Matt had last Friday off, so we spent the morning and early afternoon in the house spackling the drywall. May I quickly comment about spackling? Ok, yes? Thanks. I’m amazed at how many tools you need to spackle. You need all these knives and then corner knives and seam knives, and honestly it all seems a bit excessive. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just slime the spackle up onto the wall with the palm of my hand, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there.

After the first coat was on, we headed out with a car packed full of food, hoodies, and Berlin, and we drove to Northeastern Tennessee for a weekend in the self-proclaimed “Horseback Riding Capital of the Southeast.” We had somewhat moderate expectations of the cabin we’d be staying in, seeing as their website primarily displayed their kitschy decor. But MAN were we blown away when we got out there!

It was a new cabin, probably no more than five years old, set on a little pond on a quiet 7 or 8 acres. We had a beautiful stainless steel kitchen to cook up a storm in, but spent most of the weekend split between flopping in the hot tub and flopping in front of the roaring fire watching HGTV. Those first-time home buyers are so embarrassing. Did I say those things? UGH! I hope not.

I had booked this weekend away to celebrate our anniversary before we had even found our house, and had no idea that the weekend would pull us away from our renovations – in a good way. I think we both were a little reluctant to leave the house on Friday when we knew how much we needed to work all weekend. But when we got out into no-man’s land it was all worth it. Even though it rained through Saturday night, we got out to a winery, and blew all our cash on outstanding Mennonite fare.

But the best part might have been seeing the look on Berlin’s face when we opened the screen door and said, “Go play!” She was all, “No leash? No poop bag? I can run wherever I want and roll in smelly things?” She romped in the mud and rain and ATE UP going back to her country bumpkin roots.

It was so hard coming back from a great weekend to get back to the grind. I guess that’s always how it goes. Now I have to get my butt over to the house to sand down that first coat of spackle. Maybe Billy Joel will keep me company.

I’ll be posting a full budget breakdown when our kitchen and bathroom are complete, so you can see how we (hopefully!) did a remodel on a small budget. But until then, I wanted to share some ways that we’ve figured out to save at the Big Box home stores. Hopefully they’ll save you a dime or two next time you’re in!

1. I posted this on Twitter a while back, but I was psyched to find out that Home Depot/Lowes can mix up custom paint colors on demand. This means you can use more expensive colors, and sometimes better colors (ie: Restoration Hardware, Benjamin Moore) at the lower price. I’ve had custom colors mixed up for all of our paint so far, except for the trim, and I’m just using regular old Behr. It’s a great way to save.
2. I’ve been using Behr’s new primer/paint in one, and it’s been pretty good so far. For a few more dollars per gallon, you can cut back on the number of coats you’re using, ultimately saving you cash. I have yet to paint a lighter color over dark (which I’m going to be doing tomorrow in the master bedroom) so I’ll give you an update on how well it works in that instance. But I have switched over to their new paint, and I’m enjoying the time it’s saving me as well as the dollars!
3. We’re using Home Depot for the most part, since they’re much closer to the new house than Lowes is. It’s really just a matter of location. Our Home Depot happens to be a brand new one, so I’ve been pleased with the over-eager servicepeople and their newest-of-everything-stock in store. At any rate, our Home Depot (and probably yours!) will accept competitor coupons. This rocks our world, since we’re constantly getting coupons in the mail from Lowes, which we can then use at Home Depot. So far I’ve saved $35 this way, and I just received another coupon for $10 off my next purchase of $50 or more.
4. When it comes to appliances, you can save big if you buy them in bulk. Over Labor Day weekend, I went into Lowes (this time because they had the dishwasher I wanted) and told the salesman, “I need three new appliances. I want them to be Frigidaire, I want them to be XY&Z models, and I want them all for $1,000.” (I actually wound up with a non-Frigidaire dryer to save a little more.) He gave me the Labor Day Sale price, a multiple appliance purchase discount, and honored my two coupons which were not supposed to be used together. I got my ice maker for free with a rebate that I today sent away for in the mail. And now I have the fridge, dishwasher and dryer all for the price I wanted – ultimately saving over $300.
5. Cash in those credit card points! We cashed in our Amex points for two $100 giftcards to Home Depot. We blew through those last weekend for drywall (and necessary accoutrements) in the kitchen and breakfast nook. The fact that the project was virtually free made it a heck of a lot easier to accomplish.
6. Craigslist! I’ve already told you how I bought my new washing machine off of Craigslist. Today we hooked her up, and she’s more beautiful than I could have imagined. I saved $300 (and more in sales tax) by buying her second-hand, but still in the box.

