end of year house update

I figured I should give you all an update before the year is over. Selling, buying and renovating our new house has by far been our biggest adventure of 2016 and I must say I'm a little happy we're finally at the tail end of it all.

This post will be a lot of pictures so here ya go and happy new year!

 

Our cabinets came in [that's the new island] so it was time to deconstruct and have them install two days later [we were going to install ourselves but for $300 it was worth it!].

Cabinets everywhere!

Two days with no cabinets is not as fun as it seems...

And the boys thought this was their jungle gym :/

Love at first sight! Thanks to Kitchen Encounters!

Left our mark before attaching the island - hopefully when we sell [very far in the future] those owners don't want to remove the island since this is in sharpie :)

Everyone is a helper now.

Finally tiling our bathroom that has been without a toilet or a sink since we moved in.

 

So black grout for your first grout job may not be the best idea...

But we love it :)

And it's done! First room in the house to be 100000% finished!

 



And the plywood countertops are still there but that should change in 3 weeks for a grand total of about 11-12weeks with no countertops.



We love our slate colored stainless steele GE appliance - thanks Best Appliance for all the help!

 

Added lights over the island [they weren't there before so we had to run new lines] and over the dining room table [we've since shortened the rope]. The house is soooo bright now!

Holy crap we have molding! We now have molding on the entire first floor minus the bedrooms [that will get finished up in the next two weeks] and now all we have to do is fill in the nail holes and paint another coat - yeah that could be awhile!

In case you were wondering what has kept us going the past 3 months! Plus logging ALOT of running miles too!

We finally got around to painting the entryway.

 

From this angle we look like the house is totally put together - just don't look to the right!

And will finish it off with a cute 1.5yr old who is playing with his sleeping brothers legos that say they are for 4-7yr olds :)

a very vermont thanksgiving

We have gone home to NY for Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. But this year was our first year celebrating in Vermont due to a sick baby so we made the best of it and tried to relax and enjoy a four day weekend.

Tom started off Thanksgiving brewing beer, we started drinking some beer at noon [traditions people, traditions] and because we're vegetarians we made some stuffing, with lots of veggies, from scratch and that's it! We did however go to 4 breweries on black Friday :)  Tom's sister came in on Friday so of course we made our brewery rounds - we started small business Saturday early ;) We also decided to brave the crowds [16,000 people!] and head to Killington for the World Cup on Saturday. We didn't stay long but it's cool to say we went, plus Finn's life was made riding a bus! Besides that we painted the entryway and just hung out. It was kind of nice but we definitely missed being around a big family and really celebrating - next year!

First stop, Foley Brothers Brewing. Faire Maiden is easily one of the best beers and none of their other brews every disappoint either!

We figured we were only 20mins from 3 breweries/ciders in Middlebury so headed up North. We stopped at Drop-In, Woodchuck and then Ottercreek before heading back to Rutland for dinner at Vermont Tap House.

Every brewery needs Hungry, Hungry Hippos and a massive bucket of Mr. Potato Head. Well done Drop-In, well done!

Always good and ended up taking home some cider/whisky reserve too.

Littlest helper knows what's good.

And Ottercreek just became their favorite brewery...

Finn was upset he couldn't ride the gondola and ski the World Cup...next year buddy, next year .

Now it just needs a second coat...

What's your Thanksgiving traditions?

the rutland i know [and have learned to love]

I realize I'm technically an outsider and am certainly not a "Vermonter" by local standards so my point of view is vastly different from those who were born and raised here.

So often I hear locals complaining about how Rutland was once this great small city with no drug problems or crime. Honestly, I think every town and city, big and small, says the same thing. Our populations have grown and changed drastically over the past few decades. We have access to information at our fingertips and even the smallest happenings are posted all over the internet - something that was impossible a few decades ago since you can only fit so much into an hour of news or in a newspaper. I do believe that drugs are a national issue and unfortunately Rutland has seen this epidemic first hand.

However, I will say that as an "outsider" [ who has lived in cities such as Syracuse, Utica and Rochester, NY ], Rutland is an extremely safe city. As a runner I feel safe running any street in the city and often run through the "gut." There were streets in Syracuse and Rochester where I knew I shouldn't go and never did because my life would actually be in real danger. Tom went for a run in Syracuse while I was living there and got extremely lost. He was yelled at and mocked while running down streets he could tell were not safe and he was actually scared. He came back having run 5:30minute miles and when he told people the streets he had run on they were scared for him.

The streets in Rutland are fairly well maintained and yes there are some boarded up houses but for the most part the lawns are mowed and people wave. An older runner once told me that you can tell if a street is safe or not based on how many lawns are mowed - not sure if any other runner follows this standard but I do and I've never been down a Rutland street where a majority of the houses have hay fields out front. Actually, the only time I have ever not felt 100% safe while running in Rutland [ on a lonely back country road, not in the city ] was because I had watched too many Criminal Minds episodes and thought "a farmer could feed me to his pigs right now and no one would hear me scream." Trust me, your mind would go there too if you were running 10 miles on a single back country road in rural Vermont!

Every city and town has their problems but it's how we deal with them that defines us. Rutland is by far the most supportive place I have ever lived. We all want to see it continue to improve and everyone is there to help. Most people live near their families so they have help when and if they need it which was a huge concern of mine when we started our own family 3 hours away from our hometown. But ya know what, Rutland has been there for us through every up and down - Rutland has become our family when we've needed them the most. Rutland has made us feel like we are in fact Vermonters through and through. We moved here for jobs and have stayed for the Vermont lifestyle which Rutland embodies perfectly.

