New Beginnings Property Restoration Blog

It finally happened. In a miracle of scheduling, good fortune, and what can only be described as a brief cease-fire with Mother Nature, the new driveway and bay window arrived in the SAME WEEK!

The driveway concrete was poured on the one day out of many when it didn’t rain. Then, just to show off, the beautiful new bay window went in the very next day—finishing up about an hour before the storm clouds rolled in and the weather warnings began. How’s that for timing?!

After months of facing the world with a battered, worn-out bay window at the end of a cracked and ugly driveway, this rising star of a house can finally proudly face the street. All the delays, scheduling gymnastics, crossed fingers, and occasional pleading with the heavens came down to two major jobs back-to-back while our cruel overlord, Mother Nature, graciously took a 36-hour break from persecuting us.

Honestly, what did we ever do to her?

Meanwhile, inside, the impressively long list of “finishing touches” continues.

For example, do you know how many doorknobs are in your house? Probably not. Why would you? Now multiply that number by three to account for the hinges, and welcome to our current reality.

And then there are light bulbs.

Watts. Lumens. Warm. Soft. Base size. Frosted. Clear. Filament. Bulb shape. How many do we need?

Has your brain melted yet?

Is there anything more intimidating than the lightbulb aisle? Picking light fixtures is fun. Picking lightbulbs is apparently an advanced-level home improvement course nobody warned us about.

And finally, why does the lawn have a mohawk you ask?

No, this was not part of the landscaping plan.

The day the lawn was mowed, there was some construction equipment sitting in the front yard, so they simply mowed around it.

And voilà! A mohawk.

Honestly, it seems perfectly appropriate. After everything this house has put us through, it deserves at least one questionable hairstyle.

If we couldn’t laugh at all of this, we’d probably be curled up in the corner surrounded by doorknobs, hinges, and 47 different kinds of lightbulbs.

But hey… the driveway is done, the bay window is in, and the house is finally starting to look like the rising star we keep insisting it is.

Progress!

Even if it currently has a mohawk.

The light at the end of the renovation tunnel is finally coming into focus… and it’s a gorgeous sunrise, not an oncoming train.

Mark has been sneaking outside to work whenever Mother Nature gets distracted. The ugly, trashed bay window and the driveway disaster are finally scheduled for replacement. The vines that had a death grip on the house have been sawed, ground, chopped, and otherwise convinced to move on. It was a Herculean effort that Mark has officially placed on his “Never Ask Me About That Again” list. Reclaiming the exterior from a jungle ranks just behind scraping the interior wall texture in the Renovation Hall of Trauma. That’s definitely another chapter for the book.

Inside, though, the transformation has been incredible. What started as an uninhabitable mess is beginning to feel like a home. Dingy cabinets and tired window frames look brand new. Wasted space has become usable closets and pantry storage. Every room is starting to show what it was always meant to be. It’s no longer something we have to imagine—we can finally see the beautiful, comfortable home waiting for happy new inhabitants.

Now it’s time for the final boss battle: the details. Doors, light fixtures, touch-up paint, trim… all those little things that somehow multiply overnight. There’s a mountain of light fixtures (accompanied by approximately one million light bulbs) waiting for installation and half a dozen doors still need to be installed and painted. But compared to everything we’ve tackled already? We’ve got this.

Mark will keep bouncing between inside and outside as Mother Nature continues making up her own schedule, but the finish line is finally in sight. This renovation is going to be worth every sore muscle, every surprise behind a wall, and every “quick project” that somehow took five days.

We can’t wait to share the before-and-after photos. Looking back at where we started makes it hard to believe it’s the same house—and that’s the best feeling of all.

Stay tuned… the best part is almost here.

We’ve been a little quiet lately, but don’t worry—we haven’t abandoned the flip. Mother Nature simply decided she was our new project manager.

The plan was to finish the exterior painting. Mother Nature’s plan was to make it rain when there was a 0% chance and stay perfectly dry when there was an 80% chance. At this point, we’re convinced she’s just refreshing the weather app for entertainment.

So back inside we went again, which turned out to be fine because there was still plenty to do before we could declare victory.

