The Beginning of a New Chapter

We closed on our new home, and new beginning, June 17, 2016 with dreams of what could be.  As my mom said, "if someone didn't have vision, they would have left as soon as they walked in."  I'm not sure if she was complimenting my vision, or expressing disdain over the amount of vision necessary!   I will stick with the belief she was giving me a compliment!   My mom loves renovation and decorating- she definitely missed her calling as a decorator.

Back on topic.  Our budget was so incredibly tight.  We actually went over what we wanted to in order to purchase this place, but the lot rent was almost $100 a month less than other places (yet, the nicest mobile home park we've seen- go figure!)  That freed up a bit more for the actual purchase cost.

Next problem: after paying our bills, we have very little left for actual renovations!  We will be doing almost everything ourselves.  We are having professional roofers replace the 20 year old roof- we know our limits!   We are calling in favors as available to us too!

We are lacking A LOT of furniture- we left it all behind or sold it when we moved here.  With our budget being what it is, this means we will be doing lots of bargain hunting.  Fortunately we have most of the bedroom furniture needed- so what if we end up sitting on lawn chairs in the living room!

Our first stroke of luck was finding a 5 gallon bucket of white paint marked down to $25 and a gallon of mint green paint, very similar, but slightly darker than what I envisioned for the master bathroom, marked down to under $7.   The kind man, at the unnamed large box store, told me the customer before us put him in a wonderful mood, and agreed to lighten the color slightly for me for free!

Spare Bedroom

That same day my dear wife tore out the carpeting in the two front bedrooms.  Temperatures were hitting 100 outside and we didn't have power turned on so we had to quit before passing out.  We will tear out the padding in those rooms and the carpeting in the master bedroom this week- as well as start painting.

The day we closed on the house, the toilet in the master bedroom stopped working completely.  We had planned to replace it because it is toddler sized- and we are definitely NOT toddler sized, but it suddenly got bumped up near the top of the to do right away list instead of being a member of the "when possible" list.  Fortunately we have two bathrooms!

The kitchen- wow- I don't know if I can scrub hard enough to remove the years of who knows what.   We don't have funds to replace counters or cabinets so we will be getting very creative!  

I will be including before and after pictures as we go along- so hang on for the ride, let me know your thoughts, and all advice is appreciated!

Girls' Bedroom