This story is a long time coming and one of the most highly requested topics from yall! So here it is the update on my house from the beginning to right now! I asked for your questions on Instagram and I’m also giving yall more backstory too.
Back in February TM started looking for a house because his lease was up in May. We went an looked at multiple houses, most of the ones we looked at we saw the day after they went on the market. The market in the Austin area was (and probably is) super hot. Things were going on and off the market within 48 hours and at 10k-25k over asking price. People were waiving appraisals and inspections – it was insane. All the houses TM and I looked at needed work; I mean were stuck in the 70s and were priced as if they were brand new or updated. It was disheartening to say the least. TM signed his lease for another year and we went back to just browsing zillow when we were bored.
In August I was scrolling through the area around where I work; there’s a super cute downtown square and there are some great homes going up for sale; and I found this house that looked perfect. Wood plank floors, vaulted ceilings, hand painted tile floor, an office, a laundry room, and in a great neighborhood. The cons? The backyard wasn’t exactly what one would call big… The price was perfect. I was talking it over with my mom and she said to jump on it and go look. This was a Tuesday night when I found it. We didn’t have a realtor because TM had stopped looking and we weren’t necessarily thrilled with his original realtor so I asked a colleague for a recommendation. The goal was to get someone to get us in that house asap. We went to see the house the next day, Wednesday, after work. Me, my mom, and TM.
It bombed. The hand painted tile was literally painted on the floor it wasn’t as if the tiles had been painted prior to glazing. The wide angle lens fooled me big time and the wood plank floors were not properly laid so there were warping when you walked on it. And the backyard was too small for four dogs. TM has two and I have two and we want them to have space to run around. The neighborhood was great and it was at the end of the street but it wasn’t what we were looking for. I was crushed. We left and our new realtor ended up sending us some more listings the next day, Thursday, but nothing was what we were looking for.
By Thursday my mom had caught the bug too and was encouraging me to look outside of the area where I work and look back at the town where I had originally wanted to live. Thursday night we had found another house we wanted to look at. It was an old house, built in the 80s and never updated but man it had potential. We sent the address to our realtor Friday morning and had an appointment for a showing Saturday morning first thing.
I’m a sucker for old houses with character and while I like open concept floor plans I sometimes feel as if I’m in a studio apartment if there’s no differentiation between the areas: living, dining etc. When we walked in I remember thinking wow these windows are amazing! There was so much light in this house! Pros: huge living area, awesome backyard, circle drive, amazing established neighborhood, detached garage with a shop, big laundry room, storage space upon storage space, and two huge primary closets. Seriously yall, we looked in the primary bathroom and I was excited about the closet then I opened the next door and it was another closet the same size and I screamed. An ear piercing scream that I’m pretty sure made our realtor judge me but I don’t care.
Cons: had not been updated since it was built in the early 80s. You might have seen on instagram – the microwave and oven combo are from the early 80s (but they still work great)! We knew we were going to have rip out all the flooring – hello carpet with burn holes and linoleum. We were going to have to paint every room, ceiling, and trim – everything was a manila yellow.
We put the offer in the next day, Sunday morning. Sunday morning! We had looked at that first house on Wednesday! It was a whirlwind. Then the race was on to get all the documents in to the lender, get everything signed, and get the appraisal and inspection done. There were things that we were expecting: GFCIs needed to be put in, smoke detectors needed to be updated, and we needed to put in more insulation in at some point. There were also things we didn’t expect: like the hole in the roof that no one knew about that was causing a leak in the laundry room ceiling!
That was a whole ordeal because we found out that the owners (who had sadly passed away and their kids were the ones selling) had roof repairs done about three years ago and that roofer had done a shitty job. My mom had the name of a great roof guy who came out and told us what needed to be done and what the original roofer had done incorrectly. We called the original roofer and had him come out to assess what he hadn’t done. He was on the CYA train from the moment he stepped out of his vehicle. If you ever need the name of a roof guy in the Austin area let me know because I can tell you the name of a great one and the name of a bad one.
Once we closed and the house was ours we found more exciting things: popcorn ceilings when we took down cabinets and light fixtures, black mold in the air ducts (kill me), and an insane amount of wasps in the awful bushes surrounding the house. I started ordering furniture and decorative pieces – which was fun! Here’s my inspiration for the feel of the house.
Before moving in we had vinyl plank flooring put in, the entire house painted including the cabinets, some of the windows replaced, and new window treatments put in. We spent about two hours in the flooring warehouse figuring out what we wanted. I’m dead set against carpet and I thought I wanted the entire house in wood look tile. I wanted to look of wood but something that would hold up for years especially with dogs and, god willing, kids. The salesman and TM changed my mind by the end of the trip though. We went with vinyl wood plank – I shudder at the word vinyl so we just call it wood plank. The biggest selling points were that it doesn’t scratch and it’s waterproof so it can go in the bathrooms too. Like I said the entire house is wood plank. Then I had to pick which wood plank. We took three samples and put them in the house and looked at them in different spots at different times of the day.
Paint choice was a whole other ordeal. I thought going in I was going to go with white dove, Chantilly lace, French grey etc but nothing looked quite right on our walls. The living room is a very open space and the light on the walls changes with the sun coming through the back windows. I started off with four different choices for the walls and it blossomed to 14 different paint swatches on the wall. I don’t do well when there are lots of choices. We finally settled on Decorator’s White for the trim, brick, and cabinets; and Rock Candy for the walls and 50% Rock Candy for the ceiling. Rock Candy is an icy blue grey and it stays true in the sun and shade. The brick we painted is the fireplace hearth and the brick wall in the dining room. We painted the front porch wood so the porch looks great but a little at odds with the rest of the outside brick – that comes later.
Prior to paint and flooring TM and I ripped out the brick in floor planter by the front door, the random light fixture on the living room wall, the cabinets on each side of the fireplace and a section of cabinetry/island in the kitchen. TM actually did it all, I mainly watched. We also fenced in the backyard with rod iron fencing. TM and I ripped out all the bushes that surrounded (front and back) the house and garage. That was a long day and I’m crushed the house looks bare without them but they were awful and like I said full of wasps. TM changed every single light switch plate and individual switch and outlet cover and individual outlet plug in the house because they were the manila color. He says he’ll never do that again ha! We switched all the light fixtures and got a new fan for the living room. There was also a fan in the kitchen that got scrapped and TM put in a different fixture.
Here’s the list of things that we still have to do:
– add shelving to the sides of the fireplace, TM is going design and build these
– update the primary bathroom with a possible redesign
– update the guest bathroom completely (TM wants to do this on his own so we didn’t even paint the cabinets)
– update the kitchen, get a larger oven and a stove vent hood that vents out of the house
– pick a couch and decide on a living room arrangement (we currently have my mom’s old couch while we figure out what we want)
– TM wants to/is going to build a long table for the dining area
– update the wet bar area
– add artwork to the walls, they are super blank right now
– organize and decorate the office because it’s currently a catch all
– wait for the chairs to come in for the kitchen, they’re currently not scheduled to get here until April…
– paint the outside of the house with new trim
– figure out what furniture will go in the entryway
– find a king bed set for the primary bedroom
– landscape front and back
– TM is going to build a wall of shelving in the closet for my shoes
– pick a new front door
– repave circle drive and driveway
I know there’s more…
The table for the kitchen gets delivered today and we will be using card table chairs for the next few months. Check out the new table on instagram because I’m sure I’ll post a picture of it on stories!
My goal is to do a house update every other month so hopefully by March the shelves will be done and maybe some more things will be checked off the list. I’ll share some before and after pictures when we actually get some furniture in the house!
