Alexis Senge JohnsonIt was 2012 when we made the big jump into homeownership with dreams of a big home renovations. We fell in love with the layout of our home and knew it was what we wanted as the family grew. The downside was that the original owners had left the house painted assylum white ever since the purchased it and they picked out all baseline options throughout. It wasn’t long after moving in that the drawer faces were falling off in our hands and the laminate countertops were peeling off in our hands.
We were so sure that we would be renovating that I picked a vibrant yellow out for the kitchen with the thoughts that we would be choosing expresso cabinets and I didn’t want our space feeling too dark and heavy. We painted the whole downstairs and the master bedroom before moving in and were committed to our plan but then came the boys. Our house sat untouched by renovations for eight years while we saved up but that gave us plenty of time to dream of everything we hoped to accomplish. I was so convinced that 2020 would be the year of the renovation that in 2019 I spent Black Friday tracking down deals on new kitchen appliances, taking full advantage of Rakuten for additional cash back that could be used later in the project, since our old appliances were being held together by duck tape and dreams. Then COVID hit and I started to think they would sit in their boxes in our garage forever. However, in the midst of the pandemic, it became possible to move forward with the big plan during the summer and that couldn’t have happened soon enough as every passing day was bringing us another item in the kitchen that no longer wanted to work.
We turned to Ally Building Solutions for flooring, cabinetry, counter tops, and the accent tiles. Definitely one of the best decisions we made because it enabled us to accomplish all of the major renovations in less than four weeks. Since we had the money saved up, they helped us work out a credit card payment schedule that would enable me to pay for the whole renovation in large chunks on the credit card and rack up points before paying it off each time. This enabled us to then apply the points to Lowe’s gift cards later that we were able to use for some of the finishing touches.
While we waited for our appointment with the Ally Building Solutions team, we made the jump to finally paint the exterior of the house partly because the garage door we were forced to install during 2019 was still white and not HOA compliant. Once that was checked off the list we turned to the team at Momentum Solar to start the transition towards reducing the carbon footprint of our house. With more than 75% of our roof now covered in solar panels, I look forward to the monthly report sharing how much energy we sent back to Duke Energy and the bill from them being at a minimum after years of receiving bills that were between $200-$400 each month.
To say I had fun at the Ally Building Solutions design studio would be quite the understatement. That was the beginning of the excitement and the first chance to see the potential all the renovations would bring to us. Within four weeks the Wellborn cabinets were on their way and our dust free flooring removal was scheduled with Floor Nation. They weren’t kidding when they said dust free! Despite so much tile and carpeting needing to come up, they held true to their name and left the few pieces of large furniture they shifted around completely dust free.
10 hours after beginning, our kitchen was gutted and the downstairs flooring was all gone. It was amazing, scary, and exciting all at the same time! The Ally Building Solutions team was so considerate that they worked with us and had all the demo done on a Friday so we could have the weekend to tackle painting. We had never painted ceiling with a fresh coat of white when we moved it, but it was time and we knew also knew it was time to say goodbye to the yellow kitchen. By the end of the weekend the ceiling was a pristine new white and the rest of the walls in the main living area matched the formal space at the front of the house thanks to the team at Sherwin Williams that still had our colors on file.
Monday the cabinets were delivered, the floors were leveled out to prepare for the new flooring install that was to come, and Lowe’s installation team arrived to put in our new front door and Schlage lock set. Tuesday the cabinetry team arrived and we started slowly seeing our dream kitchen start to come to fruition. While we kept the overall layout of the space the same, we made a few changes to the type of storage and also added display cabinets up top instead of having dead space. For years our counters were full of glass bowls of fruits and veggies that reduced the actual usable space. I had a crazy idea to add a self serve fruit station, which would also provide storage for veggies on the bottom, with some shelving at the end of the island. It’s the most popular feature for the family and I couldn’t imagine life without it.
That same week the downstairs flooring went in and we made the plan on how to tackle the removal and install of the upstairs flooring across following two days so that we could shift things from one room to another. I think this is the best point to say that living in a house that’s undergoing a renovation during a pandemic, while working from home with two kids under the age of five, certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. I don’t think I could have kept my sanity if it weren’t for the Ally Building Solutions team communicating with me so much about the timeline. By the end of that first full week we had new paint, flooring, and cabinets downstairs with a plan for when all the rest of the work would take place.
Week two and three brought the flooring removal and install upstairs as well as the the install of the kitchen countertop and completion of accent tiling downstairs. I’ll admit that that this is where it gets exciting because you start feeling like the insanity of renovations is all worth it once you begin seeing the changes coming to fruition. My husband was a real trooper as he learned how to do drywall work in an effort for us to make some changes in the powder room without having to rely on the Ally Building Solutions team. On the upside, all the trips to Lowe’s allowed us plenty of time to pick our finishing touches as the end of the project was in sight. I’ll show you how we pulled it all together and got to the finished look next time.
[…] The project that was 8 years in the making has finally come to completion and I’m so excited to share it all with you. We moved into a fixer-upper with the plan that we would save up and start working on it and then our boys joined the family so the saving took a bit longer than expected. In the end, it was totally worth the wait because it gave us plenty of time to oogle all the final pieces we’d want to polish off the renovation. […]
[…] whole downstairs was in need of a lighting facelift, so after we tackled the main living area it was time to spread out. Next up came the powder […]