Now do YOU have any money-saving home renovation tips to share?

Our weekend was spent finishing the drywall in the kitchen and emptying out our storage unit while we were dragging, and while it was raining. We couldn’t put a finger on why we felt so sluggish, but I’m starting to think it was the five days of straight rain that we’ve had down here. Not cool, clean, refreshing, Fall rain, but muggy, wet, Indian Summer rain. Pretty much makes you just want to curl up in a ball in the air conditioning and drink lemonade.

Regardless, we got a lot accomplished and have pretty much stayed on schedule. We wanted to have the bathroom tiles refinished, and the kitchen walls and electrical completely finished and ready to go by the end of September. Then the month of October would be for installing cabinets, countertops, and backsplash leaving the first half of November for the installation of appliances and the Hard Wood Floors Man coming to redo the floors in the kitchen. If we can keep on that schedule, we’ll be good to go.

The end of this week will mark our one month anniversary of ownership of the house, and I’d like to take a brief moment to point out the skills I have acquired in the past month. Prepare yourself to be IMPRESSED!

1. I can now remove any wall or ceiling surface down to the studs. Even with 74-year-old sheep’s wool insulation falling in my eyes.
2. I can uninstall a dishwasher, built-in microwave, and range.
3. I can remove and reattach the doors of a side-by-side refrigerator.
4. I can make $130 by selling old crap from the house off Craigslist!
5. I can rip up linoleum floor and subfloor, although my 50-year-old back is then sent into extremely painful back spasms, so I will never do that again.
6. I can haul plaster and lathe to the dumpster, man. And pick up a $12 lawn mower for my husband whilst there.
7. I could have changed out the spark plug on the aforementioned lawn mower if I had been strong enough to unscrew the previous plug which was rusted on. I knew WHAT to do.
8. I can nail blue electrical boxes to studs – very crookedly… BUT AT THE RIGHT HEIGHT!
9. I can run wire and hook up an outlet.
10. I can wield a reciprocating saw (and change its blade!), rock the tool that I refer to as the “Variable drill”, and I’m pretty sure I could use the RotoZip to cut around electrical boxes if I had to, since I’ve seen it done so frequently. But it was part of Matt’s anniversary gift, along with his new tool belt and boots, so I won’t get grabby with the little machine!
11. I can restore a 74 year old rope and pulley window to it’s original glory.
12. I can measure, cut, and install drywall. Matt even let me do my very own little piece from start to finish.
13. I can put up FibaTape (which belongs in a rap, take note my hip-hop readers).
14. I can put a toilet back together, courtesy of my father-in-law’s Handyman Helpline.
15. I can put a pedestal sink back together, also courtesy of my father-in-law’s Handyman Helpline.
16. I can blow through money at Home Depot like you’ve never seen!
17. I can paint. Oh boy, I can paint.

And later this week I will learn how to spackle and sand from the man who INVENTED spackling and sanding. I have also become quite skilled in coming home smelling like dinosaur poo and throwing a frozen pizza in the oven. I am VERY, VERY good at that. Three cheers for transferrable skills!

Someone please roll this guy up, stick him in a hot dog bun and smother him in barbeque sauce, because I love him and he is so deliciously attractive when he’s drywalling.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Look at that drywall. Just look at it! On the ceiling, on the walls, measured, and cut, and perfectly covering up all the 1935 nastiness that used to be there. And that very sexy man in the picture there is the man who did it all. More machine now than man.

