Linoleum Removal

We are so excited to be ripping out the ugly linoleum floor in the kitchen! We wanted to do it the first day we got keys to the house but were worried about asbestos. So after testing and getting the green light, we are moving along with figuring out how to get it out of the house. We are using the nook area as our test as we can make a mess and still use the kitchen. We started with a heat gun to soften it, but Andrew moved much faster without it and just started pulling it up. We also have wood floors underneath! Our plan is the remove everything, sand the floor down and re-finish it. 

After the bulk of the linoleum was off the floor, we were left with a lot of glue and paper backing. I spent an hour scraping a small 2' area and decided to do research for a more time efficient method of getting it up. I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI-8v5d3mqY but thought it was a little more than I wanted to get into, and then talked to a friend who suggested water and soap. Luckily it doesn't seem we have a tar based glue, and the water and soap worked really well. It softened the paper and after soaking for a few minutes was easy to scrape away. We will probably have to do it a few more times to get rid of the glue, but we are getting closer to the wood!

Living without at stove

So as we are taking our time with the kitchen design, we are also taking time to buy a stove. We are waiting until it has a home so we don't move it all around the house during construction. So in the meantime, we bought a great little hot plate and are making due with one-pot meals. One of our favorite recipes is from the local restaurant, Toro Bravo, and they make an amazing Harira (lentil soup). It's easy to make and delicious!

Thinking about the Kitchen

Before starting any work on the kitchen, we are trying to take our time and really think about everything we want to get out of the kitchen. It is a pretty generous size, but has a narrow nook area, 3 doorways into the kitchen and no one ever planned for a refrigerator to be in the space. The previous owners removed all the appliances before selling, but from a small photo, you could tell they had the refrigerator in front of the window next to the end of the cabinets. So this has caused us to rethink the layout of the kitchen and try to be creative with where we are placing the appliances. So far, we have decided the old stove area is the perfect spot for the refrigerator and will have enough space next to it for a narrow cabinet. Between the sink and the next set of windows, we are planning to put the stove and keep the sink where it is. This relatively small shift in layout will create a permanent place for the refrigerator without tearing down any walls and maintaining the old 4-square layout of the house.

Kitchen Precedents

Our first project is going to be our kitchen. We have some planning to do in regards to the layout, but we wanted to start gathering some ideas for the palette. So far, we have two concepts, the first being a very white kitchen and the second still being white and bright but with darker base cabinets.

Decorate first, move later

So we have been in the house for two weeks and have moved out of our apartment completely. We finished moving Sunday morning and finally had our friends over to check out the new place. Their first reaction was how our living room already looked more put together and decorated than theirs and they have been in their house for well over a year. The first thing I wanted to move were the rugs. No furniture, but for some reason the rugs really made the space feel warm. Other than that, we have a few pieces of artwork and a lot of plants that instantly make the place feel like we have been living there for months. The apartment at this point is a distant memory and our living room already feels like home.

Welcome home!

Our search for a place to call home started three years ago in a different city. My husband Andrew and I were newly married, and just moved to Chicago from Santa Fe, NM where Andrew is from. I got a job offer in Chicago and always wanted to live in a big city, so we took the opportunity. I'm from Michigan, so it was driving distance to my family and we thought it would be great. Well, a few months of the coldest winters where the Polar Vortex decided to spend some time, we quickly decided Chicago wasn't going to be our long term home.

We had been exploring the country to pick a city we both could connect with and decided Portland, OR was where we wanted to land. This city has so much to offer from the beautiful scenery, delicious food and unique spirit. So the house hint began, but little did we know we were entering one of the hottest markets in the country. Houses were often listed on a Thursday, had an open house on the weekend and had multiple offers by Sunday night, many cash. It was hard to compete in this kind of market and we had three failed offers to show for it.

I was consistent with checking the latest listings and found a house that didn't have much marketing about its sale. No open house was scheduled, so we visited with our realtor and put in an offer we felt might be a winner. At this point, we were a little desensitized to the process, so we weren't unreasonably nervous waiting for the results, but this time we had the winning offer!

Welcome to our house!