Like replacing every. single. baseboard. and. door. trim. Yes…the entire house. Thankfully, the right tools and a little help from a friend made the job go much faster. It’s amazing how a few finishing touches can make rooms go from “crime scene documentary” to “I’d actually sleep here.”

Then there’s the family room.

First up: the popcorn ceiling. After surviving the epic Battle of the Hallway Wall Texture (a cement-based substance that may have originally been designed to reinforce bunkers), popcorn ceilings suddenly seemed relatively tame. Mark declines to comment on his combat with wall texture until he’s completed more therapy sessions.

Next came priming for paint. The walls got primed. The ceiling got primed. Mark got primed. We’re pretty sure the dog would have been primed too if he’d been there. Stay tuned—the finished room is going to be a warm, inviting space with beautifully painted built-ins that will make you forget what it looked like before.

And now…the Bay Window.

Friends, Bay Window should be the title for an entire episode in a lesson-learned documentary.

Lesson #1: Bay windows have a long lead time.
Lesson #2: Bay windows cost approximately the same as a down payment on a new car.
Lesson #3: If your house has a bay window, replacing it with not a bay window involves rebuilding half the front of the house.

Kim has requested that all further discussion of the Bay Window occur only in the presence of a licensed therapist.

So… we wait. The bay window is officially the last major piece before our little flip is ready for the market.

Thanks for following along on our first adventure in house flipping. We’ve learned a ton, developed a healthy respect for trim carpenters, drywall mud, and weather forecasts. It’s been exhausting, frustrating, rewarding, and somehow still fun.

The best part? People have already stopped while driving by to ask about the house because they want to live in the neighborhood. We’re finally on the home stretch, and we can’t wait to show you the finished transformation. (You know, after that bay window goes in.)

It started raining so we went back inside.  Apparently, Mother Nature had some notes on our renovation plans.

On the bright side, we made a huge step forward downstairs. The former multi-level hazard of bare plywood and wrecked sheet vinyl has been replaced with an actual level, lovely vinyl plank floor. A beautiful, continuous solid foundation for the new kitchen and adjoining space. With the freshly repaired and painted walls, we can finally picture the kitchen flowing into the dining and sitting area instead of the disconnected disaster areas we first walked into.

We’re ridiculously happy with the paint color in the kitchen and sitting room — a beautiful, tinted white with a faint violet undertone called Cultured Pearl from Sherwin-Williams. Honestly, naming paint colors deserves its own award category. This one was dead on and it’s going on our favorite list. It finally feels like the house is turning a corner and more like the last scenes of a HGTV show rather than the opening “what-have-we-gotten-into” moments.

The rainstorm also stress-tested the basement and windows for leaks. Great news: no leaks around the windows or into the basement. We’ll take all the good news we can get.  Finger crossed for no more surprises in the home stretch.

And yes, “we” still means Mark doing relentless actual labor while Kim does the hard work of picking paint colors and saying things like, “Is this tinted neutral warm or cool?” It’s our business model and we’re sticking to it.

The inside work isn’t done yet, but it’s time to take advantage of Mother Nature’s gift. The weather turned nice, spring exploded everywhere, and our poor little house was slowly disappearing beneath years of neglected plant life and abandoned landscaping.

The side yard jungle was finally hacked back with a take-no-prisoners attitude. Underneath all the chaos? Actual steppingstones. Real ones that haven’t seen the light of day in who knows how long. A little grass seed on the bald patches and the yard will come back from looking like the aftermath of a wildfire.

Out back, the giant weeping willow got the spa treatment: dead branches removed, overgrown limbs trimmed, dignity restored. It’s once again standing tall and majestic; the centerpiece of the backyard.

And then… the vine. The absolute menace growing on the east side of the house. We have no idea how many years this botanical supervillain had been left unchecked, but it had attached itself to the siding with the determination of a stalker. It was actively trying to rip a piece off the house. Bonus feature: it was poison sumac. Because why settle for ordinary evil when you can also hand out a big dose of itchy swollen blistering pain?

The vine is gone now. Good riddance. Hidden beneath its leafy reign of terror was an old snaking cable, probably meant to connect a satellite dish to an upstairs bedroom without any regard for exterior aesthetics. Fear not, that cable is headed to the trash, where it can reunite with the satellite dish itself — which was joyfully launched into a dumpster the day the new roof went on.

