The grand makeover plans are unveiled!
We have our first pass of plans ready for how to makeover Kathy's house. It's ambitious, but compared to what we had to do on our house over the summer, its peanuts. Okay, well, maybe I won't go that far as to say peanuts. However, I am convinced this will go more smoothly, simply because I now have good people to work on the house that I can trust on to finish in time.
The house is a tiny one: three bedrooms, but just over 1000 square feet. It was built in 1959, when Tara Hills was an up-and-coming housing development attracting young families.
While one previous owner updated some of the light fixtures and the bathroom in the 1970s, everything else was kept original to the house. This means the house is terribly out of date for modern home buyers. Maybe a year ago it wouldn't have mattered, but with the current housing slump, we need to tart this girl up a bit before we put her on the open market.
We'll start by repainting the interior to make it fresh and to appeal to popular taste. All of the outdated ceiling fixtures (including ceiling fans) and the rather bizarre 1959 light switch plates will be replaced. Kathy had the hardwood floors refinished when she moved in, so the floors look great.
In the case of the kitchen, we'll redo much of it. The cabinets are good (I'll put new knobs on the doors) but everything else is showing its age in a bad way. We'll replace the countertop, sink, cook top, and wall oven. The kitchen has a door that goes to the backyard; Kathy wants to replace it with a single French door to increase the perception of size. When we're done, it should look dramatically different.
In the bathroom, the heavy oak and tarnished brass look has got to go. Unfortunately, that means replacing the vanity, sink, a ponderous medicine cabinet, monster towel racks (does no one understand the concept of scale in a small house?), and shower doors. The bathtub enamel is in bad shape and while we can't afford to replace the whole tub, we'll have to refinish it. Oh, and the fixtures-those will have to be replaced, too.
That leaves "little things" here and there. We'll change the closet doors in the bedroom (previous owners stuck mirrored squares on with that 1970s smoky-edged look!), replace the porch lights, remove the tattered screen door, and put house numbers above the garage. The side gate was recently knocked down by a storm (thank you, Mother Nature) and so that will need to be rebuilt. Certainly we'll have to do something with the landscaping-it just needs a little sprucing up-but we'll figure that part out later.
Right now, I'm finding the best prices for the materials we need, placing orders, and scheduling the work to be done. I have a spreadsheet I'm using to track our projected and actual costs so that we can do our best to stay on budget.
Meanwhile, our handyman already started pressure washing the roof and house, as well as cleaning the gutters. I continue to work on the inside. We have a breakneck schedule to get this up in time before spring. If I have any say in it, we're going to make this house the cutest on the block, you wait and see!
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