Under Construction: #ThrowbackThursday Our First Renovation (Update)

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

Click here for a full list of my posts on it!

Last week I shared some of the highlights lowlights from our first renovation, so here's what it all looked like when we were done!

 Our finished kitchen! Oh, how I miss it.

All of these cabinets were installed by my extraordinarily handy and handsome husband.

An overview of the counter tops // my favorite wall featuring the best oven of all time and my wine bar // an over the cook top faucet (perfect for filling my huge pot!) // a pop up stand for my KitchenAid mixer so that it doesn't have to sit on top of the counter all the time.

 Our formal sitting room - with the couch that no one was allowed to sit on ;)

The opposite view of the formal sitting room - where that mysterious stain was previously. Updated to all hardwood and added wainscoting for a very formal look.

The master bath got an update with new tile flooring and counter tops - this was towards the end of our renovation and we already knew we were moving so it was pretty much a last minute project that we knew we needed to do but weren't going to put the same amount of investment as we had throughout the rest of the house.

Throwback Thursday has a way of bringing tears to my eyes. We have so many memories of this home - it was where we transitioned from newly weds to home owners to parents. We kept a log of our hours worked and a very conservative tally was 1300 hours between the two of us. Now that we're knee deep into our second renovation, we've gone through so many projects much faster and know where it's worth it to spend the extra money and where to cut back a little bit. I can't wait to share some before and after photos of our current home with you all!

Oh, and this is 8 week old Penny and I. Blast from the past!

Under Construction: #Throwback Thursday Our first renovation

Don't want to miss out on any of our renovation shenanagins? 

Click here for a full list of my posts on it!

As many of you know, Adam and I are project people. Our first renovation was truly a labor of love and it set the stage for how we purchase houses in the future and what we know we can handle in terms of what kinds of projects we can tackle and what level of construction we can handle living in on a daily basis. I mention our first renovation on here every now and again, but on this #ThrowbackThursday I wanted to share some of the pictures of what exactly we started with. Then come back NEXT Thursday for what happened!

We bought the house as a short sale and went into it knowing that we'd take every aspect of that house and change it. We did a full kitchen renovation, updated bathrooms, all new hardwood flooring and carpets and painted every room. The yard was a total mess and in the 2 years we owned the home we completely turned it around and made a great profit, even though it wasn't intended to be a "flip."

This was our dining room upon purchase of the home. It looked like someone changed the oil of a motorcycle in that room! We had asked the previous owner about it and he said it was a water stain but even I wasn't born yesterday ;) All the carpet and flooring was promptly ripped out.

This was the original kitchen. Not that bad to the naked eye - but open any one of those cabinets and it would have been completely rotted out and filled with all kinds of nasties! Those were also promptly ripped out upon move in..

And that is how our downstairs started out on our first day of owning this home. It was about 9 months of working full time on weekends and after work to get the kitchen into it's final stage, which I can't wait to share with you how it looked when we were all done!

This was the backyard. Over 50% of it was overgrown with very mature bamboo, which is a b*tch to remove, let me tell ya! It took the entire two years to cut it down and push it back into a small manageable corner of the lot. Parts of me really wanted to contact the local zoo to see if I can rent a panda for a day...

Click here for the final reveal!

Seafood Boil

When my family took a trip to Florida last year, I was dead set on doing one of those seafood boils where you cook a bunch of seafood in a big pot and then dump it on a newspaper covered table on the beach. I've never seen this done in the Pacific Northwest, it's something I envisioned on warm sandy beaches.

Sadly, this never happened, and I've been really bitter about it over the last year!

So when we started renovating our new home, I started to go through my mind on what kinds of meals I can prepare using minimal effort, maximizing on not being around for 6-8 hours, but yeilding DELICIOUS results. Of course - anything with a crockpot, right? ;)

With a compilation of a few recipes found throughout the internets as well as my own tastes, I present to you a seafood boil that even us Pacific Northwesterners can have. No, you probably won't be dumping it spectacularly on a table on a sandy beach (I'm pretty bitter about the lack of sandy beaches around here too, I guess), but you can enjoy it after a rough day of pulling up nasty old carpet, masking off mirrors for paint, or just if you have company coming over ;) For all you East Coasters, keep in mind that I've never actually had a legit version of this before. In fact, this was the first time I've ever had it. Share your warm water skills and tell me how you do it!

This will happily feed 4 adults.

You will need:
A HUUUUUUUUUGE crockpot!
1 package of Zatarains Crawfish, Shrimp and Crab Boil
8 baby red potatoes
4 ears of corn, cut in half
4 stalks of celery
2 cloves of garlic
4 sausages - we used Aidell's Cajun Style Adouille and it was REALLY spicy! I'd opt for a more mild flavored one next time.
2 lbs of unshelled shrimp (so excited for Zaycon Fresh's wild caught Argentine shrimp!)

