little over year now, and we just bought our first place in Miami FL. We want to share our renovation journey with family, friends, and whoever else is interested in this kind of thing. I'll be documenting the details along the way. Starting from day one of demolition and ending when we are finally settled into a beautiful new home. Our goal is approximately a 2 month period until we are in the house, but only time will tell if that dream will be a reality.
Things are really coming together and it's starting to look like a home! We have made a lot of progress the past two weeks. It started with the installation of the kitchen tile, then the cleaning up of the landscape, and the draining and resurfacing of the pool. Then one of the most exciting things was watching the installation of the three sets of french doors and the demolition of the master bathroom this afternoon.
Tomorrow they will be tenting the house to get rid of all those pesky little insects. That will take 5 days away from the rest of the work unfortunately, but it will obviously be well worth it. There is still a long list before we will be able to move in, but we can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel now!
Here are some updated pictures that I took this afternoon:
All the repairs beneath the surface are complete! Plumbing, spalling repairs, floor joists, and subflooring has all been replaced. Here's a look at the subflooring that just got installed (it's so nice to actually be able to walk in the house now!):
So now the cosmetic fixes begin! This is what I've been waiting for! Hopefully the endless hours of watching HGTV and DIY network will pay off and help me with all the decision making that is about to take place. The next project that is about to start is removing the old sliding glass doors and installing the new beautiful french doors. There will be three sets of them, one off of the dining room, the office, and the family/florida room. I can't wait to see them in place, it's going to add so much charm!
The other projects that are about to begin are the floors for the entire house, painting the kitchen cabinets, and remodeling the master bath. We've decided to go with a dark stained bamboo floor for everything other than the kitchen and bathrooms. For the kitchen I think we are going to go with a marble tile called 'Maroon Jupiter'. We're waiting on a price quote for that one, so we will see if it fits in the budget... I'm crossing my fingers.
Here is a peek at the floor samples:
Tonight we have a meeting with our contractor and his carpenter to discuss the refinishing of the kitchen cabinets, the backsplash, and the master bath remodel. So stay tuned for more pics of samples and progress!
We're now at the end of our second week of renovations, and of course as it goes with many projects like this, there were a few surprises. Turns out the subflooring and floor joists were pretty much completely rotted out so we will be needing to reinforce and replace everything. Luckily our contractor is awesome and is working hard to save us money. So as of now the floors are all gutted out, and the back deck is completely gone revealing an old tile patio that is almost fully in tact aside from the big hole on the south side of it.
Hopefully all the projects under the house will be finished by next week and then they can start sealing up the floors. We've already picked out the flooring for most of the house, we are going with a dark stained solid bamboo. We are going to do a tile of some sort in the kitchen and the bathrooms, but I'm still deciding on which one to go with. Any suggestions on what color would go best with white cabinets, black granite counter tops and dark bamboo?
Here are some before pics along side what it looks like as of yesterday:
After months and months of ups and downs of not knowing if our first place would be this wonderful little home in Belle Meade, we FINALLY closed the deal! It was a short sale so we had expected it to be a long process, but we could have never imagined how bumpy of a ride it would be.
Now all of that is in the past and we are now officially first time home buyers! As of last friday we closed, and as of yesterday we have started the renovations.
We have a pretty lofty list of to-dos for our contractor Daniel. It goes something like this:
New Flooring (whole house)
Structural Fixes (Spalling)
Master Closet Installation
New Kitchen Appliances
New Washer & Dryer
Repair Roof Tiles
Reseal All Windows
Scrape, Seal and Paint Ext.
Paint Interior
Paint Kitchen Cabinets
Pool (surface repairs, tiling, repainting pool deck, and plumbing)
Deck removal and Landscaping
Replace Back Sliding Doors with French doors
New Vanities and Lighting in Bathrooms
New Tile Accents in Master Bath
Extras
-Crown Molding + Base Boards throughout
-Build Out of the room off of the kitchen (cabinets/ wine cooler/dining banquette)
-Back Splash in Kitchen
-Replacing hardware in kitchen
-Built out storage bench/vanity table under window in master bedroom
-New closet doors on all other closets (linen, and other bedrooms)
-Tiling over front porch
-Power washing driveway
-Exterior Lighting
-Fixing up the Garage with rubber flooring, storage, and paint
So ya... we have our hands full with this one... but I don't have any question that it will be worth it!!
Here's a little sneak peak of the demolition that is currently going on...
