This is Part 3 of my renovation journey. If you want to see the previous posts, check them out here:

                Renovating My House – The Beginning Exterior

                Renovating My House – The Beginning Interior

                Renovating the Exterior – Part 1

                My Renovation Journey – Part 2

At this point I was still in “la la land” and everything was going relatively smoothly. We were still in demo mode, so still tearing stuff out. I found a picture of my plans. At the time I was so proud seeing my name on the plans and looking at everything that was in my brain, on paper.

From the last post, this is the kitchen again and how it was supposedly renovated before I bought it, but the workmanship was very shoddy. It was a FHA house received in foreclosure, so they hired someone to fix it up before they sold it. Not sure who they hired, but I don’t think they were properly vetted. Haha.

There was a new double oven, which I loved and a new microwave. But the cabinets were the horrible orange color that seems to get put in every cheap flip. There was even one that was installed upside down.  I wasn’t in love with the granite countertops either but I figured I could make it work depending on what color I painted the cabinets. The dishwasher was also supposed to be new, but when I opened it there was rust all over the inside so we took it out.

I had taken down the upper kitchen cabinets in the previous post. The days were getting shorter so the contractor put up a light to work by.

Since there was water damage on the kitchen floor I decided not to try to match the wood floor and go to Floor & Decor for some new flooring. I picked out a nice wood look tile in a warm grayish color.

It was December and surprisingly it snowed. Snow is very rare in Atlanta and it never snows in December so we were shocked.

There was a huge return in the hallway leading to the guest bathroom and bedroom. It was so creepy seeing the ground through the grate and I knew I ultimately wanted it moved.  It was easier in the short run for the HVAC guy to work through this hole and eventually we would cover it up and put the return inside the living room wall.

The powder room was demo’d all the way. It was not up to code because there was a shower that was too close to the toilet and vanity so something had to give. I figured since we already had a full guest bathroom and I was making a full master bathroom, we didn’t need the shower. The only problem was that once we demo’d the shower there was so much space on the other side of the toilet and it looked like the toilet and vanity was crowded into one corner. Oh well, that was a problem for another day.

You can’t see the toilet and vanity in the pictures below because they moved them out into the hallway while they did the work.

More water damage at the bottom of the stairs leading to the attic.

 In a previous post, I said that the existing stairs were not up to code because you had to have at least 6 feet of headway at the top of the stairs and these definitely didn’t. An inspector came from the city to give us the correct specs and then we started rebuilding.

The picture below shows the bottom of the stairs which was a little cramped with the opening. I decided at some point I would move the opening to the left to give it a proper “landing”.

By this point I was still enjoying the process but there were little red flags that it would start to go sideways soon. LIttle hints of misogyny and patriarchal comments but I was still in my reno bubble. Glad that I had my dream renovation home and it would take a lot to burst my bubble. More to come so stay tuned.

Let me know if you’ve ever been through a renovation as a single woman and how it worked out or if you’ve been through it with your partner but the contractors treated you differently as a woman.

Talk to you soon.