I’m sorry I have been out of touch. Thank you to everyone who took the time to send me emails and links to your blogs. I really try to personally answer each one but sometimes life gets in the way. I’m sorry for not responding, but I have read and enjoyed each email.
I have a lot to update you on. Big changes are happening at our little bungalow. I am 6 months pregnant with our first child. We couldn’t be happier!
We are in the process of turning our den and tv room into a home office. It is important to get it right because we both work from home. Our current office will become the nursery. In the past year I have wallpapered and updated the dining room and repainted our living. I have so much to catch you up on.
And…we are going to remodel our kitchen! It has taken us 10 years, sadly that isn’t a typo, to get here. I won’t be able to do the dream version of our kitchen. We won’t be opening any walls or annexing part of the back porch. This will be a kitchen done on a shoestring budget.
I don’t know if I will be able to pull this off. I want to end up with something that we both love, that is also respectful to the period of our home. Well, I guess it can only get better…and we have a deadline. This kitchen must be done before the baby comes.
Break out the sledge hammers. Our kitchen is a complete gut job, right down to the studs.
This photo doesn’t do our kitchen justice. In person, our kitchen is actually much worse.
I have lived with our kitchen for the past 10 years! Imagine me off in the distance with my hands to my head, repeatedly screaming, “10 YEARS!”
For those who have asked, the situation with the prostitution has gotten much better. I am not sure that I trust it will remain this way, but right now things are greatly improved. It is so nice not to constantly have all that negativity happening in our community.
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First off, congratulations! Second, three months for a kitchen renovation is ambitious! We can’t seen to get my office scraped, spackled and painted in three months. I can’t wait to see how it turns out-I’ll need the inspiration for when we do our kitchen (probably in 10 years!)
Congrats on the pregnancy! So much fun and those little ones are awesome but *sigh* time for house projects vanishes after their arrival.
We started our kitchen gut job remodel late June but have been out of town at least half of the weekends and rebuilt two staircases at the same time. We have about 2 weeks left to go! Best of luck-excited to see progress.
It took us 6 years to take on our kitchen remodel so I feel your pain. But, I feel we know our kitchen needs so much better now than we did when we first moved in. Best of luck!
If you are getting help with the remodel, I feel confident you can get it done by the time the little one arrives.
CONGRATS!!! And Bungalow love and best wishes from Raleigh, NC. I’ve been enjoying your blog since stumbling upon it while looking for lighting ideas a few years ago for our own house.
In the last 15 months, we’ve had our first baby and went through the dreaded, yet highly anticipated kitchen remodel. It was rough but the other side is sweet, no matter how practical or extravagant you get to be in the end.
There’s nothing like a baby coming to make you look at your house projects in an entirely new light and with renewed urgency. If it’s any encouragement, the beauty about a new baby is that you actually get about 6 more months than you think to get some things worked out because at least they don’t start moving around for a while.
Anyway, babies are more fun than we ever imagined and they bring even more new life to an old house. Cheers to new adventures! Take good care of yourself and we look forward to hearing about your kitchen project.
Congratulations! I’ll second Kelty’s comment that babies bring new life to old homes.
I’m dying to see what you do with the kitchen and what you did with your dining room!
Sending more bungalow love and good wishes your way.
Congratulations! Also, welcome back!! I’m so excited to see the kitchen remodel after all this time. Yours is by and far my favorite house blog and I get very excited when I see a new post!
Having seen quite a few recent kitchen remodels in the blogosphere, my favorites are the ones that have been done on a budget with creativity and love. I’m sure anything you guys do will turn out fantastic. Good luck! Can’t wait to hear more.
Congratulations!! Our little one just turned one, and we were in your shoes a year and half ago. It’s possible (both the small-house office reconfiguring and the kitchen remodeling–we did both!) with a lot of planning–and for us, we focused on getting the kitchen to functional rather than to finished. (We just got to finished this fall, after pretty much stopping all work when the baby showed up.) It also helped for us to thoughtfully decide where to outsource work; we could have done it all ourselves with enough time, but with the kiddo en route, there were some tradeoff points where it was better to get someone else in to do it quickly. And if it helps–we also had to give up our dream kitchen but we are so happy with the one we wound up with, even if it wouldn’t have been my plan with a bigger budget. It’s amazing what functional cabinets and a dishwasher can do!
Good luck!!
Long time reader/admirer. THRILLED with your news. Congratulations!
Huge congratulations to both of you at 1912 Bungalow! So glad you are back–have been following you since the beginning and have missed you greatly. I still think of Simon and Lulu–felt like I knew them from your blog–they were so utterly adorable:) Looking forward to your kitchen–I know it will be amazing–you two have the talent and skill to pull it off–can’t wait to see what you do.
Cristina
Congrats! So excited to see it. I’ve been wondering where you’ve been! As for me and my fiance, still hunting for houses in West Adams/Jefferson Park. Got beat out twice on a victorian by investors and a craftsman on 7th ave. Inventory is low but trying to remain positive with this 3 year long house hunt for a historic home. My fiance tries to refocus my thoughts on our stressfree life renting our wonderful 1912 craftsman that has all it’s original bones, including the kitchen cabinets which are amazing. I feel finding the original kitchen cabinets in these homes is always the hardest. I think in the 50′s and 60′s people felt they were outdated and chucked them.
Good luck. Looking forward to seeing it. You guys have great taste.
A huge congratulations on the baby news! I’ve been following you guys for the past few years and cheering you on from the sidelines. Don’t be discouraged! Ever! Please! We are living the ‘reno-dream’ of a 1912 bungalow in Northern California and your blog has been so helpful and encouraging especially during those times of just wanting to give up and get on with living. I LOVE LOVE what you two are doing. And to keep you going – I grew up in a 19th century farmhouse that my parents renovated throughout my entire life – so your kid is going to grow up to love history and appreciate old homes. Cheers to both of you!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! I had been stopping by your blog frequently and wondering what was going on… I imagined a big project in the making – like the kitchen – but what better than a little addition to the family. I am so happy for you guys. Looking forward to the kitchen remodel and the new addition to the family.
Congrats!
Congratulations! We wish you the best of luck with the newest addition.
Oh, my dear. Our kitchen in Waha was horrendous, but we lived with it. I still remember being downstairs, pregnant, starving, and watching a rat sneak out of a cabinet. Freak out time.
We just redid our kitchen, partway, at least, in Minnesota, where we now live. We moved the back door to the mudroom (what a novel idea) as opposed to just in front of the stove–and out here, you really need a mudroom! We opened up the servants stair, put in a new floor, new (to us) cabinets, new sink, faucet, dishwasher, though we still need some shelves and kick plates would help keep the kittens out of the lower depths. Craig’s list. We did the whole thing with some good labor and $7,000 dollars. Cabinets were used at 700, sink was used at 100 including terrific faucet, flooring somebody changed their mind, etc. You can do it!
I’m writing a novel about our time in West Adams–you can check out some about it at ThreeKindsOfPie at Blogger. I miss it so.
Sara Selznick