Welcome back to Disaster Castle! I've been so wrapped up in the process of buying, planning, and working on D.C. that I have neglected to blog about it. I have always heard people talk about how time consuming the process is, but I thought for sure it wasn't that bad. I mean, Jeff is a contractor so that will push things along faster. HAHAHA! I have had a very rude awakening!

Due to the improper installation of the laminate floors and the fact the the entire house reeked of dog (we have 5 dogs and our current house doesn't smell like dogs...) the first project was to remove all the existing flooring. D.C. has a few things come up on the home inspection, but we weren't expecting the massive patches of disgusting subfloor. We discovered that the master bath had been leaking and there was a large black stain going into the hallway next to the kitchen. Some of the studs in the wall near the bathroom leak had rotted out due to extended exposure to water. This was definitely not what we expected. Luckily the subfloor showed no signs of rot. Due to the leak we opted to take the bottom 4' of dry wall off on the walls impacted by the leak. No mold in the walls!

Initially, we had planned to simply replace the floor, paint the walls, and move in. We thought replacing the kitchen, baths, etc could be done once we moved in. After we saw the true extent of the work that needed to be done we decided to gut the house and get most of the renovation done before we move.

After seeing those massive stains and wet spots in the subfloor I was quite discouraged. The house smells much better now that the existing floors are out, but it became clear that I was living in a dream world. At this point, D.C. just seemed insurmountable. Pulling out the floors made the space seem so much smaller, especially because of the wall between the kitchen and living room. So, buckle up. Next up we start knocking down walls.