Over the weekend we kicked back into renovation mode, chipping away at more work on our former 1950’s home.
Over the process of renovating our first home, a lot of planned projects had been put on hold until money was available in the budget. This stems from starting the renovation journey at ages 21 and 22, with entry level incomes, and growing our family.
The kitchen is always an issue with former state homes, and ours was no exception. We completely gutted the kitchen and installed a new streamlined, clean, white kitchen, opening up the space and bringing into the new millennium. After enjoying beautiful exposed Gib walls for nearly a year, it was time to get the tiling ticked and finishing painting this area. Waiting a year with bare walls is simply a by product of my husband travelling a lot with his work as a builder in the army and timing not always being available.
The delay worked out well from a design perspective with a change in our original thoughts of a long glass splash back to tiling. We purchased white subway tiles with a light grey grout from Mitre 10 for their simple design and the fact that they won’t date as quickly, even though they are currently trending. My love of herringbone tiles will have to wait so I’m told, we after all moving on and won’t be here long enough to enjoy them.
A number of structural renovations were done pre-Jimmy, so while Dylan has had the joy of swinging a hammer through a wall, Jimmy hadn’t before this weekend.
The joy on his face was brilliant. Mind you I was a tad nervous watching him swing that hammer harder each time as it got closer and closer to his head in his swing. It took him a while to break through the wall but he was loving it as you can see.
Throughout our renovation process we have taken plenty of before and after photos, creating an album of our first home to be able to look back on as a family (the old school approach). I often take photos of my husband Jeremy whilst saying, ‘this is for the reno album’. Now he’s noticing that they are slowly slipping onto the blog. Say hello Jeremy….
Gib stopping Sunday and after dinner this week to get the walls done and off to choose paint colours this weekend coming. Hilariously in the perils of renovating slowly – we painted our living room four years ago, and well, we created our own shade at the time – not so smart now, as we have no idea how to get the same mix again. I guess we will be painting the living room in the new colour too since its one open plan space.
Looking forward to sharing the finished space soon, for now in the words of Jeremy – “a clean site, is a safe site”, plus I think he enjoys having his apprentices at home.
What renovations projects have you been tackling recently or on your to-do list? I’d love to know your working on in your own home.
Kelly
I love that the whole family is pitching in! I really enjoyed helping my parents with renos when I was a kid and can’t wait to do up my own place. Loving the subway tiles, they’re on my list of “wants” for when we finally get to renovate (but first we have to buy the house!)
Thanks Meagan. The boys adore being able to make their mark on the place, even if some of the jobs require a level of fingers crossed when they do something.
It’s so lovely being involved and very neat that you got to help out too and have those memories.
I pretty much grew up on the building site with my Dad from a young age and loved getting to do the work. Subway tiles are a great classic choice – good luck on the house purchase when you guys go down that path!
I’ve seen those rat bag boy’s some were before,all three of them ,renos looking good kelly but you should keep that big boy away from the hammer and let the little ones go nuts,love dad
Thanks Dad, love ya!