From Daily Daguerreotype

Not only is he hot, but he is also brilliant because he devised and built this wooden beast (pictured above) to help us drywall the ceiling. We proved that one and a half strong people can quite easily screw drywall upside down with the aid of a two by four wedged against the ceiling. Seriously, try it. It works. Oh, and we nicknamed it “The Thief” because it looks eerily like a cross, and towards the end of its dutiful work we proclaimed, “Today you will be with me in paradise!”

We completed the ceiling in both the main kitchen and the breakfast nook, but the highlight of the weekend for me was fixing a broken bathroom tile. I needed to gorilla glue it into place and then apply grout so it will be ready in time for the bathroom guy to come on Tuesday. I heart grout. It was ever so much fun as I had imagined it would be.

Now if I can only hit one of my last goals in life, laying a brick wall, I’d be ready to cross the river Jordan.

When we started planning out the kitchen I envisioned a really smooth, clean, mid-century modern look with yellow-brown cabinets and a lot of white. I love a really modern kitchen or bathroom and I think it leans your mind towards cleanliness even if you hate to clean, which is my case. I wasn’t sure what I wanted on the floors, but since we assumed we were going to put down tile I was planning on doing a grey slate with a medium to dark grey grout. (There is nothing in the world worse than trying to clean a light colored grout.)

Just when I was in love with the look of the kitchen in my mind, I made a huge discovery. The original wood floors buried under three layers of linoleum. They are thin planks made most likely of oak, from what I can tell of the rest of the house. And they’re in great condition, albeit riddled with nail holes.

Throughout the process of gutting and renovating the kitchen, we are really falling in love with this house and how it was originally built in 1935. Although some people would insist we upgrade to vinyl windows, we are smitten with the original weight and pulleys. (Plus Tennessee is a pretty mild climate – insulation isn’t as big a deal.) While it would be easier to keep much of the updated (in the 80s) door trim, I’m insisting that Matt build the original trim back for those doors and windows, a project he is really looking forward to. And when it comes to uncovering the original wooden floors in the kitchen, there is no other reasonable option than refinishing them.

We’re getting quotes to hire this out because we’ve got enough on our plates, and Heavenstomurgatroid! We want to move in! It looks like it might be equivalent if not cheaper than laying the tile, so that sounds good to me. The glitch that I’m running into is that it completely changes the look of the kitchen that I had envisioned.

The wood floors in their current finish would not go at all with the cabinets I wanted. But I want the wood floors more than I want the cabinets, so I’m going to change them to a more traditional white. With white cabinets and white appliances, I’m leaning towards a tiffany blue piano tile backsplash to bring some color and some of the modernity that I wanted back into the room. I’m going to add glass doors to some of the upper cabinets to create a sort of hutch to display my grandmother’s china, which is aged around the same era of the house!

While I think the switch to traditional white cabinets is going to be more universally attractive, therefore increasing the value of the home to future buyers, I think it is also the most respectful thing I can do to the house. It’s the same reason we’re planning on installing a white and black basketweave tile for the bathroom floor. There is magic in old homes, and I want to keep that.

Besides, I’ll be able to use the mid-century modern looking cabinets in our retirement home in Colorado with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Rockies and commercial-grade stainless steel Wolf appliances!

What a weekend! Matt and his BFF, Curran, spent much of Saturday and Sunday doing electrical work in the kitchen and breakfast nook – hereby referred to in totality as “The Eat-In Kitchen.” They rewired the kitchen which used to be ungrounded to grounded. They installed a new box above the sink so I can have a pendant light there. Here they are with their cute little blue electrical boxes.

From Daily Daguerreotype

And then there was THE WALL. They had to build fake walls to support either side of the wall they were taking down. Then Matt built new mamma-jamma studs that were double wides to hold up the header. And then the old studs came down, the header went up, and we screwed her in place. While we had a few glitches all weekend with unrelated issues (ie: electrical and plumbing) the knocking down of the wall went surprisingly smoothly. Here are the before, during, and after shots.

Before:

From Daily Daguerreotype

During:

From Daily Daguerreotype

After:

From Daily Daguerreotype

My kitchen is now much larger and much brighter. But on top of that, Matt will be able to sit at the kitchen table and sneer at me while I roast him large cuts of pork. Cause that’s how we roll.