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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

#Stanley90sreno week 1 update: move-in, paint prep, flooring #demoday (and video!)

It's finally here! We've been full of anticipation for undertaking this huge fixer upper project and now, we're in the thick of it. We got our keys last Thursday, moved on Friday and Saturday, and started renovations right away. I'm excited to finally have photos and even a Fixer Upper-inspired video about the house to share with you!!

I want to be real with you guys about this project. For a year and a half now I've been wishing for a "cosmetic fixer" we could update with paint, flooring, light fixtures, and other more fun improvements. Now we finally have this opportunity!! On a good house we got a good deal on, and most of the updates will be those cosmetic things. But, now that we're really in it, we are already learning SO much and I was definitely feeling like we were in over our heads on move-in day.

Here's the living room in its "before" state (well, minus the baseboards which I had already removed on Thursday). My mother-in-law had already started work removing switch plates as husband, brother-in-law, and I loaded the first truck load into the garage.

We FILLED the garage with our stuff and hurriedly got out of our townhouse for to turn it over to our renters. Then we shifted our attention to the new place.

Once we got everything moved in we were able to think about allllll the work we need to do. It started to sink in as we drove away Saturday (to my parents' place where we're staying)... how much work we need to do, how many new things we found just spending a little more time there unloading... going beyond the "fun stuff." I was still excited, but started thinking, "what have we gotten ourselves into????"

Then Sunday. Our first day devoted to the remodel. My generous parents came to help tackle the first things on the list, and my experienced home renovator uncle came by in the afternoon. In just a few hours we got ALL the carpets out of the house, and my mom painted the master closet so we can move our clothes in soon and have access to what we need to wear to work. We even started patching wall damage and figured out how much prep we need to do before painting. (I shared Instagram Stories throughout the day--follow me on IG for more real time updates!)

We were feeling so good getting all the carpets out and making so much visible progress, we were having fun and recorded a talking heads segment à la Chip and Jo on Fixer Upper.

Monday I had the day off and my generous dad and I spent most of the day at the house again, taking care of some important things from the home inspection and doing more wall prep (like removing the most disgusting air filter and air vents in the ceilings). I also found a literal rat's nest in a drawer in the kitchen. [Insert grossed-out emoji.] Now, we get to spend spare evening time at the new house scraping and patching drywall (the previous tenants hung shelves and art everywhere and the drywall is super damaged throughout) so we can hopefully do a massive painting effort this weekend.

And, I will probably keep daydreaming about light fixtures and new rugs, since that's more fun than the slightly depressing reality of the minor construction project ahead of us!

I'd love to hear about your home renovation surprises and efforts!

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