When Jeremy and I first walked into this house, there was a LOT to take in–mostly the previous owner’s piles of possessions and garbage everywhere, with tons of walls cutting off the space into small rooms. But we also noticed the *potential* in this old, run-down house. So how do we get from this:

 

 

to this?

 

 

The answer is that we have to knock the walls down.

This week, a construction company removed the load-bearing walls on the first floor of our home.  Now we have the fun task ahead of us of making it look like a million bucks. Our rough plan for the next two months is:

• Figure out how to either restore or replace floors (it looks like we will sadly have to replace them because they are in really bad shape)
• Rewire all electric that is currently dangling out of our ceiling
• Install recessed lighting
• Replace some old windows
• Close in the beams and columns
• Replace entire kitchen–many decisions and choices to make!
• Paint

We have a lot of work ahead of us and tons of decisions to make on materials, styles, who to hire, etc. etc. but we are feeling good about the progress we’ve made. I can’t wait to see how it looks at the beginning of next year!