Friends! I’m so excited about today’s post!!
Every year, I do a FALL HOME TOUR, but this year in particular is extra special because after 3.5 months of living in a gigantic mess, we have our downstairs about 75% finished!
ALLLLLL THE PRAISE HANDS!!!
You guys know that home is where the heart is, and my heart has been a great big mess since June 19th. I like a cozy, quiet, clean, calm house…and unfortunately, that all came to an end on June 19th when our first floor flooded.
I couldn’t quite figure out how to word this next bit of information (my paragraph was super long), so here is a bullet point list instead of what we have been doing post-flood:
1: It took 16 days for our house to dry out using over 40 fans and some huge dehumidifiers.
2: Movers came in and packed up our entire first floor and moved everything out to a storage facility (everything including furniture, bedding, our clothes and shoes, candles, bath products, photo albums…our house was all packed up and empty)
3: They ripped out all of our flooring on the first floor and ripped out all of the walls to take the house back to the studs…
…everything in the ceiling had to be replaced to from ceiling fans to our sound system and much more, our beams had been leaking water, so they were heavily damaged…the water was coming in from both the ground and the ceiling, so it all had to go.
4: After everything was dry and then ripped out, we could go in and start putting the house back together. The first thing we did was…the painstaking decision of re-painting our entire house. Since we’re adding on to upstairs, we already knew we were going to have to paint the entire second floor (and originally, I was going to paint it Sherwin Williams’ Kilim Beige to match the downstairs), but when we realized we had to repaint the downstairs too, I decided to pick an entirely new color, so after five trips to SW, I ended up picking and loving their Moderate White.
5: I think it’s probably all going to look the same to you (which is okay!) because for the most part, we put it back the way we had it. If you’ll recall, we just updated both the library and the kitchen weeks before the flood, so nothing changed there. They tore out all of our wood floors and replaced them…but we loved our floors, so those are brand new but look the same.
6: You might notice that many of the light fixtures are new as we had to replace those along with ceiling fans too.
7: I already showed you this, but our guest bath had to be gutted and now…
…it’s finished too (you can see the entire remodel post on that room HERE.)
8: Even our patio had to be gutted back, the ceiling ripped out, the arches taken down…even the patio was destroyed, but thankfully, we were able to put that back together now too!
9: I will say that it’s not typical to complete a portion of the house and then another portion (instead of just doing all the floors and then all the tile, etc), but my sweet husband and our sweet builder knew life would be much easier if we had our patio, kitchen, breakfast room and living room back, so they focused on that area, finished it up (for the most part) and sealed it away from my bedroom, bathroom and closet which are still a great big mess along with upstairs (which is an even bigger mess), but this gave us a living space and eating area which we all desperately missed. Now, they can use exterior doors and work on those areas without having to come into the main portion of our house…so it really is like two different universes over here, clean on one side and crazy on the other. I know it’s silly, but having my kitchen table back and my couch really lifted a burden from my shoulders. It feels like home again. Just whatever you do…DO NOT GO IN MY ROOM OR UPSTAIRS. Seriously. Don’t. As long as you don’t do that, you’ll be very cozy.
So, we have most of our downstairs back…with pumpkins 🙂 . I’m sure I’m leaving out many details, but that’s all I can think of right now. When the house is completely back together, I will share more pics and maybe answer some questions, but for now…it’s October and I have pumpkins, so that’s A LOT to celebrate!
Welcome, friends! The sidewalk is dirty due to construction, but we have pumpkins out, pumpkins on our clothes and pumpkins in our hearts.
If you were here in person, I’d offer you coffee, a piece of bundt cake and a hug. Come on in!
Awwwww! We have our entryway back!
This was what it looked like for 3 months. It’s so nice to have it “normal” again!
Sherwin Williams’ Moderate White anyone?! All of the walls and trim were painted.
My favorite spot 🙂 .
Oh fall, you make me happy.
I only bought two new things this year to decorate for fall…this pumpkin here and his “friend”. All of my other decorations are old. It looks like this one is sold out, but the other one I bought (you’ll see it below) is still in stock.
I’m just always trying to tuck little bits of pumpkin into every space.
Awwwww! My living room is back!!! Friends, IT WAS RAINING IN THIS ROOM. Raining. Literally, raining in this room 3.5 months ago.
We basically put it right back together to how it was before except we did get new fans (instead of replacing it with the same) and obviously, our giant sliding door thing isn’t installed yet (nor is that wall finished…it needs molding/floor installed around, some texture), but that should be done by the end of October. That door back there in the corner is to my room…do not open it.
All the fall touches make me happy.
And we now have our kitchen table back. The windows behind it are also not installed yet…but this is huge progress 😉 .
We had juuuuuust re-painted the kitchen and updated it when this happened. So, we didn’t make any changes this time through…just put it back to what we had just done.
There’s the smaller pumpkin 🙂 .
I have these plates for every occasion and celebration…
…and they always make me happy. My friend Lori makes them.
Inside my pantry. My friend Amanda makes these cute holiday signs! Side note, today is her BIRTHDAY!!!
Little touches in my office too 🙂 .
And the patio outside even has pumpkins too…with scaffolding 😉 .
So, we have come SO FAR! Now, I’m guessing my bedroom, closet and bathroom still have another 6 weeks-ish and then upstairs…maybe in 2022 (ha!), but this is HUGE progress. HUGE! So, a cozy house with pumpkins for your Monday. It sure makes my heart happy!!! One last thing, I posted this last year, but I’ll post it again because I think it helps:
Now, some of the most common questions I get each year after this post are:
1. WHERE DO YOU STORE ALL OF THIS? In plastic bins in my attic. Nothing fancy, just big bins. Andrew hauls them up and down the attic ladder each year.
2. WHEN DO YOU DECORATE/TAKE DOWN? I always decorate the week before Labor Day (so, end of August) and then I typically take it down mid-November and put up Christmas. That being said, last year when we took all of our Christmas down, Andrew asked if we could decorate even earlier this year since it’s so much work (he wants to enjoy the fruits of his labor longer!), so who knows? I might get all sorts of crazy and decorate November 1. Would that freak you guys out?! Hahaha!
3. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO PUT IT OUT? A few hours! I always do it one day while the kids are in school.
4. WHERE DID YOU BUY____? I’ve had this stuff for years and years! Some of it, over 16 years! I would say that my go-to places for holiday decorations outside of specialty stores are Pottery Barn and Hobby Lobby. My friends Amanda and Amy make all of my holiday signs that you’ll see and then my friend Lori decorates all of the plates and platters with my kids’ hand prints on them.
I hope this helps too!
Happy Fall, Y’all! xo
