In the beginning....

Day -1.  [The day before closing]

We should have known something was wrong when we saw the vultures sitting around the house that was to be ours for days before our closing.  A dead deer on the side of the road, no big deal, this is Tennessee, happens all the time.  Was it a sign?  Nah, it was on the side of the road, not in the middle of the yard!  Tomorrow we were closing on a home that was no doubt going to either be an adventure or the biggest mistake we have ever made.

We have a lovely home close to downtown Nashville, right on one of the hottest streets in the most up and coming neighborhood.  We can walk to bars, play "is that a gun shot or fireworks?" as we lay in bed at night, and love all of our young, fun, wonderful neighbors.  Why give this up?  Well...walking to bars and listening as the police helicopter circle overhead isn't the ideal situation when you have procreated and currently have a 1 and 3 year old.   We are doing what I have called "giving up" for the past 15 years....we are moving to the suburbs.

Generally, I don't like anything that is what I consider "mass produced."  I'm a bit weird...some friends say unique...or strange...and generally a one size fits all life doesn't fit me quite right.  I always thought that the suburbs were the chain restaurants of houses.  However, I reluctantly started looking at homes closer to my office [at the time], a shorter commute was going to be worth it tenfold.  I would get more time with my family, and my kids would spend less time in the car sitting on I-65.

I remember exactly where I was when I saw it.  The house that I have no doubt that I was supposed to see on that specific day I was feeling particularly open-minded.  The outside was beautiful.  The inside...well...it needed love.  A LOT of love....like the kind of love only a contractor and a whole team of electricians, plumbers, painters, carpenters, and handymen can give.  It was old, built in 1975, and hadn't been updated since.

Now, let me tell you about my amazing husband.  He is the best dad in the world, incredibly supportive, smart, has the same sense of humor as I do (again, a bit off), handsome, and most of all, trusts me when I have crazy ideas.  What is he not?  Handy.  I mean he has a killer set of tools, biceps, and the ability to read directions, but the thought of hanging out at Home Depot is not his idea of a good time.  So when I showed him the pictures of the home I was 'feeling,'  I think he officially thought I had lost my mind.  However, that support and trust won through and I convinced him to go look at the home. 

Day -51 through -1.

I'm not going to bore you with what it took to convince Steve to purchase this house. I'm not even going to go through the details of how we had to have the ENTIRE basement gutted before we moved in (condensed a 30 day reno project into a 10 day window).  Or how we had to get all new carpet (which we paid for) before we owned the house because in the current state it was in it was a "Health and Safety Hazard."  Or how the police got called and my contractor almost got arrested for trespassing.  Yeah, it was touch and go. The deal almost died twice, but in the end...we were going to own a home that I'm 99% sure was picked for me by my mom in Heaven.  

Day 0. [Closing Day]

It's in the yard.  Right in the middle of the coiffed hill that is our new backyard, a perfectly formed skeleton of a deer's ribcage.  Upon further review, there were also the legs and fur, fur everywhere.  How kind of the vultures to not only allow this deer to become part of the great circle of life, but they moved it up from the road and placed it in perfect view for our final walk-through.  Now Steve and I both work in the medical field, this didn't turn our stomaches as it would some, but it certainly was a bit disconcerting that in the final moments before we signed on the dotted line for the most expensive thing we had ever collectively purchased, a carcass was the lawn ornament. We shook it off and decided to go inside and speed through the walk through, besides, we had been in the home 5+ times before as work projects that we were directing were completed.  I decided to try to lock and unlock a door that I hadn't messed with before, right off the main patio.  As I turned the door knob, it completely fell off into my had.  Yep, even the door knobs were giving up.   No big deal, we were going to get the locks replaced within the hour anyways....now onto the rest of the house.

Now, it's probably important to mention that no one has lived in this home for a very long time. I've heard anywhere from 9 months to 2 years.   The water had been turned off from the street and there wasn't consistent lighting throughout the home [obviously I picked a winner to move my family into...].  As we were walking through I called the water department and asked them to turn on asap, they would be out within the hour.  It must have been the beautiful day, maybe it was the fact that both of our kids were in school so it sort of felt like a date for Steve and I, whatever it was, we made the drive to the attorney's office and committed ourselves to the resurrection of the old colonial. 

Day 1.  [Moving Day(s)]

[DISCLAIMER: I've been asked a ton why we moved in before the renovation. No, we didn't technically have to move into the new house before we did the renovation.  We did it for two reasons...1) It is REALLY hard to sell a house when you are living in it with two toddlers.  2) I wasn't sure what all I wanted to do to the new house and I wanted to sit in it and marinade in ideas]

It sort of makes me laugh to look back at the spreadsheet I created the week before moving day.  I'm a planner, operations is the name of my game.  I love to look at a huge project and fit all of the pieces together to end on a specific schedule.  Moving day was going to be a masterpiece.  I had a cleaning crew coming at 8am for 8 hours.  I had my contractor's team coming to finish a wall that was a wide open death trap and to cap off some leaks that had sprung up in the basement when the water was turned on (welcome home!).   I was going to manage moving all the super breakable crystal and art, Steve was going to handle getting all of our stuff organized for the movers.  The movers were going to show up to our old house at 1pm, pack us up, and we were going to spend our first night tonight in our new home in our warm and snuggly beds.  The stuff dreams are made of.

