Our Real Life Fixer Upper: Kitchen Reveal!

Our kitchen is officially complete, and I am so freaking excited about it!  As most of you may already know, our home was originally a horse barn with 12 stalls.  When we made the executive decision to fully renovate it, we knew we were going to have to have a ton of vision for each and every space, which wasn't always easy.  So to see things transform into what we had hoped is incredibly rewarding.

My original vision for our kitchen was a modern farmhouse space that was open, bright, and functional.  We love to cook and bake as a family so I really wanted a welcoming and happy space to do so in. This was by far my favorite room to design within our home.  I feel like it fits our style perfectly and I couldn't be happier with how everything turned out!

It gives me all the warm fuzzies! I foresee lots of wonderful memories being made within this space.

Sources: pendant lights | counter stools | quartz countertops | farmhouse sink | drawer pulls | faucet | rug (vintage) | cabinets | toaster |

Barn Tour! (Video)

Okay... lets try this barn tour thing again!  The first video I shot was pretty horrible and I took it down not long after posting it, so round two here ya go!  The upstairs is still a work in progress so I will share that part when it is more finished.

The plan with this video was to film it when it was nice and quiet and clean, BUT since we have people at our house doing different things until the sun goes down, this is as good as it's gonna get for now.  Filming is definitely not one of my strong points as you are about to witness ;)

Our Real Life Fixer Upper: Picture Update!

Whewwww!! We have been beyond busy with all things house related, and so much has been happening in the last couple of weeks.  As of currently... half of the second floor has been removed, the downstairs is all framed, the reclaimed barn wood ceiling is up and painted white, and the exposed beams have been wrapped sanded stained and sealed (still need to finish bottom half obviously).  I am so thankful for the main crew that has been here daily working their asses off to get this project completed!

So here are a few pictures of what the interior of our barn (soon to be home) currently looks like...

So what do you guys think? I feel like we went from nothing going on to everything happening at once!

Also, if you want to see more day to day happenings of our barn conversion you can follow me along on Instagram.

FINALLY!

After weeks and weeks and weeks of waiting and waiting and waiting our barn conversion plans have FINALLY been approved by County!  I was actually starting to think our plans were being held hostage it was taking so long.  Not even joking.   

Up until this point we have been moving at turtle speed since we haven't been able to make any major structural changes without County approval, but I am no longer going to dwell on that because we are now able to start cranking on this renovation!  This week has been filled with concrete trucks, county inspections, and the sound of major demolition shaking our upstairs apartment and I could not be anymore excited about it!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will be back soon with new pictures of what it's starting to look like inside :)

5 Honest Things That I Have Learned During Our Renovation

1. I can live with less.  We are currently living in the small apartment space above the horse stalls and let me just tell ya, the space is tight. Only the boys favorite toys and living necessities fit inside. Everything else is in storage. Our temporary kitchen is a "one person at a time" kinda space and we currently do not have a microwave, dishwasher or space for dishes.  Although, I do miss my microwave for reheating my coffee I have learned that even though all the extra "things" in a living space might make life more convenient but we can live perfectly fine without them. 

2. I DO need wine at the end of the day.  There will be no juice cleanses or detoxes in the near future that's for sure.  In fact, pretty sure I could live off of wine and ice cream sandwiches for the next 6 months and be perfectly fine. Just saying.

3.  We should have anticipated to spend a lot more money than we originally budgeted for.  Unexpected (expensive) things that we can't dodge have sprung up, and that's just the way renovations go.

4.  I have had to lower my expectations and realize I can't control things that are out of my control (duh). By lowering my expectations I'm not as disappointed with set backs and delays in the process. Although I still get mad as hell when people suck at what they are supposed to be doing. 

5.  Stress levels have been at an all time high these past few months, and frankly no one could have prepared us for how stressful this whole process would really be.  So making time for ourselves and our marriage away from all the chaos has been so incredibly important.

If you have been though a major remodel, renovation or new house build and made it out alive without losing your mind or divorcing your spouse (kidding...) I would love to hear any advice that you may have. 

