We have always been crafters but we are also new homeowners and have taken a stab at renovating a 1947 house.

In September of 2017, Thure and I decided to pull the trigger on buying a house. We were going stir crazy in our small bungalow apartment and needed a project. Milwaukee Wisconsin in a great place to buy a home with most homes being cheaper to own than to rent.

We did what everyone else does, met with a realtor about our wishlist, met with a mortgage lender for a real idea of a budget and went off. One day, I found this little house and said..."I think this is it." It was a house that needed work but was completely livable. Something that was a good place for us to put our personal touches on.

  • Front

  • Living Room Facing Kitchen

  • Living room

  • Kitchen

  • Kitchen Facing Living Room

  • Basement Rec Room

  • Basement workshop

  • Three Season Room

  • Third Bedroom

  • Second Bedroom

  • Master Bedroom

  • Master Bedroom facing stairs

This house had everything we were looking for in a house.

  • Three Bedrooms

  • 1.5 Bathrooms

  • Finished basement

  • Large "Gaming" Space

  • Main floor laundry

  • Attached Garage

  • Livable home with room to put our own touches on it

Three months later and after a lot of negotiating, we are the proud owners of a 1940's Cape Cod. This is when the fun started. We started from the top and worked our way down. January of 2018 we made the attic an insane office. We went through a ton of hurdles to get this project started because our attic is ANYTHING but square or level, but eventually we got to a really cool space

  • Visualizing the space. Desk is 3 feet deep and goes for about 35 feet

  • Putting up a level for the table top to sit

  • The floor drops about 1 inch from one end of the room to the other

  • Leveling the cabinets with shims

  • Putting down the first layer of table top.

  • Eos the cat always helping

  • First layer of table top in place

  • Gluing the table for the Red Oak top

  • Installing the Oak

  • Staining the Oak

  • Painting the cabinets

  • Moved in the computers from the main level

  • Unpacked part of my craft corner

  • Started building the bookshelves

  • Painted the Bookshelves

  • Painted the walls blue, Hung Shelving and a projector

  • Filled the shelves with Legos

  • Painted the remaining white walls gray and added alexa controlled lights to the ceiling

  • Always helping

  • Fixed my craft corner with a paint rack

This project, like all in the house, is still a work in progress. We have trim to finish up and other little nonsense, but it is by far the coolest room in the house.

We then worked out way to the Main Floor, starting with the bedrooms. We had the plushest carpet installed and repainted both rooms. After the bedrooms were completed we started fixing up the main living room. This room ALWAYS made us feel like we were hanging out at our grandparents house. the walls were robins egg blue and puke green, our furniture didn't fit, the crown molding was painted to match the wall, there was a weird reception desk where a walkway should of been, and the flooring was just awful.

One day I came home from work, looked at Thure in the living room and just ripped the top off the reception desk. It was liberating and started off a three month process of redoing the entire main floor. Unlike the attic, we wanted this space to be traditional and beautiful. We looked for a long time for inspiration and found that plate rail wainscoting was the way to go. We also realized that I take all the pictures making it seem like I do none of the work. I honestly helped even though Thure is in all the photos!

  • Prepping living room renovation

  • sanding walls

  • Planning out Rails

  • Painting Trip

  • Waiting walls

  • Tearing down wall

  • Building up wall structure

  • Putting in drywall

  • Painting Kitchen

  • Eos Teaching us how she muds walls

  • Mark showing us how to ACTUALLY mud a wall

  • Removed all carpet and laminate in prep from hardwood

  • Moved all the furniture to the kitchen

  • Eos showing Thure that there was a hole in the floor he needed to close

  • Eos realizing that every thing was changing again.

  • install process shots. Constantly moving furniture out of the way

  • Hardwood going in

  • moved into the kitchen

  • bought carpets that match for the entire main floor

  • kitchen runner

  • hallway

  • microwave upgrade because the old one finally broke

  • Kitchen to Living room - AFTER

  • Kitchen to Living room - BEFORE

  • Sanding the new wall

  • Writing inside of our wall

  • putting up the boards

  • priming the boards

  • Finished corner

We still have to add back an air vent we relocated and put in our tile. We were waiting for Wisconsin to get warmer so we could put the tile saw outside and turn the furnace off. The main floor should be completely down by the end of 2019.

We are now making our way to the basement where we have to add structural beams and repair an area that has water damage. More Updates to come!