Fun{ky} Filled Fridays: Home Reno Edition

So stinking excited for this post y'all!  I have literally been waiting 7 years for this.  I never thought I'd see it happen.

What?  You have no clue what I'm talking about?  I'm taking about my living room & kitchen remodel!!! Thank.the.Lord.

I love my house.  But it resides in 1983, which I don't love.  It's got tons of awesome features, like tons of natural rock throughout, huge rooms and a wood burning stove.  And then it has things that make me cry. No really, they make me cry.  These include wood paneling, fluorescent lights in EVERY room, popcorn ceilings, linoleum through the whole house, and did I say wood paneling?

Here are a few dinky phone pics because I was too lazy to pull out the big camera.  For some viewing pleasure, which may cause a few gasps and giggles.  Bless my husband, he'd leave it just like this for the next 32 years if I let him.

My father in law built every last inch of this house, placed every stone, every tiny detail.  I can't imagine living anywhere else.  But all things need a little work and after 32 years, it's time to update this baby.

 Looking into the living room from the front door

Looking into the living room from the kitchen doorway

 Looking into the kitchen from the backdoor

 Looking into the kitchen from the game room {ignore the counter clutter, I was in the middle of cooking and dishes when I took these}

My life is consumed by the color brown.  I may never own anything brown again.  Right now the living room is doubling as my office, I've got junk everywhere. Pardon the mess.  This is real life.

Between the living room and kitchen we've got 724 sq. ft. of renovations.  That's a lot.  My kitchen is actually the biggest room in our house.  I want the whole thing opened up.  Now this may not seem like a big deal, but when the main wall in your house is the one wall you want removed, it takes a little engineering expertise to figure out how to keep my house from caving in. 

Now the details.  The main wall will come down, which is the wall that the stove and frig is on.  Everything has to be moved.  For that to happen the side bar has to come out too.  This will be replaced with a center beam and 2 columns and a huge snazzy island that will house the stove.

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The center light will be sheet rocked over and replaced with something similar to one of these fixtures that my handy husband will build.  Actually, we'll be doing all of this on our own, with the help of my father in law.

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I'll lose my pantry, so that will be relocated along with the frig.  Instead of a pantry we'll do open shelving like this.  It works for us because I don't have a ton of pantry items.  I really try to cook fresh.  Go ahead and say ugly things. 

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The backsplash, on the remaining kitchen wall where the sink and cabinets are, and in the island will be antique bricks that we've been collecting.  The cabinets will all get a fresh coat of paint and new hardware.  Which I've been buying from Hobby Lobby twice a month when they have them 50% off. Score.

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The floors will be ripped up throughout the living room and kitchen and we'll stain the concrete.  I'd love to be bold enough to do this turquoise, but for the hubby's sake, I'll probably do this rusty color.

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The island is being built from 4 old farmhouse doors we have and some farmhouse windows.  The windows will open to all the storage in the island.  It'll have 2 levels, and possibly an open end for my cookbooks.  The countertops will be concrete, which I'm in love with.

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That leaves the awful popcorn ceilings.  Our 2 options right now are scrape it off and paint or replace with vintage tiles.  Since the vintage tiles will cost us more than the whole reno, we've been looking at some cheap new options.  Styrofoam tiles you can paint.  What?  Y'all.  These things are pretty cool.  And cheap.  I'm gonna get a couple and play with paint options before we commit to these.

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The remaining walls haven't been decided on yet.  We'd love to do ship lap, but other options are painting the paneling, remove the paneling and texturing/painting the walls, or installing beadboard.  Our pallet wall will stay.

This whole thing should cost us very little.  Because we're awesome like that.  But really, we have most of the materials, at this point the only things to buy are the stuff to prep and stain/seal the floors and the ceiling tiles.  We have the lumber for the island, we have the beams, because my hubby and his dad save everything they could potentially use to build stuff.  Soooo we're good on most of it.

I dream of this every night.   I have to keep myself from getting a sledge hammer and taking the wall down during the days.  I.can't.wait.