How is it nearly spring again?! We’ve had a busy fall and winter here, and it's not slowing down anytime soon. As we start the latest big projects, here's some of what's happened in the meantime.

Guest Bathroom

Finished, at last! Here’s a final, satisfying before/after:

No project is ever straightforward in this house, so after our previous update, we had a fight with crooked walls to get the rest of the trim installed and painted. We finally got to use our new shower just before leaving for Japan in the fall, and we haven’t touched the old master bath since.

We also had a legitimately nice surprise when we removed the nasty old door: the wall was already set up for a pocket door! We’d expected to find that space obstructed by utility pipes, but instead we only had to cut open a section of old drywall to get the new hardware installed.

Kitchen

You’ve only seen a teaser of this so far, but since it’s been in various in-progress states for quite a while now, let’s talk about what has happened.

Countertops! Sink! Dishwasher! Cooktop! Lights! Paint! Those were all huge upgrades early in the process that allowed us to stop feeling like we were camping. We also cut down the gigantic island by about 2ft, which you can't really tell from the photo, but helped open things up.

The purplish floor? That's just paper, don’t worry. It's temporarily there because we did this:

That's what the house listing described as “new flooring,” which turned out to be a DIY linoleum job with air pockets that was smear-caulked to the wall and cabinets.

So that’s gone! And underneath was at least partially what we’d hoped: the same hardwood as the living room, albeit in worse condition and only halfway across. We have a flooring company coming next week to fill in what’s missing and install flooring for the new entryway.

Now, about that penny tile backsplash, or lack thereof. That’s next! Just before ripping out the floor, we started on the electrical work and materials-gathering—both of which turned out to have, predictably, special needs unique to our house. We'll get there.

That just leaves the terrible 90’s cabinetry! We've got plans for that, too, but we'll save it for another post.

Deck

Our other recent demolition job was removing this 15ft-high death trap from the back of the house to make way for siding repair and paint.

The boards were so rotten that they fell apart in our hands as we worked, but somehow the only casualty was a smashed septic pipe (since repaired).

We’ve got big dreams for the new deck, but first, this poor house is in need of some fresh paint (technically, stain). Decisions!

There’s always more to tell, but I’ll save it for another (probably belated) update. Spring seems to be here early this year, so we’ve got a double workload this weekend!