When we purchased the Little House it was covered in brown; brown carpeting including the bathroom and kitchen; brown paneling, brown window coverings. It was a rather dark and somewhat dreary looking place.
Here is how we tackled the job
1) We used a 3 ring binder to keep our ideas, receipts, measurements, contractor quotes…all things Little House went into the binder. It was not just an ordinary binder. It was the one with all the pocketed dividers. We had a tab for appliances, bathroom, lighting, flooring, heating, kitchen; all the categories that made sense to us.
2) Make a budget to correspond with the tabbed categories you have in the binder. The one guarantee I can give you about remodeling is you will over spend your time and your money.
3) We created boards on Pinterest for the different categories as well. We spent hours on-line looking at photos of kitchens, bath, lights, landscaping, barn doors… again anything that we wanted to change or create. We each had our own boards and compared notes and ideas.
4) We also spent hours at home improvement stores…wandering, taking notes, comparing prices & gleaning ideas.
5) We listened to wise people. We give full credit to many who helped “design” the Little House. We spent many a meal with family and friends and as we discussed our thoughts they helped us think through and gave us great ideas.
6) My husband is really smart about all this remodeling stuff! He can do a lot of things himself, but he is also smart enough to know when to call in the professionals. We hired electricians, plumbers, drywallers, framers, carpenters & general labor.
7) We have great family and friends who were willing to help. The Little House really was a group effort. Many wonderful people gave their time to help us. They helped rip out the old carpet, pulled staples from the subfloor, pulled out bushes, hung lights, laid wood floors, laid ceramic tile, finish carpentry, grunt labor, painted, you name it they did it.
I don’t think building a new home or a major remodel is for everyone. It may be for you at some point, but just not your season. Click here to consider what season you are in:( https://annettehetrick.com/the-first-time-is-special/) We are very happy with our remodeled Little House on The Channel! Now, if I do have to say so myself, it is adorable. It was the right house for us at the right time in our life.
Side note:
We moved into the Little House in 2016. We still come home everyday and look around and say “we love it here!” We have friends who feel like they are on a mini vacation when they stay at our home while we are gone. They call it their “little Monaco”.
