Home. – Page 3 – This Old Brick House

Progress.

February 14, 2019 No Comments

AH! Exciting things are happening this week around the house, can’t wait to share those pictures with you soon. The past week and a half we have gotten a LOT done. Our upstairs rooms have carpet and we MOVED IN. Our bathroom and laundry room, on the main floor, were tiled, & are up and running. Our family room was painted, (the garage door to that room was sanded of all the dog scratches, thanks Dad, Hunter and Jack!). We jacked our kitchen floors so that we can prep them to lay our new floor. Then, the laundry room was painted and shiplap has been progressing on the our walls of our office–I think this is going to be my favorite room of the house. It has a lot of character and it also came with amazing built ins!

Finally, our ducts inside of our house were all vacuumed out. We received a video of all of the gunk cleaned out of our vents…let’s just say, this was probably one of our BEST financial investments.Click here to see a short clip of the clean out! It makes me wonder if everyone’s house is that bad…or if it was just ours, GROSS! For those of you curious, we used a local company called Dunn-Hill Duct cleaning, and they were amazing. Follow the link to check it out! Dunn-Hill Duct Cleaning

Thank you for following along on our journey, buddies!

Jenna

Home., Life.

It’s The Small Things.

January 25, 2019 No Comments

This week we made some more baby steps and man do those baby steps feel good. We are officially DONE with demoing (we still have to redo the 2 bathrooms upstairs but those are projects to be later addressed). Our laundry room tile is being put in, the drywall and electric is done in the laundry room, and our entry wall is nearing completion ( I will share all of the before and afters with you someday soon). All of the NASTY trim is being painted, can I get an amen to the fresh feeling of clean, new paint?! New door knobs and hinges have been put on doors upstairs and the upstairs closets are lined and ready to go. We have spent so much money on cabinet liner and I JUST found the best cabinet and shelf liner of all time. Click the link to check it out! Con-Tact Brand Zip-N-Fit

On another note, this past weekend I had a family shower that was absolutely beautiful. Grant and I have been so blessed and have had five…yes five wonderful showers for our future babe. You better believe the first thing I am doing on move in day is setting up that nursery and filling it with all of the wonderful items we received from all of our dear family and friends.

Some pictures of the past week:

Thanks for reading buds!

Jenna

Home., Renovations.

Week One.

December 23, 2018 No Comments

Last Saturday I woke up extra early because there was no way this giddy girl was getting extra sleep on the day that we got the keys to our house. Not long after, I grabbed gallons of coffee and donuts for all of our amazing family and friends who graciously demanded that they were coming to help, and I then headed over to our house to greet everyone.

I got to the house, and the owner had left stuff in every room and he was still there working on one of the rooms. All of my giddy-excitedness flew right out the window and the tears started to flow. I cried to my husband, to my mom, to my mother in law and father in law… but then again, what haven’t I been crying about these days?! Pregnancy hormones are legit. For a person who was already a crier, this third trimester Kleenex addict was already in need of a happy pill. So when it comes to unexpected circumstances like this? I am most definitely in need of a boost. In the moment it was hard to see, but looking back, I can definitely say that it was a great reminder that I can’t plan everything out, that this experience is going to be one of the hardest, most rewarding things we have ever done, and I just needed to continue to rely on the fact that God wanted us here. He wanted US here. For a reason, for a purpose.

The day clearly moved on and I was able to sit and marvel in the fact that we had 12 people surrounding us who worked for countless hours on our house. We can’t get over that. We felt so loved and in that moment, Grant and I couldn’t ask for much more.

Here are some pictures from our work this past week. Can’t wait to continue to show you progress. Reality is, we have a lot of work to do, but we are making baby steps! Excited to continue to share our journey with all of you!

The padding underneath the carpet had completely disintegrated. That may help age the carpet for ya 🙂

Capping the plumbing in order to get the demo going!

Love having people gather in our backyard. It was such a beautiful day!

Tearing down the moldy wall, so they had to wall off the room.

I loved witnessing the revealing of the bones of the house!

Bathroom demo with my dad and his friend Craig. So thankful for their expertise!

Had to sneak this one in there. We had a 3D ultrasound yesterday. You can catch a glimpse of its face here. Baby is happy and healthy!

Thanks for reading buddies!

XO Jenna

Home.

Our First Home.

December 14, 2018 No Comments

Hi we’re Jenna and Grant. Our journeys became one in August of 2015. We have lived the blissful newlywed days, we’ve gained financial freedom after paying off an extraordinary amount of college debt, we have learned how to fulfill our travel dreams on the cheap, and finally, we have learned how important personal counselors are for marriage, for life, for everyone. We always dreamed of starting a family and purchasing a home where Jenna would be able to live out her passions of interior design, knowing the only way that she could ever stay on budget would be with a guiding hand of her money-savy husband.

To give you a little background, we are currently pregnant with our first baby and due at the end of February. We also decided to buy our first house, fixer upper style. This house comes equipped with squirrels in the crawl space with their winter supply of walnuts, 1960’s original mustard -yellow carpet, and black and white checkered vinyl flooring. We figured what better time to buy and move into a 3,600 square foot major fixer upper than two months away from our due date?!

This journey was a long one for us. Filled with many moments of questioning whether God wanted us to purchase this home. Last December, we heard about this house from our friends and future next door neighbors. They had gotten wind that the owner was possibly going to sell his home and asked us, “You aren’t looking to buy a house are you?” Not long after, I walked around the property and was able to creepily peek through the windows and I immediately fell in love.

May of 2018 rolled around and I convinced Grant to come see this amazing project that I knew he would NEVER go for. In that moment, I would have bet millions of dollars that Grant would strongly and politely decline but much to my surprise, that was not what happened. He apprehensively walked through the house, thought about it, and he loved the potential this home had. I had to ask myself if I was married to the same methodical, safe-playing husband. When I started to doubt if we should really pursue this, he remained grounded and he encouraged us to see that this would be a wonderful place to raise our children.

After a lot of decision making, we put an offer in on the house, which by the way, was still not on the market and we thought, this is it. We have ourselves a house ladies and gentlemen. Psych. The former owner, (whom by the way is the kindest soul on this earth), decided to list the house on the market. Long story short, one hundred showings (literally), and three offers later, he took it off the market. Again we told ourselves… THIS IS IT!!! WE HAVE OURSELVES A HOUSE! Wellllll, this time, the owner decided that he wanted to explore some options for keeping his childhood home. Did I panic? Sure did. I spent numerous days spouting off all of my worries to Grant and that was his cue to calm this proclaimed worry-wart down. We sat down together to pray and asked God to close any and all doors if this wasn’t meant to be. We prayed for God’s direction and hand to be in all of this.

Now, I know that a house does not mean everything. I have always been so passionate about the thought of purchasing a piece of history thats a bit rough around the edges, and turning it into a comfortable, cozy, and safe place. It’s not the house. It’s the feeling that we can mold a house with an unending to do list of projects, into a place that can become a sanctuary to gather, to raise our future babies in, and to hold years and years of memories. All of the feels.

So here we are. December 14, 2018. God aligned our doubts, and fears, and come tomorrow we get the keys to this old brick house fixer upper. I would love to share every single detail and type for the next three and a half hours, but I have decided to leave it right here, with an ever so thankful heart. This is where our homeownership journey begins.

Thanks for reading, buddies.

Jenna