1 large lemon for the finish

optional: add your favorite mussels, shellfish, lobster, shellfish, crab, artichokes - you name it! But keep in mind the size of your crockpot.

You will do:
*Note: Before we begin, you can make this in the crockpot from start to finish. I was on somewhat of a time crunch, so I prepared the boil seasoning and potatoes on the stove to speed up the cooking process on the potatoes. The following recipe is what I did.
1. Prepare the crab boil according to the instructions with how much water it calls for. Add quartered baby reds to the mixture, allow to cook long enough for the potatoes to soften slightly - they don't need to be fully cooked. This is probably less than 20 minutes.
2. Pour the boil and potatoes into your crockpot. Add your corn, celery, garlic, sausages (I cut them into quarters as well). Cover, turn on low and you can walk away for about 3-4 hours (probably 5-6 hours if you didn't precook the pototoes).
3. 20 minutes before you want to eat, toss in your shrimp. It's going to be a very tight fit so try to squeeze it all in there. Serve immediately once the shrimp is done- don't let those babies overcook!
4. To serve, discard the boil broth. That's right, it's not a soup - it's more of a marinade. Give a healthy squirt of lemon juice on top for some freshness and have some fresh french or sourdough bread handy too!


As a growing family of 4 I make it a goal to source the best quality meat at the best prices. That's why I buy all of our meat through Zaycon Fresh.  We've saved hundreds of dollars in the price of meat as well as I always have the convenience of not having to go to the grocery store to purchase meats. Sign up for Zaycon Fresh and see all the different meats you can buy - salmon, cod, shrimp, beef, pork, chicken, sausages, bacon, turkey and more! By signing up for Zaycon Fresh I get a referral bonus, so thanks in advance for helping me feed my family!

And so it begins..

Starting yesterday, we have 22 days between the closing date on our new house and the end of our lease. 22 days to strip carpet, refinish hardwood, paint the interior, design and install a new kitchen island (complete with plumbing), make some minor changes to the footprint of the kitchen and finally.. actually move in! All without hiring any contractors. Can we do it?

Not to waste any time, we started work immediately. I began work on prepping the windows for paint - they had not been cleaned in such a long time that the caulking around the edges had turned black and were mostly water damaged. Scraping is the name of my game. Adam began the demolition of the pantry that is in the middle of the main living area. The house originally featured a fireplace in that spot (?), but the previous owners decided to change that into a pantry. My wish is to have a much more open floor plan where I can see the living room and breakfast nook from my perch in the kitchen so we decided to remove the pantry, build a bitchen island and rearrange other cabinets to create some food storage.

This weekend we'll be tearing up the carpet and prepping the kitchen for renovation.

Follow along as I share about our new adventure as second time renovators. I've also teamed up with a group of awesome bloggers who will be guest posting here - we have a great mix of recipes, family tips and DIY projects.

A Peek Back in Time.. Our Kitchen Renovation

As the anticipated closing date on our new home looms (and how tightly crossed my fingers and toes are!!!), my thoughts return to our previous home that we renovated. I haven't shared those pictures with you on this blog yet, so I thought I'd open up my renovation brag book and show off what my husband and I accomplished at our first renovation, affectionately called The TTD (T-ton Tear Down).

80% of that renovation was done by our own hands. The only parts that we contracted out were carpet install (because seriously, $100 to Lowes to install our carpets is a NO BRAINER), granite install, a little bit of exterior paint and electrical work in the kitchen. Everything else from cabinets, hardwood and tile flooring, paint, plumbing, landscaping, dry wall.. you name it.. was all done by us, with the help of friends and family along the way. We didn't have prior experience in a lot of these things, but youtube videos and a healthy relationship with your local hardware store goes a long way :)

I'm going to start off with our kitchen.

That's what we did on Day 1.

Then we started using blue painters tape to map out where our cabinets would be. 

And our peninsula with raised bar.

Then our cabinets arrived and Adam began his install.

Then came paint.

And uppers, which had under cabinet lighting.

And granite with full height backsplash. We were so in love with this color!

And then.. the final product.

Some of my favorite features that we had in the kitchen were a dedicated KitchenAid mixer cabinet (to keep the mixer off the counter but easily accessable)

And a faucet over the cooktop.

Adam made custom corbels for under our raised bar that matched the pulls on our cabinets too.

The kitchen was definitely a labor of love. We spent close to 7 months without a cook top - I cooked every night on a Coleman propane camper style cooktop. Adam spent countless hours under the house reworking plumbing when we moved the sink from an exterior wall to an interior wall. We grew angry and frustrated when we realized that our kitchen designer was taking us for a ride and was not going to come through with his promises and jerked us around. We learned so many valuable lessons as homeowners and a married couple. 

Have you ever thought about doing a renovation, or any upgrades in your existing home? 

How did it go for you?