Before operations moved outdoors, new carpet was installed on the stairs and in the bedrooms. There are still finishing touches coming — baseboards, another coat of paint — but finally, when you walk through the front door, you’re greeted by warm, welcoming stairs instead of the previous horror show: disgusting, ancient carpet and those heinous swirls of cement stucco smeared across the walls and ceiling.

Stay tuned for some beautiful exterior upgrades before we go back inside to finish the rest.

the vine that tried to eat the house; hiding that ugly cable that’s headed for the trash

Renovations: where glamour goes to die and toilets are what we talk about.

Yes, we have new toilets. Please hold your applause. Ignore the walls behind them—their current zombie house chic will soon be leveled up. Also, you’re welcome for not posting pictures of the before toilet. Some things should remain a mystery for the sake of our followers.

In a shocking plot twist, the plumber delivered good news: the pipes are fine. Fine!! After being frozen solid during a dramatic mid-Atlantic deep freeze, no less. The real villains? Ancient toilets and their disintegrated, turn-of-the-century seals. For once, the problem was simple and affordable. We wept with joy.  Well, maybe not wept but there were smiles and happiness.   

Now let’s talk ceilings. Popcorn ceilings, specifically—the textural crime scene of decades past. Turns out, no one makes that stuff anymore. Go figure. Anyway, we (meaning Mark of course) scraped it off downstairs, and for once something was relatively easy. Compared to the cement stucco trauma-inducing experience upstairs, ceiling popcorn scraped off easily. A little skim coat on the scraped drywall, some paint, and voilà—smooth ceilings that won’t look like they belong in a 1990 time capsule.

And then… sponge painting. Remember that phase? Bold. Artistic. Questionable. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. But yes, it’s getting painted over. We’re aiming for “cool bright neutral” instead of “artist gone wild” in the kitchen and adjoining room.  Coming soon: actual “after” photos where things will start looking like we know what we’re doing.

Meanwhile, outside, Mother Nature is having an identity crisis—winter one day, spring the next. But the dandelions knew what to do. They woke up and took over. Knee-high, proud, shameless (but no match for Mark and his lawnmower). On the bright side, the backyard tree is showing off like it’s in a magazine shoot. It’s going to be the centerpiece of a beautiful backyard with a little more cleanup outside.

Stay tuned. This journey continues.

Pay no attention to disgusting walls behind the toilet. They will be history soon

What’s a popcorn ceiling again? Not in our very fine house!

A conversation from 1992: “Let’s just put up some wide trim and then paint blue over the green sponge paint”

Lots of cleanup to do in the backyard but it’s going to be sweet when we’re done

Hi… it’s me—the New Beginnings house.

I’ve been quiet for a long time, holding years of wear, weather, and stories in my walls. But lately… something beautiful has been happening to me.

I have a new roof now. Just in time for spring. For the first time in years, I can feel the rain fall without worry—no leaks, no fear—just the soft rhythm of showers above me. I feel protected again. Cared for. Whole.

There’s still more to be done to the face I show the world, but I can already feel myself changing. Soon, I’ll have a new bay window, and I can’t wait… I’ve missed smiling at the people who pass by. I’ve missed being seen.

Inside, I’ve been through a lot. Layers of my past were peeled away—scraped, stripped, and smoothed down. It wasn’t easy. It felt like letting go of pieces of who I used to be. But underneath it all… I found myself again. The real me was still here, waiting.

My rooms are filling with warm, soft colors—tones that make me feel calm, welcoming… like I once did. My hallway is becoming bright and smooth, and my bedrooms are slowly turning into peaceful places again.

Then there’s my electrical system… my heartbeat.

For a long time, it was unsteady—flickering, tired, worn down by years of neglect. My pulse wasn’t what it used to be, but gentle, skilled hands took the time to understand me… to mend what was broken and restore what I had lost. Now, my current flows steady and sure again. Strong. Safe. Alive.

I can feel it in every corner—I’m becoming a home again, not just a house. Thanks for following my journey.

Guess what was hiding under the carpet? TILE. Because obviously this house believes in layers of surprises. Wallpaper under paneling wasn’t enough—no no, let’s add flooring surprises too.

