Monday, June 24, 2013

A Very Belated Home Tour

Sorry to my 5 readers out there who were probably waiting with bated breath to see more of our new home. We had our computers packed away for the last several weeks and just put them up last night.

The month of June has been a whirlwind of home projects and, luckily, family to help us out with them. The McEwan clan has truly transformed our home over the weeks, not only moving us in, but tackling some seriously back-breaking projects, like scraping wallpaper in the attic room in 90 degree weather. And then this last week my parents came to stay with us and help us with a multitude of projects, including an entire garage makeover! On top of all of that, our new roofing and siding went up which has totally transformed our house from an over-grown eye sore....









... to a respectable, if not beautiful, home...





New siding really makes a difference, as does the new electrical we've done - new front and back door lights as well as adding lights to the garage, which really looks rich. We also tore out all the terrible plants around the front, which were all too tall and too far gone to be saved. We still need to repaint and add the shutters and plant new landscaping in September, but right now, the outside is feeling pretty finished. :-) 

But on to the inside... 

Really, last week was all about setting up the man cave. We really needed to have a good work space for all the house projects, and not knowing where half of our tools were made it kind of hard to effectively tackle projects. Plus, having a garage and work area made the Top 5 list of owning a home so it really needed to come first. 

My dad has a lot of experience with electrical, so we enlisted his expertise in installing some new lighting where there was none, outside the garage and in. 


It all started with this beast - a massive wood overhang previously used for storage in the garage. It looked just like its brother there holding up our old AC unit - but much longer. See that beige line on the white wall in the garage? That used to be its home. But it needed to come down if Bill was going to have a workspace. 

So, thanks to my dad's genius, we plopped it down on the bed of his truck and hauled it out. But not too far as we ended up reusing it as a narrowed-down workbench! Free wood! After hauling up the laundry-room cabinets, installing a pegboard, adding about a zillion new outlets and a florescent light, Bill has a real-deal man cave.... 


Pretty great, eh? 


Just to show you, taking down that shelf was no small feat... there were about 30 mile-long nails holding the back up alone! 


This post is getting long, Young House Love style, so I'll just fill you in on the rest with some good ol' Before's and After's... 







Sans carpet and with a new, modern light.






This room looked even better a few days ago but I didn't take a pic then - I took one when the linens were all over the place and a picture had fallen off the wall, of course... 





And for the real inside masterpiece... 



Ugh.


Oh, much better! (thanks to Bill's dad who painted the whole room and ceiling for us!)


And for a little reminder on what the master bath looked like a couple weeks ago...



... and now, after replacing the door with a shower curtain, installing a new toilet, faucet, and vanity light, as well as tiling a new floor! 



Ok, so its far from "done", but that new floor and toilet and getting rid of that nasty shower door has sure made it much nicer to get clean in! 


Next post I want to share some of our getting-it-done pics - the progress shots mid-job - as well as a few inspirational photos for future plans (the fun part). 

Monday, June 3, 2013

Back in the Saddle Again

Its been a while. Or a little more than that, but we've been busy bees around here. Since my hair cut post 3 months ago, we have been up to some pretty fantastic stuff.

First off, let me re-introduce myself. By night, I'm Meg, but by day, I'm ...

MEG AUGUSTIN, REALTOR! 


Look! I'm professional! 


That's right, I finally got my real estate license in April and am now an active agent with Prudential, Fox & Roach, Realtors! Its been great so far and I'm pretty excited by my new career. 


To step up the professionalism a bit, I've been slowly converting myself over to a PA resident. Finally, I got a new Driver's License, a new PA phone number, and, what's that Bob?.....


A NEW CAR! 



Yes, Obi Wan is retired. He's become one with the force. And I've grown up and have a real deal, working vehicle! Its a new Hyundai Tucson and its like twice the size of any car I've ever driven. Which is good because.... 


We are moving! Into a house we bought! WHAAAAAA???!?!?!

Yeah, we won the Showcase. 

We started looking at the beginning of this year and after about 15 homes, we stumbled upon a fixer-upper in Wayne. 


This one to be exact. 

And oh boy, is it a fixer upper. Almost 3,000 sq ft of it. 

Its a beautiful home with 40 years of dirt and disrepair covering it. Not to mention about 100 patterns and carpets from the 70's. 











Yep. She's a beaut. 

The good news is within the last two weeks, we have had the force of the McEwan clan to take on this beautiful beast. We've been ripping out carpet left and right and removing every piece of wallpaper we can find. 

I plan on giving some good before's and after's of what we have so far later this week, but here's a few pics of what it looks like sans crazy furniture. 





Mmm... orange carpet. 



Mmm... pink, asbestos tile... 



The only bedroom without wallpaper. These people were wallpaper nuts. 


Our glorious master


A few less patterns in the "blue room", but still a little pattern crazy (and that's coming from someone who has like 12 patterns in her bedroom right now)


The famous colored baths of the 50's and 60's. We have all three colors. Woot! 


Yeah, that's white shag carpet up there in the 4th bedroom. It doesn't smell nice. 



So now that you have toured our gross home, you'll be as happy as we are when you see the "so-fars" I'll post shortly. Thank God for the McEwan Clan! Without them coming in, we'd still have half a home full of stinky carpet and patterned paper.