So much progress in the first two weeks it is hard to believe! When you do home renovations you can either hire a General Contractor to coordinate it all, you can hire individual people for each task and manage them yourself, OR you can hire an interior designer and have them coordinate everything for you! Kelly, with Studio Shelter, has been handling all of the renovations so far and OMG, it has been so nice! Everyone has been on time and super professional. Wouldn’t do it any other way! If you are wondering how we found her, make sure to read my ‘How to Choose an Interior Designer‘ post.
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Kitchen Demo + HVAC
Did you guys see this crazy demo on Instagram Stories? I call it crazy because I cannot believe how clean and efficient it was. I have watched way too much Fixer Upper. They always show Chip coming in with a sledgehammer on that show and just destroying everything. The expectation vs. reality was WAY OFF for our own kitchen demo, but in the best way.
We donated our cabinets, appliances, and granite to Ben’s Repurpose Cabinetry. We expected nothing in return, but knew that they would come in and do the demo for us. That is why they took such care during the demo. They gave us a check when they walked in, which we WERE NOT expecting. We opened the check a few days later and it was for $1,000! If you are wanting to completely remodel your kitchen, have them come out and look at it to see if they would want it. So nice to know it will be loved in someone’s home and not just sitting in a landfill.
Next up we had HVAC come out and install our vents for our new range. They had to cut some pretty big holes out of the ceiling for the new range hood that will be covered up, whew. We used Touchstone Mechanical here in Denver and they were fantastic. They hit a little snag at the beginning of the project but quickly found a way around it and it made everything easier/better in the long run. We are going to have them come out again before next Winter to add a humidifier to our central air system. It is way too dry in this house!
While Touchstone was here working on the range vents we had Mane Renovations, (720) 317-7615, come out to finish the demo work in the kitchen. Wouter is the name of the gentleman who owns Mane and we have really enjoyed working with him so far. He does a little bit of everything and we will probably hire him to do our bathroom renovations next year. We tried removing the old backsplash but it was creating tons of holes in the wall so we decided to completely cut out the wall and we will have our dry wall guy come out and insert a sheet for repair.
Flooring
Bye bye carpet! We had the carpet in the living room and office ripped out on 3/7 and hardwood installation started Tuesday! We are adding the same hardwood we already had to the living room and office and they are repairing damaged hardwood in the kitchen from the demo and around the house on any that have major holes. Once installation is complete they will sand down the existing hardwood to it’s original condition. From there we will go through some stain samples and pick the stain we want on our floors! Staining the floors will be the very last thing we do for this home reno and we will need to be out of the house for that. Our designer hired someone she has used many times in the past and loves, Focus Hardwood. He has been super efficient and professional! Highly recommend!
Lighting
Lots of questions about our new lighting. We are removing most of the lighting in our home and adding new lighting to entry way, living room, primary bedroom, both kid’s rooms, and in the kitchen. We are also adding additional recessed lighting to the kitchen and living room. The bulbs in our can lights are pretty warm so we will be changing all of those out to a more natural light.
Living Room
Kitchen
Primary Bedroom
Miller’s Bedroom
Callen’s Bedroom
Entry Way
Next Up….
Other than the flooring, the next step will be the plumbing in the kitchen. They are going to have to completely move the plumbing since the kitchen sink will be in a different place in our new kitchen and the new fridge is going across the room from the old fridge. Luckily the new spot for the fridge will be directly under the kid’s bathtub so they are going to try to run the water line down from there. They will also have to move the gas lines since our range will be in a new spot as well, eeek. The plumbers were able to start on Wednesday, on 3/9 and hope to be done by Friday! <update here, it only took them a day and a half to complete everything and they only had our water shut off for three hours!!> They were also hired by Mane Renovations, (720) 317-7615. Very thorough, super nice guys!
Next, the electrician will come in and do his thing on 3/14. We are having tons of electric work done all over the house so he will be here for awhile.
Then, our staircase reno starts on 3/21. We are basically ripping out the old stairs and replacing everything with more modern railing. They will also be installing our new carpet runner on the stairs and they are the ones doing the paneling work on the fireplace and primary bedroom. Our goal is to be gone the entire time they are working on the stairs.
I will be back with a new update once some of the work above is completed.
