Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Renovations- First Week

So...Austin and I moved back to Greenville from Charleston last August. His grandmother moved out of her home downtown a few months before. Since we hadn't sold our house in Charleston yet, we moved into her house- it made perfect sense!


Until we got into the house and saw that all her furniture and home furnishings from the 1940's when it was built were still there. I'm talking pink kitchen, green laminate flooring, chairs that have petrified stuffing (I seriously love the chairs, they just need to be recovered and stuffed and would be totally wonderful) wood paneled walls, plaster walls, and less than modern bathrooms. All of our furniture was just chilling in storage since we had a house full of stuff.  We made it work and it turned out being just fine. It was kind of sad when we did move out to a rental property so things could get started.


A little background on Aust's grandmother: 94 years old, VERY southern, VERY old Greenville, 4 ft. 10 in. tall and is a total spitfire. She is hilarious. I'm so impressed that she lived by herself for at least 10 years. With that being said, there really were only a few rooms that she actually "lived" in. You can only imagine what the rest of the house was like when we began living there...not to mention the pool- yikes! But after the 8 months that we lived there, we cleaned up a lot, sprayed a lot of insecticide, threw out a lot of stuff and really ended up enjoying the house, but especially the area. :-) I mean, how can you not LOVE being able to walk downtown and to Cleveland Park?


I think when we decided to buy the house and renovate/ add-on to the house we made his mom, Kathy, so excited. She has so many neat stories of living downtown and all the "Old Greenville" families and their homes. I enjoy listening to the tales of her family's maids, neighborhood friends, and how things used to be. Back to the house, I think she always wanted to redo her childhood home. She has a lot of great ideas about how it should be done, too.


We've been talking about starting this renovation since Christmas when we told everyone we were expecting so we're happy to see that it has finally started! We've gutted most of the first floor and taken down some of the huge trees to the right of the house so we can extend the driveway around the back where our garage (ahh, how I've missed having a garage!!) will be.


The front of the house- the screened-in porch will be part of the laundry room and kitchen once we're finished. :-)


The pool- can't wait to have Hannah's first birthday here! It has a springy diving board that you can't get anymore and a slide...
To the right and left of the bay window there will be additions built on. On the right side will extend the master bedroom and the left will be the new kitchen and garage underneath. The plans also have a porch connecting both sides in front of the bay window, hope the money holds out for that or I find my money tree!


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