Running through Downtown Rutland.

Running down Grove St from McKinley Ave is by far my favorite stretch of Rutland to run.

1 month progress [and lots of pictures]

I know this is supposed to be a blog about all things Vermont but right now our lives are consumed with remodeling and the only beer we're drinking comes from our new beer fridge! I will say that we've been doing a lot of ordering out and by far Little Harry's Restaurant in Downtown has been our go to. Their vegetarian burritos are huge and filling and so good, plus the boys love their veggie chili and unlike most take out food, the sizes are as if you are eating in the restaurant. So, there's my Vermont pointer for this blog.

Now onto our renovations over the last month. We've done ALOT in the last month. Everything is painted besides the entryway and basement and as of Monday we now have hardwood floors upstairs, our beds are no longer in the basement and Finn has bunkbeds! Our new cabinets will be here this week but of  course we're gone this weekend for a half marathon so we'll be putting them in as we can. After they're in then we order countertops and hopefully the kitchen will be finished in about a month - or that's the plan. We're slacking on the bathroom remodel and we need all new molding throughout the first floor but besides that it's looking good!

And that was our lives for 1 month, plus a toddler bed.

The side panels and top drywall are now up, but it's still lacking a toilet, and floors and the blue sink still exists.

Two doors since we removed a random closet to expand the bathroom

 

RIP blue toilet and tub, you will not be missed.

 

Wall removed!

Yeah, lets not screw that up!

Tom drywalled where the closet was and we now know his one shortcoming :P

And we have wood flooring! They had to acclimate for about a week so of course they turned into a jungle gym.

Finn with his worker belt.

Please note the name of the paint color for our front door is Nacho Cheese :)

And finally paint!

I came home from a day long event to wood floors and I became a very happy wife!

 

Master bedroom wood floors.

And as of last weekend we are finally sleeping in our rooms!

Finns bunk beds that he LOVES!

Even Ubu is loving the new house.

 So, there ya have it, a house update. It will probably be another month before you get another but hopefully by then there will be a kitchen and maybe a bathroom, just maybe!

The Before [welcome to 1981]

We sold our first house in August and just closed on our new, much larger house yesterday! We're most excited to have a huge yard and such a nice neighborhood with lots of other families and kids. We are not so happy that the house has not been updated since it was built in 1981 though. It was very well built and well maintained so it has that going for it. I will say that the style house is far from the classic farmhouse that I love [our first house was an 1890 farmhouse], but I'm looking forward to an open floor plan with tv and toys being downstairs.

We're doing all of the work ourselves [and by ourselves I mean Tom mostly] and although we're doing it as cheap as possible we also don't want it to look cheap. We did upgrade the cabinets and the countertops [but kitchens sell and this is not our forever home] but Tom will be installing the cabinets and we're doing butcher block countertop on the island to almost even out the cost if we had done solid from Home Depot on the entire kitchen. We also went with a cheaper hardwood floor even though hickory is actually harder than maple and we used Lumber Liquidators to keep the cost even lower.

We'll be installing floors, painting every wall and remodeling the kitchen within the first 1.5-2 months of moving in. The rest [like the blue bathroom and puky master bath] will be done as we have time/money over the next few years.

And what you've all been waiting for, the before...

We'll be Joanna Gaines-ing the crap out of this by painting all exterior brick a light grey.

So I love the entry way Vermont slate but we'll be re-treading the stairs and putting in spindle railings.

Joanna Gaines is my spirit animal and we're going to shiplap the right wall there. Just not sure if we'll keep it natural or paint it white.

All of the upstairs carpets and linoleum will be ripped out and replaced with hardwood Hickory floors. 

That wall is coming down to create a completely open floor plan and I can't wait!!!

We're taking out the kitchen (the picture actually makes the ugly/cheap cabinets look good) and putting in white, shaker cabinets from a local company and beautiful soapstone counters from a local company. The island is grey cabinets with a butcher block counter that Tom will make.

We're painting all of the molding white in the whole house and getting new white doors.

It's not an 80's house without a blue bathroom.

A nice pink master that hasn't been painted since 1981. New floors and paint is pretty much all this needs though.

Thankfully the master bath is small so this reno shouldn't be too pricy. The floors and shower will one day be tile and I can't wait to put a 1920's style bath into a 1980's house :P

the boys room is getting the new floors and some paint, plus bunk beds of course!

This is the mudroom right off of the garage. We're gonna put tile in and mega, floor to ceiling storage for coats and shoes and bookbags.

Super excited we have a laundry room and all it needs is some cheap click n lock vinyl waterproof floors, paint and of course new appliances that are HE so we can be our crunchy selves and keep using cloth diapers :)

The basement is huge so we're just going to sand the rough wood beadboard and paint it white. One day we may replace the carpet but it's the last thing we would do in the house.

This tiny bathroom in the basement is getting new wallpaper - yes wallpaper! It will have some super funky design that only I will probably like but whatever. We have an antique mirror we'll put in here but the sink is staying and we'll just paint the vanity.

And that's it haha It's a lot of work but we're excited to turn our 1980's house into a modern farmhouse that we love!