Here we are, six months after I wrote Part 3, because well, life happens. I definitely didn’t think it would take this long for us to be in our next season of finally remodeling our home, but we’re finally here!
In Our Journey To Debt Free Living – Part 1, Aaron and I were newlyweds making our first financial decisions. I was pretty proud of us because we chose to start of our financial lives out consciously separating wants from needs.
In Part 2, we confessed how our bad decision of purchasing a truck quickly led us to selling the truck just 5 months later and eating a good chunk of change doing so.
Part 3 was an awesome milestone where we finally finished remodeling our rental property, rented it out and purchased our current home.
One Car Family to Two
We were a one car family for about 6 months. We had our lease on the Maxima and we loved it. It was really pretty easy for us to share one car because our schedules are decently flexible and we can work around one another. Being a one car family enabled us to purchase our current home, pay off our last bit of debt and really position ourselves in a better place to finally start remodeling our home!
So after our one car family endeavor accomplished the goals it was intended to, we started looking for a second vehicle. We decided we needed something that could help us in our remodeling as we wanted to do as much of it on our own and we wanted to get a used one. So after Aaron did his full extent of research like he does, we found a great deal on a 2010 FJ Cruiser.
Aaron has actually always wanted an FJ. I on the other hand, never liked them. Every time we saw one on the road it was a bright color with a white top and I just felt like it looked like some Australian Toy Tonka Truck. Of course, my reasons were all aesthetic. I didn’t know (or care) if it had a good engine or if it had good reviews or whatever. So when he showed me this one, he wasn’t expecting me to actually like it, but I actually did. It’s definitely cuter than any other one I had seen and for many reasons that he explained to me, it was a good buy. Plus, he’s so cute when he gets so excited about things like this and he should get to love his car if he gets a chance to.
DIY Remodeling
We are finally ready to start remodeling our home that we purchased 6 months ago! If you read Part 3, you may remember that I told you we didn’t have hardly any furniture when we moved in and we weren’t planning on buying any more until we got out of debt and remodeled the floors and walls. This has not been easy. We knew we would be glad we decided to go this route after everything is finished, but meanwhile living in it is not so fun haha. So, since I’ve been pretty transparent with you guys thus far, I’ll show you what our downstairs living area looks like right now. 
I’m definitely cringing as I post those images, but it will be so awesome to be able to see before and afters, right? It’s just kinda hard living in the “before”, but here we go, on our way to the “after”! Enjoying the process of things has been something that Aaron and I have been growing in. The process can be frustrating, long and annoying, but we can’t try to rush past it too quickly or else we will miss valuable lessons and we may even miss the character that the process builds within us.
As you can see, we’ve already pulled up the carpet and started removing the popcorn ceilings. I’m going to post a DIY Popcorn Ceiling Removal post next. We hope to demo our tile on our own, demo some walls, lay down new floors and paint walls on our own. Some things we will pay professionals for are raising our sunk in living room floor to be the same as the rest of the bottom floor and putting in some new lighting.
I can’t wait to be in the “after” but for right now, we’re working hard and enjoying the process! I’m so thankful for where we are now, the opportunity we have to be able to remodel and see what all we can do on our own. It’s going to be an adventure and a learning process, for sure!
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