Our unexpected renovation! (nat)

Well... About 5 weeks ago, after a great weekend in St. George we came home and unloaded things as usual through the side door. I didn't notice anything right away but after a few minutes I realized the carpet in the living room was wet... asked my hubby if he went through the front door with wet shoes. No, No, then we realized we couldn't open the front door, and then we realized in the kitchen that our beadboard was totally warped and wavy. Not good signs. We called a water damage company to check things out real quick so we could evaluate what to do. Sure enough... everything was SOAKED. Soooo without all the boring details about insurance fights, tears, phone calls, estimates, etc. etc. Here's a glimpse into our lovely home.

Here's the wavy beadboard in the kitchen, you can see a little line in the ceiling too

Prepping for the job
My buddy Fernando. I kept having to leave the room because if I was there he just wanted to talk about his kids, wife, neice, lunch break instead of working :) He sure was funny though, eased my nerves a bit. Check out those paint colors. Bright red, turned mauve, turned chocolateOk starting to freak out a bit. Water dripping everywhere, finally discovered a pipe burst on the swamp cooler and slowly dripped into two nail holes in the roof... no big deal right!?!?
What started out as some water damage and one construction guy....quickly turned into a major demo with 6 guys, and a plumber. Pretty sure this is the picture I took the day I cried uncontrollably when they tore everything apart
After a week of industrial fans, and freezing, the house sat like this for at least 2 weeks. They wanted to make sure nothing else was going on, no other leaks, repairs to the roof etc. At least it was live-able but cold, and a big eye sore

Next up, insulation and dry-wall. This was an exciting day! It started to look normal again I didn't snag picks of the tape, mud, texture--- it would have been a picture of my whole house completely covered in plastic, not too exciting. But here's paint and re-matching the paneling. Finally the finished product! (minus the doorbell :) The house feels so much bigger, and I cannot get over how much I love it. It's so nice to just have the house back, to not live in the guest room, to not have workers show up when I'm still in my pajamas, to not stare out the window for the crew and wonder what the house will look like by the end of the day. This is the view when you walk in the front door now--- ahhhhh finally an open floor plan. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

And of course I've had fun putting it all back together and adding some new touches!

Thanks to this bench that was a gift from my husband's Grandma and a shelf I bought for 15 bucks and assembled, I am loving my new little "nook"
So it's official, we are open for business again and we're thrilled to have 2 visitors already next weekend, yahoo! Stay tuned for all the projects I did to get the place looking up-to-par again. I had FUN!

** We linked up today over at the DIY showoff! Go check out all the Greeat projects from the Show and tell!