Hawkins Homerama Est. 2013

This week we made some big changes to exterior of the house. The outside got a full cosmetic makeover!  We had the large overgrown holly tree next to the driveway taken down. Every time you got out of your car you would get a nice prick from the leaves. It is a very pretty tree and when the red berries come out it makes perfect decoration for the holiday season but it was way over grown and needed to get the boot. We did lose a bit of privacy so we will plant a nice full tree, maybe a dogwood, to get that back.    Before: Holly Tree   Before: Holly Tree     After: All Gone   The front of the yard got cleaned up as well. The remainder of the overgrown Crepe Myrtle was cleared out along with the very lovely yet very out of place tropical plant near the pathway. When the guys ripped it out there was a good 8" deep hole which we figure used to be the one of the large maples that got torn or taken down from storm damage. Now that the ...

And then there were walls..... you would think that Matt and I just hit the lottery. No more studs, holes, hot air, exposed insulation, this house is starting to turn into a home. The hangers for the drywall started on Tuesday and man is that some interesting work. Due to our lovely existing plaster we weren't able to remove it like typical dry wall sheets so we were left with a few holes in the walls and in the ceilings. In this situation they had to lay either1/4", 3/8" or 1/2" thick drywall to meet up flush with the existing then either mud those together or lay another layer of drywall over all of it. Both the bathrooms and kitchen/dining got the double layer treatment. The entry, hallway, new bedrooms and their closets had the single layer. The finishers came in on Thursday after the hangers were done and got through the first layer of mud that night. This stuff takes a day or so to dry before they can sand out and mud a second layer. Lucky ...

WEEK 7: Getting So Close.... The good news for this week of work is that we have walls... the bad news is they just aren't put up yet. All of the new material got delivered on Friday so Randy and his crew are set to start first thing Monday morning. YEAH!! They are scheduled to be done in a few days. SO take all of the mental pictures you can in your head because this will be the last time you get to see the house all torn up!  This week things have really started to come together and you can start to actually see somewhat of a house again. We have started to be able to remove of the 'junk' laying around the house, like tools, boxes, things we need during the demo phase. I always say an organized home is a happy home.   Stacks of 8' sheets   Stacks of 12' sheets I spent my time this week covering our hardwood floors with cardboard to keep them protected while the guys drywall. If any drywall mug gets dropped on the floors you have to go back and scrap...

Week 6: Bathroom Surprise! Hi everyone! This week's blog starts off on a complete high note..... that beautiful pink tile in the hall bath, you remember? Well it has finally decided to retire. Yup! pink tile is no more and honestly it was a little bittersweet to see it go. I had a tile guy come out and give us some estimates on painting the pink but when we ran the numbers starting from scratch just made more sense. So we did some crunching in other parts of the budget and we are going full steam ahead..... even if we have to have Ramon noodles for dinner this next month ;) I will probably kick myself down the road for saying this to the world wide web but shopping is exhausting. This week I selected all of the tile (kitchen floor & back splash, hall bath floors, walls and tub and the master bath floor & shower). I still need to find some accent pieces for the kitchen back splash because of course the tile I am obsessing over is $50 for a 6x6 square. Woof. That obvious...