Homespo Reno - Week 1 Progress

We've made it through the first week of our renovation, and things are movin' and groovin' over at the house! Ryan and I have been over there pretty much every single day after work to check on how things are going. What can we say, we're just a tad excited! If you saw the post with our before pictures, you'll know how the house looked on the day we closed. One week later, here are our progress shots, and a breakdown of what's been going on. 

Front Landscape (ahem, jungle) Taken Out

Ryan and our friend Heavey spent last Sunday tackling the jungle that was our front landscaping. After multiple hot-as-hell hours outside, you could actually see our house! The guys had fun wielding machetes and pick axes, and I... mostly offered moral support. Ha. We're grateful to have good friends who are willing to help us out! (Although we do feed Heavey a lot, soooo.... ;) )

The Contractor Started Demo

In just a few days, our contractor's crew tore the place up! Drywall removed, kitchen out, tile jackhammered... they weren't messing around. I never thought I'd be so excited for my house to be such a disaster. 

We Bought Our Flooring!

All 110 boxes of it - oooof. We decided to go with NuCore Driftwood Oak Planks from Floor & Decor. I'll do another post on how we decided on this floor, but we love it, and it feels good to have such a big decision (and purchase) out of the way! 

Walls Came Down

We walked in the house Saturday morning to a pleasant surprise - no walls! Sometime on Friday evening they removed all of the studs that had been up during the week. It's so exciting to finally see the house start becoming what we envisioned - the walls coming down was a huge part of that! It's getting easier and easier to see the end game now. 

We Started Clearing the Backyard

Left side yard before

Left side yard after

Right side yard before

Right side yard after

Back yard before

Back yard after

It might not come across in pictures, but we made a lot of headway back there! Again, thanks in large part to our wonderful friends who helped (including one 12-year-old boy who volunteered for yard work to get out of a 3-year-old Elsa birthday party - ha!)

That's a wrap on week one of our fixer upper renovation! Lots of destruction going on - I can't wait for it to start being put back together. 

Our Fixer Upper Before Pictures

Welcome to our (currently cringe-worthy) abode! Last weekend we went in and took a ton of pictures before they started demo - and I'm glad we did, because one week later, this place looks totally different! So without further ado, here is a before picture photo dump! Everything marked with an orange "D" is getting demo'd - so you can see, we're losing quiteeee a few walls. Yes!     

As you can see, we have a lot a lot of work ahead of us! Here's a breakdown of everything that's happening to our casa...

• Demo all walls in the main room
• Rip out entire kitchen
• Turn in-law suite back into a garage (sorry mom & dad! ;) ) 
• Knock out in-law suite bathroom to extend utility room
• Demo master bathroom 
• Demo floors in the entire house
• Repair drywall/ceilings where walls were removed
• Clear the scary back yard (get rid of all the crazy overgrown plants & vines, remove trees, level ground, lay sod....the list goes on!)  

I feel like there are a million more things, but those are the biggies. Everything on that list except the yard is in our contractor's scope of work. Whew. Soon I'll be posting an update of our reno one week in, and boy are we pumped about how much has been accomplished already! (I'll give you a hint - our walls are g-o-n-e! Insert party horn emoji here!) 

Hopefully you guys got a good sense of how our house looked on the day we bought it - it's going to be completely different soon enough! Check back soon for week one progress. :) 

Welcome to Homespo!

Thanks for stopping by! If you're here, I'm going to assume there's a good chance you already know us (because how else would you get here?). 

But if not... here's the skinny. We're Ryan and Jamie, and we're buying our first house together. After a few years of renting, we're finally making the leap and couldn't be more excited. We're set to close on March 23, 2016, barring any crazy unforeseen circumstances. *knocks on wood*

Oh yeah, and our house-to-be is quite the fixer upper! ("Do you have the guts to take on a fixer upper?" Why yes, Joanna Gaines, yes we do). We started this site as a way to document our house progress. Gotta make those inquiring minds happy, you know?! Our family and friends are spread out all around the country, so rambling about it online is the easiest way to keep everyone in the loop (Plus, Jamie has a thing with starting blogs sooo...).

There she is, in all her glory...

We picked the name Homespo for a couple reasons. It's short for Home Inspiration - plus, Ryan's last name is Gasparovic, which often gets shortened to Gaspo, which sometimes gets shortened to 'Spo... so it kind of worked on two levels? 

Anyway! I hope you enjoy watching our house projects unfold. We'll be posting about a mix of contractor projects, our projects, DIY efforts, furniture makeovers, and more. It's gonna be a paaaaarty. *insert smirky face emoji here* I anticipate that I'll be doing most of the writing (Jamie, that is), but maybe I'll sucker Ryan into posting occasionally too. 

Until next time...