The Big Kitchen Remodel {and reading the end of the book before the beginning}

Here is to reading the end of the book before the beginning...

Preface: We have tutorials coming on most of this kitchen {as we did about 85% of it ourselves in some way shape or form}.  However, I keep posting "sneak peeks" due to no other way about it and I can't wait to share with everyone anyway.  So without further ado...

Get ready for a LOT of pictures!

We bought the house because of this which proved to be a huge undertaking.

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Tips and Tricks and General Instructions

If this is new to you and you want to see all of the other steps we took: prep work and supplies and Elastilon.   Hope you find them helpful as well!

This post may seem scattered, because we learned things as we went - and this post will probably look the same way.  However, we hope you can learn from other people's mistakes experiences. It will mix your general instructions with our tips - because ultimately we winged it {as much as a control freak can "wing" anything}.  Here goes nothin'! *Sorry for all of the words and less pictures, these are more brain tricks and tips and unfortunately, we couldn't snap pictures from inside there!

Patterns and Execution

Tip #1: Turn the last board in the row around so the groove is up next to the groove {length wise}, mark where the cut should go to make it shorter {should light up with the board you lay immediately prior to this step - make sure to leave room for the gap!}, and cut there.  Instead of measuring, marking, etc. we found this method to end up in an extremely low error rate and made the process go much faster.  The majority of the time, if there was a "miscut", we were usually making it too long instead of too short which meant we could correct the error. Yardsticks really help when you made an ut-oh cut. {If you would like pictures or further explanation of this, just let us know in the comments, after much searching for a picture, we couldn't find one.  But we could definitely stage the situation for you if you would like!}

Weekend Review

Wow! What a weekend?  We were extremely productive.  And be prepared for a LOT of pictures!

Friday Night

We were pretty lazy.  We knew we had a very busy weekend ahead of us because Lizzie ate her crate {yes, ATE her crate}.  So after dropping the dogs off at "Doggy Day Care" {a.k.a. Papa and Lala's house}, we went out and treated ourselves to a dinner at a restaurant.  Then we struggled with what time it had to be to be acceptable to go to bed. We settled on whenever before 10 works.

Feel {Great} Friday & Monthly Goals - November 2014

Just like last month, I want to keep myself accountable.  Well, here is where we stand after October:

Not bad {in my world}!  I would say finishing 3.5 of 5 projects {and for the record, my car did spend 2 weeks in the garage} and finishing 4 Project Elephant items is a success! 

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Our friend Elastilon

To make sure everyone is on the same page:

• Yes, we decided to lay our own flooring.
• No, we didn't regret it {for any longer than you usually regret any manual labor}.
• Yes, people thought we were crazy.
• Prepwork takes a looooong time {much longer than my very scheduled brain could comprehend}

We left off somewhere around here:

 So far we have:

• Taken out staples and removed glue residue from the subfloor.
• Removed baseboards.
• Swept, and swept, and swept some more.  
• Laid the moisture barrier.
• Had Dad simultaneously doing other seemingly important tasks {in Kelcie's mind, they were very urgent, hindsight says they probably weren't quite as urgent as originally thought}

So now we are ready to lay some wood {or bamboo} floors - right?

Not for us! 

DIY House Remodel - Lay Your Own Wood {or bamboo} Floor - Prepwork

Here is your slight background story.  But if you are just here for how we approached this humongous and screaming project, feel free to skip a paragraph or two.

We got married at the end of May 2014.  It was beautiful, wonderful, and absolutely perfect for both of us.  We had spend an entire 5 months preparing (we got engaged on Christmas Eve of 2013) and saving money by doing most everything ourselves.  In April before we got married, we decided it would be a good idea to buy a house.  This house was in various stages of disrepair or antiquity.  So while we Andrew did some demolition before the wedding, we Kelcie said absolutely no work on the house during the month of May.  

Weekend Review

Hello Friends!

Here is a small weekend update for you on our very hodge-podge weekend! {Friday night was date night and lay on the couch for a good catch-up binge TV show watching.  No pictures of that because I don't want to bore you to death.}

Saturday!

We decided to start cleaning out the attic - which means after 1 week of my car in the garage, it is booted back to the driveway {for now}.  It is a much larger project than we anticipated - including a new dumpster and thorough sweep.  We finished about 25% of it and found some nice treasures that we think someone, somewhere will enjoy {read: too special to throw in the dumpster but not something we personally want to hoard}.  So we plan on selling it in some kind of Etsy or Garage Sale fashion (maybe both?)

Monthly Goals - October 2014

In an effort to keep myself accountable and realistic about our house and life goals, I am going to attempt to document my  our goals each month.  I want to really see how much progress I made and see if I am being honest with myself.  I am also going to have a little Project Elephant {as inspired by Abbie at M is for Mama's Project Elephant} that will be nice to bite a bit off of each project each month, but if necessary can be pushed - but progress on that is important!

This month we have the following happening: our new nephew will be arriving {sorry Maggie, September birthday is no longer an option!}, there will be a new puppy to the pack {my parents' new puppy, don't get excited}, Aubrie's birthday, two days of JA, and plenty of OSU Cowboys football. It is a packed and extremely monumental month.

Can't you just see it?!

So I mentioned that there were two main areas that we actually bought the house for. But first, we want to know if you can envision it.

The Living Room

Goose had to make a cameo appearance.  {He was actually waiting for Lizzie to pop around that corner - they loved playing chase when the house was empty!}

The house "as is"

So... we bought a house.  

Here is a picture from Day 1:

As you can tell, Andrew was really excited.  It was in the middle of April, it was actually cold, and those shrubs were beyond dead.  It was a great day.

Let's start at the VERY beginning

{because it's a very good place to start...}

At one point in our lives, not that long ago, we decided it was a fantastic idea to buy a house while being 6 weeks away from our wedding date.  We proceeded to purchase said house and then completely tear it apart - while also DIY-ing practically our entire wedding.  

We wanted a way to document this process and make it available to answer quite a few questions that everyone else had for us along the way.   We considered making an album and holding everyone hostage to come see it (this is still a HIGH possibility) and then we considered doing an online album share of some kind.  However, at the time of this post, we are not on social media (once again, OH the horror!).  But it has been a longtime dream of ours mine to start a blog.  Not for the "I think people care what I have to say" sort of thing, but for the "I would maybe like to know what I was thinking back then" sort of way.  

So here's to you - and to keeping you in OUR loop!