What was supposed to be a quick “rip it up and toss it into the dumpster” turned into hours of quality bonding time with dust, debris, and questionable home renovation choices. But hey… nothing says progress like staring at bare plywood. Light at the end of the tunnel, right? 😅

And the backyard shed? Yeah… about that. Upon closer inspection, it was a hopeless case. So now it’s a full teardown. Demolition continues because apparently we (well Mark anyway) don’t believe in free time anymore.

Of course, Kim couldn’t let a demolition moment go undocumented—she showed up ready for action in her iconic pink hardhat, beautifully decorated by the grandbabies. Honestly, if your grandma doesn’t have a custom hardhat, what is she even doing?

Stay tuned for a BIG week as this hot mess slowly transforms into a “beautifully blossoming home.” New roof incoming, fresh paint on those finally smooth (miraculously smooth!) walls, and goodbye forever to the tragic wall textures and archaeological dig of wallpaper and paneling. We will not miss you. Not even a little.

Thanks for following along on this adventure—we promise there’s plenty more chaos… uh, progress… coming soon.

You can just hear some DIYer saying “just throw some carpet over that tile and let someone else worry about it”.

Grandma’s hardhat

Kim showing of her hardhat and taking credit for demo she didn’t really do

Did you ever wonder what 50 gallons of joint compound looks like?

Yeah… neither did we. But now we know. And if we have to know, so do you.

After a body- and soul-crushing attempt to scrape and sand, the stucco/mud/concrete/possibly-the-devil’s-own-wall-texture upstairs is finally gone – covered under the aforementioned 50 gallons of joint compound. Take a look at the upstairs hallway and ceiling now!  

The unexpected bonus of this project is that we are now the proud owners of a boat load of empty buckets. On the bright side, we’ve discovered they can be repurposed into a lovely DIY bench… or a reminder of the questionable life choices we’re trying to undo,

Once we (well, Mark) mostly finished the body- and soul-crushing wall coverup upstairs, we decided to relax by moving downstairs and demolishing the kitchen. Because apparently our version of “taking a break” is hitting things with a sledge hammer. Almost as good as therapy!

The little cubbyhole of a kitchen had absolutely nothing worth saving, so down it went — all the way to the bare walls. The good news: we didn’t find anything too horrifying hiding behind them. The better news: we’re now staring at a big, beautiful pile of pure potential. Our brains are already overflowing with ideas for what comes next.

Stay tuned for the next episode where we start the rebuild and share some in-progress shots (and eventually the glorious “after” photos). In the meantime, thanks for following along on our renovation adventure. And of course, enjoy watching Kim take all the on-camera credit for demo while Mark does all the actual hard work. Just like our operating agreement says.

This is what 50 gallons of joint compound looks like when its covering a highly questionable home “improvement” choice. Wait for the final prep and paint! It’s going to be beautiful!

What to do with all those empty buckets? A beautiful(?) DIY bench. Too soon for a dinner party but at least there’s a place to sit down.

The dumpster outside is getting full. This will be a kitchen again soon!

First, the stuff you can’t see: the air ducts that previously looked like they belonged in a horror movie have been cleaned from “biohazard experiment” to brand new pristine. The difference in air quality and smell is so dramatic the house basically took its first deep breath in years.

And now for what you can see…

Work continued on the bedroom walls. What started as a simple project quickly turned into a full-blown archaeological dig. After carefully excavating layers of paneling, wallpaper from at least three different decades (possibly centuries), and scraping mysterious ceiling textures that may or may not have been applied with a mop…bare walls (finally!!) that are now expertly prepped for painting.

Then there’s progress in the form of changing tactics.

The horrendous texture clinging to the upstairs hallway walls and ceiling clearly had no intention of leaving peacefully. Scraping it off was starting to feel like fighting a boss battle in a video game… and we were losing. So instead of continuing the war, we’re taking a new approach: skim coating over it. Sometimes progress means knowing when to stop arguing with the house and just politely cover its past mistakes.

Our neglected little baby is slowly coming back to life. What once looked like the set of a low-budget zombie movie is starting to breathe again. With every cleaned duct, scraped wall, uncovered layer of history, and fresh plan of attack, this house seems to wake up a little more.

And to give credit where credit is due: Mark is hard at work bringing the vision to life… while Kim is bravely supporting the project by getting her nails done.