Moving....Again.

Ty has this really frustrating habit where he buys the worst house he can find, asks me to spend months and months perfecting every square inch of it to my liking, and then as soon as I can finally put my feet up...he gets it in his head that it's time to move again.  Yikes.  I'm just gonna stop remodeling houses....

This blog is mostly about our Lil Red House, that I spent 7 back-breaking months remodeling (while going to school full-time to learn how to be a badass bootcamp instructor) that we no longer own.  We have since sold it, bought another fixer-upper in a different state, totally remodeled the new house, and are getting ready to move...AGAIN!

As sooooooon as I was done remodeling the Lil Red House, Ty was offered a 'better' job in another state (in fact, it was the exact same day as our house-warming party.)  He accepted the position and moved North before Christmas a couple years ago, while I stayed behind to finish school.  That March, as expected, he found the nastiest house he could and convinced me we needed to buy it.  I begrudgingly agreed to let him buy "The River Terd," as I started calling it.  It was a funky 1970's house that basically needed to be gutted.  Here we go again!

So, for the next 3 months... I went to school full-time Monday through Thursday, drove 3 hours North on Friday mornings to work on the new house...and drove home on Sunday night to get ready for the next week of school.  (All while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, mind you!!)  I wore workout pants during the week and a tool belt on the weekends.  I was frickin tired.  We sold the Lil Red House and I moved up officially in June, and that's when the real fun began.  We were legitimately living in a full-blown construction zone.  We had plywood subfloors, no furniture and no working stove for months and MONTHS.  I knew my way around Home Depot better than the employees did, my hair dryer could be found next to my cordless drill, we were living out of boxes...and I sported paint-stained clothes 7 days per week.  I continued working on the house night and day while also completing a 3-month, 250-hour internship to finish my degree.  Did I mention I was tired?

Fast forward to 15 months later....the house was FINALLY finished.  Absolutely everything in the house had to be redone.  The list of upgrades and improvements we made is endless, and almost every project was tedious and exhausting and never-ending.  Amazingly, our River Terd goes on the market tomorrow, and it all sorta feels like deja vu.

Long story short... I thought I should finally post some before, during and after pictures.  Enjoy.

The kitchen:

The view of the kitchen from the dining room:

The fireplace/living room:

The half bathroom w/faux granite counters:

The main bathroom:

Paper bag flooring strikes again!!!

More paper bag flooring....Stairs NOT recommended.  Ugh.  (Looks awesome, but took forrrrrevvver.)

The exterior:

So, you get the point by now.... It was a TON of work and I can't believe we're moving...again.