Frugal Adventure Update

Renovations are done!  Well, 99.9% done anyway.  The inside is completely done,and the tenants moved in over Memorial Day weekend.  There are just a few minor projects outside that we need to wrap up, but those are small and will take no time at all to complete.  I am just SO happy the inside is done, and was completed on time for our renters.  WHEW! We have come a long way!!  Our renters happen to be one of my frugal friends, Corinne, and her family.  I wish them many years of happiness in their new home!

I have lots of photos to share with you, all of the completed project.  If you would like to start by checking out what it looked like before we started, check here, here and here.

Let me take you on a tour!

We will start upstairs with the Master Bedroom......

Lovely large closet!! 

 Next, one of the other two bedrooms....

refinished existing wood floor

new closet doors, when we started there was no door or framing for one

 The other bedroom.....

 The Hallway....

 looking up

looking down

 The upstairs bath....

 The living room (that is the doorway to go upstairs)...

new wood floors (see comment below)

new front door

 The dining room...

replaced ugly light with a nice ceiling fan

The kitchen.... (my favorite part of the project)

all new: cabinets, appliances, flooring - you name it, it's new!

that is the door that goes to the basement

extra cabinet space in an open area that we didn't know what to do with

cabinets open on both sides on the peninsula with an overhang for a breakfast area

a new addition...a large pantry

(I was sure to make it nice and large since Corinne is a couponer!!)

 The main bath (downstairs).  This did not exist before.

 The outside....(not much changed there, cleaned up and put up the shutters)

The carpet upstairs and the wood floors in the living room and dining rooms were installed by my frugal friend, Nicole's husband.  Chris Vincent of Vincent Carpeting, Inc. did a great job!  He was very reasonably priced and worked quickly.  He was able to get us scheduled right away when we requested it and was very professional about the entire project.  I highly recommend Vincent Carpeting, Inc.  You can reach Chris at 815-978-6911 if you need any kind of flooring work done, you won't be disappointed!

I love how light everything is now, one of the things that I just could not stand in this house is that everything...every room, every nook and cranny, was SO dark.  I had to do everything I could to lighten up the house and make it more cheery and airy.

I haven't tallied up any figures to know where we are at in our challenge, but I do know with the work that we decided to do it will take a little longer than expected!  Property taxes are higher than we expected as well as the insurance policy needed on a rental property.

Our next step is to have our "Estate Sale" or "Resale" to sell off some of the items that we obtained from the inside of the house.  We have begun setting up in our barn for this sale, but it's still going to be a little while to sort through all the stuff.  Man that guy had A LOT of stuff!  As soon as we have a date set in stone I will post about it so if anyone wants to come check it out they can.