Home Remodel Disaster Zone

Might I just say, I wouldn't wish a home remodel on our worst enemies. HOWEVER, I really would suggest having a water leak and subsequent remodel because it's pretty sweet to get all new stuff. The process of getting to the new stuff is heinous and along the way we learned some valuable lessons: (1) Sears sucks. We even had a warranty on the fairly new fridge and despite the blown water valve were told they wouldn't replace it. Rob ended up doing it...he RULED on all things construction and handymanish...you'll see more of his talents later (2) contractors are a pain to work with. One of the tile guys accidentally sliced our couch when he was ripping out the old tile...after lots of back and forth, we got a new couch out of the deal. Score!


Even though the original water leak happened in October, we FINALLY have just gotten done with all the last minute touches and can finally share before and after pics. Sit back, relax and enjoy, then go and double check your fridge and dishwasher aren't leaking. I'm just sayin'.


Sooooooooo, October 2007 was pretty eventful around here in San Diego. We got back from a fun weekend at Magic Mountain with some friends (stay tuned for THOSE pics some other time...they're pretty funny) to a completely smoke filled city. We immediately had flashbacks of the San Diego wildfires in 2003 when we had to completely pack up our whole house but were thankfully spared the eventual evacuation and our home was saved. Unfortunately this time around was much worse and the devastation was rampant. We were taken in by our fabulous friends Leigh and Kevin (who, in retrospect, made being refugees pretty darn fun) for a few days, then we returned back home and were looking forward to finally unpacking our cars and getting back to normal. UNFORTUNATELY, life had other plans and a day or so later, we came home to a flooded house. Seriously, hardwood floors are NOT supposed to pour out tons of water when you step on them, the last time I checked anyway. Long story short, turns out our water line to our fridge AND our dishwasher (on complete opposite sides of the kitchen) had blown, resulting in some serious floor and wall damage.


Insurance was AWESOME and paid for us to move BACK out (remember the part where I mentioned we had just gotten home from the fire evacuations?) to a hotel and start the complete destruction and rebuilding of our 1st floor. We decided (because apparently we're certifiably insane or just gluttons for punishment) that we would do some other home improvements at the same time, seeing as though we'd be living in craziness anyway. So, we ended up with new carpet upstairs (where there was no leak), new floors and baseboards downstairs, new living room paint, and a whole new kitchen with new appliances. Hey, we Warrens don't do anything halfway, ya know? We tried to be smart about it and did everything in stages, but it was still not very cool living conditions for a while. Here's some pics!


First, here's a scary shot of the ash filled sky from our backyard during the fires:

Here's the beginning of the construction chaos - blowers and dehumidifiers for the flood and half our floor torn up. I like how Galileo is supervising here, he's doing a great job.



And this is why we didn't do a lot of hanging out in the kitchen during this process: blowers all over the place...crammed into a not-so-huge space. Nice legs, Robbio!

While the insurance guys were replacing our old hardwood floor in the living room with new, we started work on the kitchen. We'd always hated the white tile kitchen counters, they always showed every little spec of dirt in the white grouting...spaghetti sauce a go-go!
So, we ripped out the old white tile counters (here's a before pic):

And put in some gorgeous blue-specked granite with custom tile back splash! It's so beautiful, I want to lick it. Daily. The photo doesn't even do it justice, the blue specks are so pretty in the light.
We took out all the old white appliances and sink and put in everything stainless steel. Here's a pretty funny pic of the pass through from the kitchen to the living room with a shot of the new sink (and can I just say as a proud wife that Rob put in the faucets himself AND the disposal! Seriously, whatta guy). You might notice a floating furry dog head - Galileo loves to sit up on the back of the couch underneath the granite counter top bar/lip and watch everything happening in the kitchen. I think it's short-man syndrome and he's just really nosy.

Upstairs we had already done some major renovating to our office, here's a before shot (notice the heinous green carpet & orangish paint wainscoting the previous owners had put in in what we think must have been an acid-fueled decoration weekend)




Here's an in between shot of the old green carpet but with our paint job to make the wainscoting white, for Pete's sake...

And here's an after shot of our gorgeous fluffy carpet upstairs in the office (again, Galileo is supervising the shot):

And finally, the living room transformation. Here's a before pic of our living room with light beige walls and light hardwood floors (this picture kinda makes me sad, it's Rob calming Galileo down as we're packing our cars to leave our house for the fire evacuation - we were so stressed and had no idea what we would be coming back to):


Here's a picture of the same corner after the remodel - we obviously rearranged the furniture too just to confuse you.


We LOVE the new dark color we picked out in the living room. It was pretty monochromatic before with light beige everything but now it's so cozy and dramatic. Here's the before pic of the opposite corner:





And the after pic:

Fun fun! I love the new look soooo much that I've almost forgotten all the painful construction nonsense we had to go through to get it. Come visit it sometime and you, too, can lick the granite if you feel so inclined.