So as you may remember, the hubby and I will be moving to Denver in mid-June, into a rental house owned by my parents.  The home was built in 1941 and is undergoing extensive renovations (thanks to my parents and sister, who are working nonstop).

I went back to Denver over the last couple of weeks to help out with demolition, and wanted to keep you all posted on our reno progress, so here goes!

Here is the kitchen before, which is actually pretty adorable, but the cabinets had about 10 coats of paint on there (including avocado green!), so we had to take them down and strip them.  Yes, it would have been less work to just have them replaced, but they are custom cabinetry, and reusing what we have is also way more eco-friendly! 

The linoleum was also in bad shape, and the formica counters were scratched and peeling.

Here is the kitchen, post-removal of the jutting-out part of the countertop (which was cute and vintage, but took up a lot of space in a small kitchen), and with the floor linoleum up.  As you can start to see, there’s actually beautiful Fir floors under those 3 layers of old linoleum!

Note: It was NOT easy to pull up the floor.  It took a few hours and a lot of bicep.  If you are planning a DIY renovation, definitely plan on having some serious help for the demolition.  Also, linoleum floor glue may, depending on the age, contain asbestos, so have asbestos testing done before tearing this stuff up and letting the dust fly all over your home!

Above: Backsplash comes down, cabinets come off, adhesive backing from the linoleum floor leftovers starting to (slowly!) be removed!

Here is the bay window in the kitchen, where we’ll have our dining area.  The windows are all boarded for the time being, as we are being incredibly spoiled with some new, Energy Star windows.

So sorry for the breif recaps, but it’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks.  We’ll keep you posted on progress!

Much love,

-B

P.S. Thank you thank you THANK YOU to my awesome family. I couldn’t ask for more.