1970 home renovation Archives | Page 17 of 17

1970 home renovation

We purchased a 1970 brick ranch house in Washington County, Maryland in September of 2022. This wasn’t the home I envisioned us purchasing, but we thought it was a little gem that needed the kind of updating we were eager to do. We have had the privilege of meeting some of the children of the original homeowners, who built this Better Homes & Garden floor plan as their dream home. Follow along as we make updates to the home, big and small, while retaining the original charm and best features of the home.

1970 home renovation

reno recap four | kitchen plans, steam cleaning, & pacing ourselves

Home renovations aren’t always full-steam-ahead, especially if you’re living in the home while doing the work. Sometimes you need to take some time to slow the pace, ponder upcoming projects, readjust the plans, and properly clean the house. With a sick kid at home and feeling a bit under the weather myself, this was a good week to slow things down. So, the past few days have been about rest, plans, and getting a few small things done. We’ll get to the ever-evolving kitchen plans in a minute, but let’s start with some of the little things. One of the sort-of-house-related things I’ve been working on is learning how to photograph this house. I’ve been having issues with windows being “blown out” meaning they are so bright they have lost all detail. When I try to edit the photos, they just don’t turn out the way I want. So, I’ve

November 11, 2022 27 Comments

1970 home renovation

reno recap three | new toilet, shelving, doorknobs & more

We have a bit of catching up to do on the renovation recap (since I missed a couple of weeks), so I’m circling back to share some things we did over the past month on top of what we did this week. While there was plenty of activity happening in the house this week, it was a little bit quieter than previous weeks. Jeff is getting into his work routine, I’m getting into mine, the boys are in school, and we have a bit of a break between specialists coming in to work on projects. So, here is what’s been happening in our 1970s brick rancher renovation… new toilet When the guys from Two Men & a Truck unpacked our moving containers, they couldn’t help but comment on one of the things they moved into the garage. “You moved a toilet?” I started laughing. The toilet was a point of

November 4, 2022 39 Comments

1970 home renovation

refrigerator shopping with forté

Disclosure: I am working with Ilve and Forté as a part of a long-term partnership on my kitchen renovation. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Now that the roof is done, it’s time to turn our renovating attention to the kitchen. In fact, my renovating attention has been on the kitchen, but it’s just been sketches, ideas, and standing in the space staring at it for long periods of time. It has been nice to use and live in the kitchen for a while before any firm plans are put in place, though. I’m learning where I work, what I use most, how the light moves, and what I’m missing from my previous kitchen. Since we intentionally looked at homes that needed a complete kitchen redo, I knew that I would be starting from a blank slate on everything, including the appliances. So, as I started to

November 2, 2022 36 Comments

1970 home renovation

weekly reno recap | new roof, new range & more

Someone asked where the weekly reno recap went… Ummm. Yeah. So…you see, when you’re in the process of moving in and major renovations are happening as well as normal life stuff, well, things just slip through the cracks. Hence, no recap. The inquiry didn’t feel like an admonishment at all but like an encouragement. We want to hear what’s going on and be a part of it! So, here is a recap of things that have been happening in the house over the past couple of weeks. (You can read my first reno recap HERE.) The wood floors were finished, which meant we could move into the studio, family room, and primary bedroom. That was an awesome day. Several people have asked how we moved our things in so fast. We opted for a water-based finish, so the dry time was just a couple of hours and we could move

October 28, 2022 38 Comments

1970 home renovation

James Farmer Inspired Corner

There are times when a design I see in a book or online sticks with me. I keep coming back to it again and again and I find myself imagining it in my own home. Most of the time, it just remains an object of admiration. I just don’t have the space or things to pull it off. But, this design by James Farmer has stuck with me and it was something I could emulate. I just needed the right place to do it. James shared this picture in a 2019 Facebook post and this is what he said about it, “When I graduated from Auburn, I started helping some of my grandmother’s friends rearrange furniture, recover a chair and of course, hang a plate or two or three… or twenty. I guess some things never change! In an entry for a client’s hunting farm, the combo of brown transferware,

October 20, 2022 88 Comments

1970 home renovation

golden oak floors

Let’s talk about the cause of the upheaval in our house and the reason Jeff and I are still living out of suitcases – the wood floors. We knew that we would get the floors installed ASAP so when we do finally settle in the house, we can completely settle. We won’t have hardwood floor installation and refinishing looming overhead. As I shared before, that is a decision that I know we won’t regret, but we’ve been in the house for a month and still have stuff stacked everywhere. It’s prolonging one of the uncomfortable parts of moving into a house. It’ll all be over soon, though, because the golden oak stain went on the floors yesterday and we’re now in the finishing stage of the project. Let’s talk about the golden oak stain we’re using on the floors since a few people have asked about that choice as I’ve

October 13, 2022 38 Comments

1970 home renovation

weekly reno recap | wood floors & more

There are so many things happening in the house (you can read about our new house HERE if you missed it) that I decided I should write a weekly recap while we’re in the thick of renovations to give you a rundown of the activity. Some projects we do are not worth a dedicated blog post, but might be worth a few sentences in a larger recap post. So, here we go with our first weekly reno recap. This week was mostly about having the wood floors installed and the week prior was all about getting ready for those wood floors. This meant moving everything out of the three rooms in the house that were getting hardwood floors installed. This is why I felt some urgency to unpack. Yes, things will just be sitting out, but unpacking reduces the bulk and most items could be absorbed into a piece of

October 7, 2022 32 Comments

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