After the relatively easy beautification of our guest room, we got the itch to do a bit more on our blah 1950’s bungalow.

That was when we broke out the sledgehammer. 

I’m honestly not sure who started it. But I can tell you we hadn’t really prepped or planned for it. It just kind of….happened.

We were sitting in the kitchen brainstorming, commenting on how nice it would be if we opened up the space.

The house in general, but especially the living room and kitchen, was dark and outdated. Dungeons come to mind when thinking of the living room.

The boxed light feature that you can see doesn’t quite do justice to it’s coffin shape, not to mention the delightful bug specimens perfectly preserved laying on the frosted glass panes.

So we got to work! (Well, Brian did)

In all honesty, it was as I peaked through the now gaping hole into the next room that I started experiencing the first pangs of shear panic. There was no un-doing what we had just done. Either we would have a very strange fashion accessory in our living room and kitchen, or we had just embarked on our first true housing journey.

The initial plan included salvaging the current cabinetry and simply repainting and putting on new nobs.

This plan evolved as we kept finding issues with the existing cabinets. Namely the amount of time and effort required to meticulously sand and repaint these 50 year old relics. Eventually we just pulled everything out.

Thankfully by this time it was summer in California, so utilizing the back patio as our main cooking and eating space became the new norm. I tried to embrace the ho-dunk as best as I could.

We even plumbed in the old sink outside so we still had running water and used the BBQ for most meals.

It was around the end of summer that I started getting pretty tired of BBQ’d chicken.

It was also around this time that the “farm” started to come into fruition. It was a great diversion from construction. And it may have been a ploy to keep me out of Brian’s hair. However it started, I quickly discovered I was meant to live outdoors. Who knew? I had spent the last 12 years in a self-induced academic coma and hadn’t realized what I’d been missing until I dug my fingers in the ground and felt the sun on my face. Ah, sweet relief!

One of the first lessons we learned as first time home-owners/DIY’ers was that there is a lot involved in turning a dream into reality. Initially we were kind of investigating the whole thing. Sort of kicking it with the toe of our sneaker to see what would happen. It was all very hypothetical, even when we initially started wielding sledgehammers. Then, it was simply doing a quick face-lift on the kitchen. We were both working full time at our regular jobs and anyway, how hard could it be? But before it got any easier, it would get a whole lot more complicated. Our quick cosmetic fix quickly got upgraded to a complete house surgery, including the addition of a front entry way bump-out and porch, new pantry, gutting and essentially entirely replacing the kitchen, complete with a skylight and breakfast bench nook area.

It was somewhere around the time this picture was taken that we wondered; have we bitten off more than we can chew?

In part 3, join us deeper down the journey of demo, and some of my hair-brained schemes to save on costs including a few trips to Ikea and my crazy idea involving the sub-floors. See the sneak peak;