I figured it was time to get a little more personal in one of my blog posts. You have likely read my about me page, and are mostly aware of how I got to where I am, an unusual path for sure. Maybe because it’s 2 am, or maybe it’s because I am 14 days away from getting married, but I am feeling rather nostalgic and sitting here reminiscing about the past three years since we bought our home is definitely feeding that feeling.
Three years ago, my fiancee and I bought our first home. I was far too caught up in the excitement of owning our first home to even start thinking about recording our progress. When we bought our house in 2015, it was the rundown runt of the neighbourhood, but we knew the minute we walked through the door that this was the home for us! We didn’t know much about the house’s history, other than it is the oldest house in our area, originally built in 1929. We moved in with big dreams and even bigger ambitions of how we were going to bring it back its glory.
We took possession of this place on a Friday. I will never forget dragging my two friends out of bed at 7 am in Calgarythat morning. We were all at a conference the last few days, and I’m not sure they much appreciated being woken up that early after a party the night before. Believe it or not, scientists really know how to party. Anyways, we ended up taking possession about 3 hours late, so there really wasn’t a rush to race home that morning. And by the way, does anything ever go as planned with real estate? One of the best parts of that day was both my Mom and Dad made the trek out to Edmonton from Winnipeg (it’s in another province in Canada for those not so familiar with Canadian geography) and were arriving later as well. I was a little worried about what they were going to think of this rundown property we had just purchased. After all, you could say they are to blame for my obsession with buying old things and making them beautiful again. Turns out they were just as excited as my fiancee and I. Though looking back now, I’m not entirely sure if they were excited about the house or just excited to see that we were following in their footsteps fixing up an old home.
Well it didn’t take long to get our hands dirty. We had a 10 day plan to get this house into at least a comfortable state so we could move in. Three years later with plenty of highs and lows, and me yelling about how much I wanted to ditch this place and move on, we have a renovated basement, redone front porch, new bathroom(s), and a completely remodeled kitchen and main floor. It really has been quite the journey and I LOVE our place now. I love it for my mistakes, the parts that turned out perfect, and most of all the memories we have created.
As I sit here now thinking about how far our little 1.5 story has come, I can’t help but smile. It’s usually impossible to see how things are changing day to day, but sit back and reminisce and it really starts to become evident how far we have come. And I never thought I would be one to become emotionally attached to a home, but I guess I was wrong. There isn’t a room in our house that doesn’t remind me of working with my Dad, and yes it makes me miss him, but it also floods me with amazing memories of the times we spent working together. He and my Mom never hesitated to come out to Edmonton and help with the next project, no matter its size. It doesn’t matter what I am working on, to this day he is still the voice inside my head saying, “Do it right the first time.” If it’s not those memories, than its one of a million others. Like watching our kids go crazy the day we brought our puppy (the one you see in our Instagram posts) home, or proposing to my now fiancee on the back patio I built last year.
To give you an idea (or better yet a picture), here are some of our larger projects over the last 3 years as we completely remodelled our home.
We completely changed the front face of the house (porch included). Because the porch was sitting on top of our foundation, we were able to bring the square footage inside. This gave us some extra room inside to increase the square footage in the master bedroom, the front entryway, as well as the living room (which we turned into our music room).
Although this was a large project, it definitely wasn’t the greatest change our home saw. That belonged to our kitchen and main floor renovation. The entire process took us about 6 weeks to complete from start to finish. The hardest part might have been living out of the basement during the remodel. Thankfully we do have a wet bar in the basement which made dishes and cooking easier. Although let’s be honest, how many nights can you really eat chicken fingers in a row?!
Now you are probably wondering where the Beige Bungalow fits into everything. Well last year when I lost my Dad, another chapter for our family, including my Mom began. This is her new place. So if you were ever wondering what the ‘we’ was referring to in those posts- it was her and I. She decided to move to Edmonton to be closer to family and I knew she needed a place she could truly call her own. After what seemed like months of house hunting, looking at everything from new to old homes, we stumbled into the Beige Bungalow. It was boring, dated, and needed some TLC. It was perfect! I knew right from Day 1 that we were going to turn this into a place she could begin to call home. Well if you have been following the blog, you can see how we took it through a complete renovation to the finished place it is now. If you haven’t been following, or you are new to the blog, head over and enjoy the transformation.
Now, two weeks away from my wedding, another chapter is about to begin. And with it hopefully another project. It might be a camper renovation, maybe building a tiny home, or possibly another house. For now we’ll just have to wait and see. No matter which one I choose, you can guarantee the progress will be well documented and completely shared with all of you!
Here are some other posts you might enjoy:
How we built our custom IKEA kitchen, including a review of the IKEA kitchen system
The complete kitchen renovation at the Beige Bungalow
The major tools I own as a homeowner to help me complete all of my projects