Today on the blog I’m answering a bunch of questions we’ve received lately about my house reno! If you guys are new around here then I’ll catch you up to speed. A few weeks ago Matt and I (Anne) closed on a new house in Northern Virginia and have been spending the last week sharing the reno process, updates and plans ahead. You can tell our house was well loved and taken care of by the previous owners who lived there for around 45 years! Just some updates and painting to be done! There is really cute character throughout that we fell in love with such as the wainscoting, crown molding, builtins and french doors. We are so excited to make this house our own and share all the details along the way!
Q: What was the wallpaper process you used?
A: Kate & I have worked with a lot of different wallpapers when removing them and they are not all created equal! What we find works best is scoring the walls with this tool then getting a bucket of hot water with some cleaner we had lysol or spic & span (even just steaming hot water if you don’t have any cleaner) and soaking the walls using rags 3-4 times, really letting it soak in. Then scrapping it using a tool like this or normal scraper. If it is really on there we have boiled water before ( be VERY careful doing this) and that helped get really stuck on wallpaper off. Also, just got this to try!
Q: How did you repair walls if the wallpaper ripped it?
A: Sometimes the dry wall peels off (looks and feels like cardboard) we applied this spackle to spots that were damaged. Use this putty knife (or the scraper from above) to apply, it goes on pink and drys white. Then sand it!
Q: Love the Grey Owl! Any other similar colors you debated between? Painting soon ๐
A: Luckily, when it came to picking paint colors I had my family’s houses to look at! We love a good light grey. Grey Owl- Benjamin Moore is a (darker) light grey that has more warmer tones rather than blueish tones. We liked the way the grey and white trim pop in the house. SO happy we went with this color! You will not regret it!
Nebulous White – Benjamin Moore (Kate & my parents have this in their houses) this was a tie, we loved this one too!
Wickham Grey – Benjamin Moore (my parents have this, green/cool tones)
Agreeable Grey – Sherwin Williams (Grace has this in her house – warmer/ beige tones)
Q: Is Kate staying with you so she can help? How far away do you live from each other?
A: Yes! Kate stayed with us for a week to help us with the reno process, painting and moving in! Seriously we were in tears when she left because 1. I miss her already!!! and 2. She was a HUGE help, we got so much done and we are so thankful. Matt has work during the week so having Kate there to help with the ripping up rugs and staples, painting, cleaning etc. was a big help. Kate & Joel live in Massachusetts (7 hour drive to VA) and as most of you know during the NHL hockey season they are in Texas. Stanley Cup playoffs happening now go Joel & the Dallas Stars!!!
Q: Why did you decide to live in that location?
A: 2.5 years ago we bought our townhouse (30 min outside of DC) because Matt was already living down here for work. We really wanted to buy because we knew that would help us save money in the long run. Moving into our new house, we were focused on more family orientated town (we have never really been big city people) and a house we can grow into and start a family there.
Q: How long were you house hunting before landing the one?
The NOVA real estate market is crazy!! Similar to getting our 2 bedroom, 1 bath townhouse a few years ago (we FaceTimed with our relator and never actually saw it) there was no time to think and had to move extremely fast. We actually lost out on 2 houses (one this past February and again in May) and looking back now I’m so thankful we didn’t get those because it brought us to our house now! It took us around 6 months of looking. I was actively looking at Zillow and talking with our realtor and there really wasn’t much (which was scary!) Over that 6 months our budget had to go up as well because the market was climbing, which put a little pressure on. We definitely out grew our townhouse and wanted to more space to start a family and have family and friends come visit. If we can make it through quarantine 24/7 in 750 sq ft, we can make it through anything lol.
We actually closed on our house now the weekend we were suppose to get married! So crazy!
Q: How did you figure out how much to budget for reno? Doing everything yourselves?
A: Yes, we are doing a lot of projects ourselves to save money! Areas like the bathrooms and the kitchen will have simple, quick updates for now and we will take our time in the next few years to update them. We originally said that we were going to live with the carpets upstairs for a little and once we were ready would get hardwood…but that all changed when we got in there once the furniture was gone we saw how bad the carpets actually were. I knew that I was never going to feel comfortable walking around and knew it would be harder to move our bedroom furniture after. The next day we tore up the rugs, pulled out the staples, wood tracks, nails and cleaned (this was huge in saving $$). Next, my parents, we have a lot of experience in reno and called all around to local Home Depots to find where would could pick up the hardwood from (ordering would have been end of September) and my Dad called a few places and priced out the job for us. So thankful they did this because it also saved us so much time. Matt & I rented a truck and went to pick up the wood ourselves (it had to sit in the house for 4 days to accumulate) and by the end of the week the hardwood guys were in and finished after a 12 hour day! (the rooms were measured so we knew how much wood to get, give yourself some extra)
Q: What hardwood floors did you pick?
A: My dad and brother recommended these pre-finished Bruce 2 1/4in hardwood floors. They are a great price and we could walk on them right away! Also, we choose them because our hallway and stairs were almost identical to the Bruce Plano Marsh color, which was great we didn’t have too worry about getting it stained to match.
Q: Where did you get that coffee table from?
A: My exact coffee table is from Home Goods! Here is a similar one, two and three
Projects to come:
- Bathrooms will need to be done and updated in the future. We will make small updates for now!
- Kitchen cabinets will be painted around winter time. I know the process takes a little and after this past week I’m running on low energy for that lol! We eventually want to replace all the cabinets and redo the kitchen layout!
- Laundry room! Can’t wait to try these tiles like Grace used for her downstairs bathroom!
- Wallpaper removal & painting the dining room
- Blog room/ office coming soon!
Before
During
After
Grey Owl Benjamin Moore paint
Entry way before
After
Thank you for all the questions and following along on our newest adventure! We appreciate all the love and kind words on our new home! Follow along in story @pinesandpalms3 & our home reno highlight – Anne
