Home Improvements

 

As my avid followers (mom and dad) already know, Nick and I relocated to Michigan over the summer, bought a house, started new jobs, and found out we were expecting. It has been quite the whirlwind getting our lives settled in Michigan. So far so good though. I promised I would share some pictures of our improvements we’ve made on our house and so I bring you this Home Improvements post. Later I will post our Before and After furniture projects, etc.

When we bought the house, we knew there was some stuff that needed to be done right away by us but also by professionals. Some of the things we needed done right away were: add a gas line to the laundry room, repair the water heater, replace fascia boards on the house, repair sunken cement block, replace garage door, paint, refinish the deck, etc. Honestly, the list of repairs was quite small at first but quickly grew once we moved in. Luckily we met a handyman contact through our realtor and they were truly amazing and fixed most of the stuff on our list for payment of course, but nonetheless they were able to do all the big stuff while Nick and I tackled the smaller things.

New garage door, new fascia boards, red painted shutters to match red deck and garage trim

New cement step

The biggest and most beneficial of our improvements has been opening up the wall from our kitchen to upstairs living room. This update has been a game changer for me, especially since I spend so much of my time in the kitchen (because  I love to cook). Once we opened this wall, it truly made the place homier and overall just better. We had thought about doing this improvement ourselves but decided we wanted it done ASAP and so we had our handyman do it for us. They did a great job and it was completed in one day.

Open Concept

 

We repainted and organized our laundry room, it started as an icky bright yellow that I quickly painted a nice calm grey.  Plus, there was some missing drywall that my father replaced when he came out for a visit. It is crazy how much changing a wall color and adding some décor can improve the overall feeling of a room. Don’t you agree?

Laundry Room

We also power washed, stripped, and repainted our entire deck. The previous owners probably hadn’t treated the deck in over 6 years, so we wanted to be sure to refinish the deck right away, in anticipation of the winter ahead. It took a lot of time and elbow grease, but we completely repainted and weatherized our deck. We can’t wait for this spring to buy some nice deck furniture so we can sit outdoors and enjoy our lovely backyard (one of the main reasons we wanted this home).

 Refinished Deck