New house update 1

 I mentioned here previously that we had found a house, put in an offer and were waiting and waiting and waiting for the paperwork to go through but I hadn't been back to say that we finally signed on the dotted line a few months ago in November. My mom reminded me that I have followers back home who would like to know how things were going on our renovation so I've hopped over here to post some pictures of everything that's been going on.

Before shot of kitchen

Bathroom that was next to kitchen

Wall that came down

New wall in the kitchen

Not long after finally getting the keys the demolition process started on our house. We decided to take down a wall between the tiny kitchen to take up some of the space that had once been a tiny bathroom. We were able to expand the kitchen into a small one and then have a nice sized (for Spain, mind you) bathroom. Basically we combined two bathrooms into one and the kitchen got a bit bigger.

Wall down in the girls' room

We also took out a wall between two bedrooms to make one massive bedroom for the twins. I think they both deserve to have their own space but I know that they also want to stay together for the foreseeable future so we decided to give them the largest room. Eventually we plan on building on an addition on the back of the house to add a master bedroom/bathroom but for now we have two other bedrooms for us and Carla.

Tile gone!

All the ugly, old tile was stripped out of the interior of the house (exterior still not done yet). The old, random, off-centered fireplace was bricked up since it made no sense where it was. We have also had all the plumbing and electricity in the entire property changed and updated. The behind-the-walls stuff that you can't see but that you know is making the house safe/liveable has been expensive but necessary and obviously I haven't got many photos to share.

New shed roof

Our contractors found asbestos which we had to have removed. It was used a lot here in Spain for roofing material, pipes, water barrels and more. We had a lot! As the roof of our shed had to be remediated, we have had to have that fixed. Right now it doesn't asthetically look nice but it's water tight and we've moved on to the next project to get the house liveable inside (our main priority at the moment).

Jose and I have been working a lot in the garden ourselves. We've cut down old trees, torn out weeds, tackled huge overgrown jasmine bushes, raked our fair share of leaves and haven't even made a dent in the work we need to do so far. We are definitely weekend warriors and we are losing the battle. We've also hauled out more trash then I would have thought imagineable. So many dumpsters full of old furniture, old building supplies, garbage. Gross.

New door!

Just this last week our new front door was installed. Yay! It's the first thing I've been able to see that I picked out and one of the biggest changes we have seen in the last few weeks. Hopefully soon the windows/floors/walls/interior walls/bathroom/kitchen will be installed. Ha! We'd like to be living there by the summer which would put us at the two year mark from when we made our offer on the property.

I'll try to come back here to update again as more things are finished!