Opinions Needed! Please and Thank you :)

HI! Ahhhhhh I miss sharing here on a regular basis.  Renovation life has been crazy to say the least, and no one could have prepared us for how it would be living in the actual renovation while everything was going on.  Some days drinking wine at 11am sounds like a good idea and other days I just want to eat all the snacks in the house (I'm talking to you fishy crackers)... and some days I want to do both. Stress will do that to you, ha!  But more on renovation life and progress of our barn later, I promise!

So anywhoo! Today, I would love your opinion.  We are getting to the point where we have to start making decisions about certain things like what type of flooring is going where etc... I have narrowed it down to these three samples and I would love to hear your thoughts.  Which is your favorite?  If you need a little more of a visual, the walls will all be white and the exposed beams are going to be stained a light to medium walnut color.

Our Real Life Fixer Upper: Update!

I'm not gonna lie, renovation life has been pretty nuts and the constant sound of sledge hammers, tractors and power tools, which starts at about 6:30 AM everyday has become our normal. But seeing all the progress that comes along with the chaos is pretty exciting without a doubt!

Currently all the horse stalls downstairs and the walls upstairs are being removed.  The flooring  upstairs will eventually be opened up to the downstairs creating a giant open concept. The wood poles that you see with the metal footings are actually steel and those will stay since they hold up the underlying support structure for the outer walls and roof (the non structural poles will be removed).  Some might consider those a design challenge since they are every 12 feet but I absolutely love them and feel like they give our space so much character.

Here is a little update of what things currently look like around here...

The ceiling above the stalls is the next thing to go. Can't wait for that!

Every 12 feet we have poles that look like this. Some will be disguised within walls and others will be left exposed and wrapped with a distressed wood.  I am actually really looking forward to incorporating them into the design of our home.

This is the current state of the upstairs. Eventually all that will remain here are the poles. The floor will be gone and the space will be completely opened up to our living and dining room downstairs.

And there you have it! So much has happened since the last time I posted. I will try to be better about sharing updates here, but in the meantime you can always follow along on Instagram to see more week to week happenings.

See the before pictures of the barn here.

Our Real Life Fixer Upper: Demolition Time!

As of this week we have officially started demolition at the barn...yeay!  The first things to go are the horse stalls, and since we plan on repurposing all of the wood that is lining the stalls it's more of a careful demolition but nonetheless it's still so much fun to watch it slowly start to transform into our home.  This whole process takes some serious vision, but I'm pretty sure we've got plenty of that.

Here are a few pictures of what is currently happening at the barn...

The space already feels so much bigger and brighter, making it just a little bit easier to envision where everything will eventually be going.

Our Real Life Fixer Upper!

You may have noticed that since basically the beginning of the year I have been totally scattered here on the blog.  The truth is when my mind is somewhere else I really can't think about anything other than that.  Well my scattered-ness is all for good reason but first a little back story...

At about the end of January Ian and I were making our usual Saturday breakfast of eggs and coffee and he turned to me and said, "What do you think about us possibly moving?" Now, my husband is not usually the type to throw out crazy ideas, so I was a little taken aback and may have spit out my coffee.  Was he serious?  He was!  We have always thought our current home was amazing but deep down we have always known that it was not our "forever home."  Since I am usually the one with the crazy ideas, I was immediately on board and said, "YES!"  That day we went out to look at properties and started brainstorming about possible ideas in our dream location.

A couple months later after going back and forth on different ideas we concluded on what is now our Real Life Fixer Upper.  Over the next 6-8 months we are going to be completely renovating a horse barn into our dream home.  Through this process we will be sharing our experience, our design ideas our design choices and the final reveal... and providing tips and ideas on how to achieve the same look.  This is going to be the wildest adventure of our lives!

Here are a few pictures what the barn looks like currently...

Next up, demolition! Do you think we're crazy?! We might just be.  If you have any questions regarding our project you can leave them below and I will do my best to answer.