[what actually went down...]

7:30am - All packed up and ready to go take my first load "home."  As I make the turn onto the road headed to the home, my phone dings.  The cleaning lady (when I thought there was going to be more than one...thanks Amazon Cleaning) is sick and wants to reschedule. Fantastic.  No thank you, on a bit of a time crunch. Ok, so one small hiccup, I can overcome.

12pm - 3 car loads later and the kitchen is mostly unpacked. Granted, it wasn't a perfectly clean kitchen, but again, I can deal with that later.

The construction crew have thrown up a wall over the hole of doom that used to be my wet bar.  Yeah, the wet bar had to be cut out during the whole "health and safety concern" repairs before we closed.  To say there is construction dust created is an understatement. My floors look like a winter wonderland.

The carpenters did take down what I will refer to as "the goat fence."  I mean, does it get more 70's chic?

BEFORE [Previous Owner's Picture]

1pm - No movers at the old house...yet

2pm - Hmmm...where are these movers.

3pm – Movers show up, it’s go time. No problem, we will get everything loaded up and into the house before dark. Did I mention that most of the rooms don’t have lights?  No, not like we need to change the light bulbs, like they literally don’t have lights.  Apparently in 1975 everyone really liked lamps…I only own one lamp and it sits on my desk at work.  So it is REALLY important to get in before dark.

4pm – Message from my husband, “Something is wrong, they are moving really slow, two of them [the movers] are arguing."

4:15pm – “One just threatened to get an uber and leave”

4:30pm – “He just quit, got an uber and left.”

Ok so again, something we can overcome. We still have 2 movers left, they can still get our furniture out of the house and on the road, right?

6pm- Picnic dinner on the floor of the kitchen at the new house with the kiddos.  They were with me all day and total sports.

7:45pm – The big boss shows up at the old house, tells his 2 man crew “get in the house rookies!” Great, didn’t know I had rookies.  They then start hauling ass.

9pm –  The truck is loaded. I tell my [too kind] husband to put me on the phone with the boss. I inform him that his movers are hungry, tired, and we have no lights in half of the house that he will be delivering too. I pictured that he was Comcast on the other side of the phone and it got my blood the perfect level of boiling.  He offered to store [everything we own in] the truck over night and show up in the morning to deliver it, storage fee $150.  I didn't even have to say anything, he felt it through the phone, "uhh which of course we won't be charging you."

Ok so new plan. Steve to get the air mattress out of my company's storage unit [I had a few things squatting...shhhh], I was going to run to Target and get necessary supplies for the night. Yes, with both kids in tow.

9:30pm - Picture this, a woman, dirty, with two very awake toddlers looking like they had spent the entire day in a dusty/dirty house, pulling into Target at 9:30pm. Her cart includes: a single set of sheets, a toddler sleeping bag, two towels, a box of bottled waters, and one microwave meal.  Don't judge too fast. She isn't running away from home to escape a bad situation. She is actually running to the home that is the bad situation. 

Waiting for daddy to join us - Drywall!!

10:30pm - Ahhhh sweet slumber.  Well, moderately stiff slumber on a blow up mattress in the middle of what will become our living room.  No one has bathed, no one cares.  Just the excitement that tomorrow is going to be a great day! I will be Pollyanna if it kills me.

1am - Holy hell.  I have never been so cold in my life. My body won't stop shivering and my husband's body never has put out any heat. My babies! What about my babies, they are going to freeze to death in this dungeon.  Scoop up everyone, put them on the blow-up mattress, hold on to each other as we might not make it through the sub-zero night.

7am - Everyone is up except no one thought it was cold last night.  Steve didn't even realize I had added roommates to our mattress. No one appreciates that I may have saved everyone's life.

8am - Movers show up! Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Steve grabs the kids and I start directing them on where to go.  My spirit is more than willing, but my arms were shaking and I was pretty sure the house was killing me.  I asked Steve if he felt like he was dying and if he thought we should evacuate immediately. After checking his vitals, he appeared to be functioning at a solid 85%.  We decided I should run down to the urgent care [which is now right down the street! Yay suburbs!].   

8:45am - Me at the urgent care, "Normally I would just get in my bed for an hour and shake this off, but you see, I currently don't have a bed. I don't even have clean clothes.  So if you could just make sure I'm fine and maybe I just have an ear infection, I really need to get back to moving."

