Our Collins Clan: Remodeling

Its has been too long since I posted anything. All I can blame is this crazy thing called remodeling we're going through. We, for so long, wanted to buy land and build our home. We even had a floor plan designed. Unfortunately, we never found that "dream" piece of land, and as our children grew, we found that dream slipping further and further out of reach. We have a need to stay closer to the city for recreation activities, education, field trips, and our jobs. It was just not meant to be. Therefore, we decided to remodel/update our current house and make it "like new."

In February, we started with the windows. Home Depot put in new, energy efficient windows to help with our energy bills. So far, I've seen an improvement, more so in the noise level. It is so quiet in our house. I can't even hear the dogs howl when sirens go off.

March, we closed in the back with a covered cedar patio and stamped/stained the concrete to look like flagstone. Because of all the rain, we are just now soon to be done. We're lacking 1 more of the colored stain it needs so it can be sealed. We need to have 3 days of 0% chance of rain in order to do that...not looking good.

New carpet was replaced in our bedrooms and commercial grade vinyl plank flooring was placed in the rest of the house. What a crazy mess of a project. Had I known this, I would have taken a week off work, put all my furniture in storage, and spend the night at a parent's house. Stubborn as I was, I stuck it out at home and tried not to have a panic attack the whole time. You'll see what I mean when you see the pictures.
Our final project thus far is painting our house...bricks and all. It's been no secret I've never liked the color of our brick. I looked into staining it, but there was still a risk of it not looking right and I really liked that look of a painted house.

Here are some pics of our remodeling process:

View from the back at the last snow storm