I have such exciting news! We bought a fixer upper and I’m still in shock that we get to call it ours! I’ll fill you in on how we found it and all of our plans for fixing it up – because we have lots and lots of plans!
The very first weekend that we went house hunting we stopped in at my in-law’s to say hello. My father-in-law showed us some open houses he spotted in the local paper, and we decided to check out a few of them for fun after our scheduled showings.
Our scheduled showings did not go super well, and I was pretty disappointed that we hadn’t found something that would be a good fit for our family of 6. Our favorite house up to that point was a 2-story major fixer upper that needed a TON of work. Unfortunately it was at the top of our price range and wouldn’t leave us with enough money for renovations.
Finding Our Fixer Upper
So we headed to the last open house with our kiddos and had low expectations. As soon as I spotted the large trees in the front yard, brick planters, paved walkway, and tree swing I was feeling optimistic. It had the square footage we were looking for, 4 bedrooms plus an office, 2 living areas, and spacious bedrooms.
Inside the ranch style 1960’s house we found many things that we knew we could change to dramatically change the look of the house. As we walked around the house together we brainstormed about what we would change, remove, paint, add, and fix. We were both super excited and knew that it had so much potential!
We were able to purchase the house within a few weeks and close right before Thanksgiving. My husband stayed in town for a week and worked tirelessly on some #1 priority projects that we wanted to tackle before moving in our family of 6. We still have a long to-do list but we’ll keep chipping away at it!
Projects we’ve already completed:
- painting all the walls (the house came with 11 completely different paint colors inside)
- replacing the floors
- replacing bathroom mirrors
- painting built-in cabinets
- removing a built-in desk off of the kitchen
- removing large built-in bookshelves in the Family Room
- cutting down some built-ins in the Dining Room to create a buffet cabinet
- adding a wall and door to enclose the office
- removing wood paneling (that was painted yellow!) and covering the wall with shiplap
- removing old curtain rods
- lime washing the fireplace
Other projects on our list:
- extending the built-ins in the living room
- backyard landscaping (little to no grass)
- adding a small deck to the backyard
- replacing the baseboards
- changing outdated light fixtures
- adding a counter top to the buffet
- building a custom office desk
- sprucing up the exterior
- remodeling the Kitchen – new cabinet doors, new drawer fronts, painting the cabinets, new countertops, new drawer pulls, new oven, & a new island hood (this is totally my inspo for the new kitchen!)
A piece of cake right? That’s what comes with a fixer upper 😉
We are no strangers to fixer uppers. Our first house that we purchased in 2009 was a fixer upper that needed some updating. We made some cosmetic changes like wallpaper removal (oh so much wallpaper!), painting, updating light fixtures, adding a bathroom vanity, and yard work. That was our first taste of DIY and while it was a lot of work, it was very rewarding.
The second house that we purchased was also a fixer upper, and was a short sale. There were things missing/broken in the house and some very bright paint colors to cover up, but we tackled all the projects ourselves (with the help of family!). We painted every single room, removed some heavy concrete faux pillars in the Dining room, added a bathroom vanity, added new flooring, and installed lights and curtain rods and towel bars. The changes were mostly cosmetic but they made a huge difference.
Our third house was out of the norm for us: a brand new builder grade house. Everything was brand new, freshly painted, with new appliances and a freshly landscaped yard. We had 2 young children at the time (one was a very demanding infant!) and I really wanted a break from all the house projects for a while. Being severely sleep-deprived can really take a toll! I still was able to be creative in other ways. I decorated our home and gave our daughter a room makeover, created a beautiful laundry room, and found a love for painting furniture.
Although there are a lot of projects to tackle in our new home and a pretty much unending to-do list, I am so excited to make this home our own and be able to customize it to what we like. Being able to pretty much start from scratch and pick out what we want for our home is so much fun! It does take a lot more work to do it this way, but we love to tackle DIY projects and make our home ours. It is so rewarding to live in a home you love and know that you did the work to make it happen.
I will be keeping you updated on our projects and room makeovers, because there will be a lot of them! It has been so much fun to create the plans for our home and channel my inner Joanna Gaines a bit 😉
For more DIY project ideas, make sure you are following along with me on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook!
Did you love this DIY project? You’ll also want to check out my vintage chair makeover, my easy hand-lettered canvas, and my simple DIY cake stand!
Thanks for reading, friends!
