Katherine & Jeremy Bought a Century Home

I knew that renovating a house would be long, hard work. I did realize this. No, really! I did! But I never knew that on the one year anniversary of being homeowners, we’d be living like we are. In a nutshell, it’s sort of like camping, but indoors. And with plumbing. But just as inconvenient, and just as dirty as camping.

Since April, we have gutted 4 rooms: the current kitchen, the current full bath, and the space that we are turning into the new first floor half bath and butler’s pantry. We had to do so much at once because we had the opportunity for Jeremy’s dad, Dale, to spend two weeks at our house overseeing some of the system work. Without his help, we couldn’t have made such progress finishing the plumbing and electrical in these rooms. So, we had to do a lot at once.

What’s left is a lot of tweaking with these systems and all of the finish work. This is going to take the better part of the summer. In the meantime, I thought I would upload some photos showing how these in-progress rooms look today. When I complain about inconveniences, people say… “Oh, but everything will look gorgeous when you’re done.” Sure, sure, this is true. But seriously. This is how we’re living.

The utility sink, where we brush our teeth, wash our faces, and clean out buckets used to mix grout:

Opposite this wall, is our drill charging/coffee making/pantry area:

 And the kitchen, where we make lots of frozen pizza and Lean Pockets:

 The new bathtub/shower, not yet tiled until some leaks are taken care of:

 To the left of the tub, where the new sink and toilet will be:

The beginning of the new half bath, downstairs, which contains the only functional toilet in the house. Oh, and that white thing in the upper right hand corner? It’s a sheet. Which in this case, is also a door.  

And last, but not least, the dining room. (In name only.) Right now, this is our Home Depot satellite office: