My sister-in-law was by our fixer upper this past weekend with her bundle of sage. Why you ask – to cleanse it.

Majority of you may know her. Kristin has been part of our family for nearly 30 years since her and my brother meet in junior high and she brings a different type of energy to our family. Kristin is the holistic and spiritual one on the Welsh side.

While Kristin was viewing our fixer upper, I made a comment that I was nervous of unknown spirits or bad mojo in our house. She looked at me while she was on her knees digging through stuff trying to find hidden treasures and said I got this. I’ll sage your house. Immediately, I looked at her, then at Jason and thought what the hell does that mean.

What is the purpose of burning sage? Today, people burn sage and other holy herbs to cleanse a space or environment of negative energy, to generate wisdom and clarity, and to promote healing.

Well, our fixer upper got “saged” this weekend. Kristin walked into each room expressing positive intentions for a happy healthy home. The smell reminded me of a catholic funeral mass. You know, that smoke thing they fling around while they sing some song. Obviously, I’m not a great catholic that I have no idea what the name or purpose of that procedure is. Maybe it is sage?!?

Now that we are moving into the design and decorating stage of our fixer upper, I’m hoping that Kristin’s sage will bring me more clarity and happy and positive intentions to our happy and healthy fixer upper 😉.

Thank you Kristin for bringing your hippie into our fixer upper! Love you😘

Love ya, Lisa

As week 2 comes to an end, more of the walls have came down in our fixer upper. Rooms are looking really bare. Wait… rooms don’t look like rooms! Bathrooms are not bathrooms anymore. The kitchen is no longer a kitchen. They say working with a clean slate is easier but now my head is starting to spin with where the hell do I start! Ready for some more demo pictures? Here you go…

When Jason and I were looking at the house before it became our fixer upper, we were walking from room to room discussing what was needing to be updated. Now that those thoughts have became a reality, it’s a lot to take in. In a good way! We are taking every square inch of this house and making it our own. I love it! There is a saying, “home is where the heart is.” This means that their love, affection and fond memories will always be tied to the place that they live. So much of our heart and soul (and money) will be going into this house to make it our own. So far it has been fun!!! I absolutely love that Jason and our kids have jumped on board with this crazy journey that I fell in love with. Now, we all can’t wait to start our new fond memories here.

Love ya, Lisa

BTW, Will our local farel cat came back around this week for the second time. He/she decided to walk the lawn with me while I was putting seed down. Wasn’t sure if it was going to attack me, if it needed a friend or was trying to eat the seed I was throwing in the grass. Don’t worry, I’m not going to become a cat lady! Cats are too mysterious for me.

There are many things that intrigued me about our 1950’s fixer upper. One of them were the 3 wood burning fireplaces inside the house. We have one in the kitchen, one in the family room and the final one is in the basement. Jason and I love putting on a fire in the middle of winter. Just like a lake, we can stare at a fire for hours.

First thing that needed to be done was getting all three cleaned and inspected. This is when our first “that sucks” moment happened. The fireplace in our kitchen has a hole in the heatilator box. Because of the hole, it can no longer be used as a true wood burning fireplace. Now, we have to change it to a gas fireplace. Luckily this isn’t the end of the world since we were planning on putting a gas line to this fireplace anyway.

Before and current photos of all three fireplaces….

Now onto designing and refurbishing them. These are some ideas of what I am thinking.

Our family room fireplace will be holding our main TV in the house. Since the original brick was a bust when we took off the wood paneling, I am leaning towards covering it wood details around the entire fireplace with little tile work around it. The basement fireplace is going to be kept simple but rustic. This is where I am thinking of putting a salvaged beam for the mantel and possibly painting the brick. Our kitchen fireplace is going to be a statement piece. If you read my last post, I mentioned that we just noticed that our fireplace brick goes all the way to the roof. I’m looking to restore and clean the brick, paint it and now I’m searching for an antique mantel. I need a pretty big one – about 84″ long. I’ve been hitting some salvage stores over the last couple of weeks but so far I haven’t found one that I have loved. If you know of any – let me know!

Love ya, Lisa

Demo has officially started in our fixer upper. When I think of demo, I see sledge hammers going through and taring things up. Well, that isn’t the case when you ask them to save items. I’ve been trying to save some of the integrity of the 1950’s farmhouse while bringing it to 2020 and to do that you just can’t destroy everything.

One thing that I thought was so cool, was the original 1950’s oven in this house. Immediately, I flagged it to save. Not to use, since it could barely fit a 10 lb chicken in it but I just couldn’t throw it in the dumpster. Super clean and cute! What I am going to do with it? No idea! Any suggestions.

Now onto the fun stuff you all want to see. Before and after photos.

We did save all the cabinets and stainless steel counter-tops. The cabinets from the kitchen were not from 1950 but maybe the 80’s. Jason wanted these right away for a section of the barn. Once he threw out the old shelving that was in there, he had the demo crew hang the cabinets and counter-tops in a sections of the barn. Besides the color, they are functionally perfect. Function over fashion was a must here!

Lighting: I love girly chandeliers and decor. Jason on the other hand, not so much. Some of you may have seen my post on Facebook about the old 9 light chandelier which was in the kitchen table nook area. At first, I thought dump it and I was thinking of putting a whitewash wood beaded light to replace it – very trendy, I know. Then one night when we were at the house working, sitting outside on our driveway eating Papa Johns (something’s never change). We had some of the lights on in the house including the chandelier in the kitchen. I looked towards the windows and saw the beauty of this light. The reflection from the crystals through the corner windows were amazing!! I had to keep it. I will need to clean it and possibly paint the brass.

Strange find in the walls. While the workers were taking off all the wood paneling, they discovered something behind it. Not drywall. It was a ton of very small particles – CORK! Building in the 50’s was different than today.

Love ya, Lisa

As soon as we got the news out about our fixer upper, one of the first questions that I got from family and friends is: are you going to live in it while you remodel it? And the answer was… HELL NO! We are currently living in one of our rental properties in Mokena. Here is our temporary living arrangements.

Some of you may or may not know but we are into real estate. Jason and I have had the real estate bug for 18 years now. It all began while we were living in Vegas in 2002. Jason and I decided to move in together while he was in his condo. Yes, living in sin in sin city – hahahaha. After being at my first Pharma job for only 6 months, I got laid off (last in / first out – stupid pharma). This is when I decided that I was going to buy a puppy. I get it buying a puppy when you just get laid off may not have been the most responsible thing, but I was 23 and that is what you do when you are 23. Parlay (RIP cute guy), was an all white Shiba Inu and the cutest puppy in the world! Parlay always wanted to be outside and this was becoming a pain in the ass while living in a condo on the second floor. Look at him as a puppy.

I know what some of you are thinking, Jason named his business after our first dog?!? Not exactly. Parlay, our dog, was names after the sports bet (we were living in Vegas remember) and Parlay Mortgage & Property is named after the verb definition of parlay. Let me explain:

Parlay (verb) – to maneuver (an asset) to great advantage: parlayed some small investments into a large fortune. – Parlay Mortgage & Property

Parlay (noun) – a cumulative series of bets in which winnings accruing from each transaction and are used as a stake for a further bet: sports bet. – Our dog

After that short English lesson lets get back to Parlay’s story. Jason and I decided to start looking at houses because we were sick of walking him. We found a great house and this is when we decided that we would keep the condo for rental income. 18 years later and multiple rental properties, flipping projects, buying and selling homes we are here and the rest is history. Our fixer upper was “parlayed” from our original condo in Vegas – thank you Parlay!

Back to our fixer upper. This happened to me this morning…

After dropping the kids off at school, I went by our fixer upper to go over a couple of things with the workers before the demo of our family room and this little guy was coming to check things out. He/she (I didn’t get that close) was starting to walk into what will be our mudroom and pantry. Surprisingly, I didn’t jump. I’m getting better 😂. Now the question is, do I feed it to make sure it comes back to scare off the rodents?

My next blog will be on the demo of our kitchen which demo got finished today. I love a clean slate!!

Love ya, Lisa

Now that we are done with demo and moving onto framing, let’s talk about everything we found on the walls before we ripped them down.

Wallpaper then wood paneling. Wallpaper then wood paneling. I mean layers on top of layers of wallpaper. I do love wallpaper, but wood paneling I can take a pass on. One thing about our fixer upper is that this house is covered in REAL wood paneling and if there was a wall without wood on it, then there was wallpaper. Let’s take a look at some of the wallpaper.

Wow – right!! Am I keeping any of them? 🤔 NO. Sadly, the chevron paper may be slightly back in style but I’ll take a pass. I know which ones were from the 70’s and the 80’s but the patriotic print I have no idea.

I do like wallpaper and I am leaning towards putting some wallpaper up somewhere. Maybe the powder room or an accent wall in a bedroom. I’m still working on that, but I might as well throw my taste of wallpaper in this collage for the next owners to find. I think I’m leaning towards one of these.😉 Any suggestions????

Love ya, Lisa