8:46am - "Ms. Geurin, you have a 102 degree fever. I'm going to need to do a flu and strep test on you" 

8:59am - Doctor walks in and gets straight to the point, "You have strep throat, here is your prescription, good-bye." And he walked out.  Not kidding.  He might have been a robot. Great, strep, this is EXACTLY what I needed today. 

After taking a 1 hour antibiotic/Tylenol induced nap the second my bed was in place, I went back to the old house to give it a spit-shine.  We had a few showings scheduled that evening, and by the way things were looking, we are going to need to unload this equity dream fast. 

7pm - We have no idea where anything is, but we are HOME!  Time to bathe these little munchkins, put them in their room and hit.the.hay.

7:05pm - Ok so the hot water won't come out of the faucet upstairs. No, not like it just stays cold, but when you turn the dial to hot, the water literally stops coming out of the faucet.  Bless it. Kitchen sink baths it is.

Day 3-4

Adventures in Plumbing! So it turns out, sometimes copper pipes just stop working. Who would have thought? No big deal.  Got some Pex put in to reroute the hot water directly upstairs, cool beans.  Hot water starts flowing, beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it started raining in my dining area. Surprise!

 So apparently the pipes were only half of the problem, the drains were the bigger issue.  Only owned the house a matter of hours and I got to see what was inside the ceiling!  Turns out, it was a massively cracked cast-iron drain.

Yep, the whole house has cast-iron drains, and they are all at some stage of rusting through. Switched out the section of drain, patched the ceiling, good as new!  Steve came home from work and had a hot shower...and didn't ask any questions on why the ceiling in the dining area didn't match anymore. Sometimes, communication in marriage is not the answer.

Day 5-6

More leaks!  Turns out, the toilet [upstairs of course] didn't drain right either.  So more holes in the dining area ceiling. I decided to leave them open this time, go for a "Colonial-Industrial Fusion" kind of look.

Day 7-30

Tub takes about 4 hours to drain...that seems like it could be a problem.

Day 31

Plumber confirms that the tub not draining (and now the toilet bubbling like it is boiling) is certainly a problem.

Day 32

Super Plumber Rob comes with is spiky rooter thing and goes through the toilet, all the way down to the basement from the upstairs and breaks up a huge rust clog that was in our main drain pipe.  All the worlds problems solved!

Day 35

Tub doesn't drain again.  Super Rob says what I knew to be true...it was time for all new drains [and toilets].

Day 36

Good by cast-iron, hello PVC you beautiful minx.

All the cast iron had to be removed from the upstairs "master" bathroom, the laundry room, the half bathroom downstairs, the kitchen, and the entire basement - taking about 14 hours to complete.  We still have 2 bathrooms to do, but one will be remodeled next year [so we didn't want to deal with it twice] and the other is in a sensitive spot...so I just pray for it a lot. 

Day 37

I have a coworker come over to see the new place, she asks, "I thought you were working on it? What have you done so far?"  Don't you see all my BEAUTIFUL PVC PIPES?!?

Day 38-121

Here are were things go [mostly] as planned. We got settled, made it our home, and I spent the most effort on making my favorite room [the patio!] perfect for summer. My kids have decided the room that will be our office and music room is currently their downstairs playroom. In general, most things downstairs are still not unpacked, as we know the BIG renovation is about to take place.

The ceiling is still open [why pay to patch it when the whole thing is about to come down. To. The. Studs] and I have hit a place that I never thought I would be...I don't care how my house looks when people come over. Yep, every Southern woman reading this just brought her perfectly manicured hand to her chest.  It is so bad, my erratically placed pillows and children's half eaten cereal bars don't even effect it.  No one is looking at the clutter, they are looking at hanging half assembled light fixtures from the 70's [fire hazard?] and full wall bookshelves with NOTHING on them...since they are about to get demo'd.  They are also probably looking at the giant tacky cow skin rug under my kitchen table...something had to hide the spot created when the ceiling fell...not about to buy a new rug that I'll actually keep!

I have completed a few little DIY Projects...I turned a linen closed into a reading nook for the kiddos. Even though this only took an evening, it definitely helped my reno-confidence.

Before

After

 My father helped me build some cubbies (and by helped...I mean he built them and I kept the kids out of the way) in the laundry room that will eventually contain hooks for coats...the kids lunch boxes...and most importantly, the 10lbs of random baggage my husband always carries around and leaves on my dining room table.

[Will be completed once I know for sure I won't have to redo them after the kitchen reno...it backs up to this wall]

And most impressive...we redid the bathroom that is currently our master bathroom [we are living upstairs until our kids are a bit older...the real master is just way too far].  We striped the wallpaper, painted, tiled, installed new vanities and faucets.  It was a lesson in patience, trust, love, and something we agreed we will never do again.

Before

During

During

After [coming soon]

Time to Get.This.Party.Started