We bought a house!

After months and months of looking for a home in Santa Barbara, we finally bought one!  It was a foreclosure and we got a very good deal on it.  Before escrow even closed, we began work on it (shhhh...).  Here are some images of the work.

We put primer on every single surface in the house. This took two or three days since some of the rooms were pained BRIGHT BLUE!  You can see the dingy colors the house was painted and the dark brown carpet throughout the entire house.

 

 There was lovely 70's style tile in the kitchen.  Later we learned that the tile was either on older linoleum or set directly onto oak hardwood floors.  Crazy to think people would do that!

 

There was a wall that seperated the living room and the dining room that wanted to tear down to make one big open space. 

It's amazing how different the living space looks without that wall. It really opened up the space and made it more airy and open.  We love it.  Eventually we'll update the fireplace... one thing at a time.

 

There are oak floors throughout the entire house that we are having refinished. Luckily they are in great shape. Below is a picture of the sanding process. They two it in two passes-- first they do the middle and then go back and do the edges.

During the backbreaking work of pulling up all the tiles in the kitchen, Brian discovered some mold in the kitchen.  Turns out it was really bad and the floor boards were even molded. This resulted in us having to pull out the cabinets, and in the process they started to fall apart!  We hadn't intended on replacing all the cabinets right now-- but looks like we're going to!!?!  Let's hear it for a BRAND NEW KITCHEN!

 

...more to come....