I am back

I have been having fun renovating the house I bought in Seattle. I have been going down almost every week for a couple of months to renovate it. That explains my absence in this blog world a little bit. As the project is winding down, I'm almost back to my normal life.

I bought a house before but buying a house as a real estate agent taught me invaluable lessons. It gave me client's perspective of what they go through during a transaction, which taught me how I can support and serve them better. Also, it was a short sale purchase and I gained a ton of indispensable knowledge on short sales.

During renovation, I learned a ton about house construction itself. I am acting as a general contractor and project manager and I wasn't expecting such a drama over a small project like this. The most fun thing for me of course was interior design part of the project: picking paint colors, designing kitchens: we have two kitchens in this house and both were pretty challenging to work with. We ended up knocking down a couple of walls to open up the space and it was really cool to learn what wall can be easily knocked down without breaking the bank.

Having a limited budget challenged me to be more creative. Thrift shops and second use building material shops are my best friends now. If you are close to Seattle, this is a great place: seconduse.com and if you are in Bellingham, I'm sure you are familiar with ReStore on Meridian. seconduse has really great website and you can put on hold or even purchase over the phone.

Here are some before and after photos.