Work in Progress: So....we're moving

It begins:
On August 10th, the whole house dream became totally official!
It is cute and in a nice neighbourhood and there's parking and a backyard....however, the place needs a lot of love and work and we've got 6 weeks to get it move in ready!
I've been snapping pics like crazy so I figured it might be fun to document the reno in blog form.

A little background on my experience and history when it comes to home renovation:
If you know my parents, you know that I have never lived somewhere that was really "finished". Don't get me wrong, we have always lived in beautiful homes that look perfect and finished to the untrained eye, but trust me....they are not done. There is always some construction project that needs to be started or finished, and if there aren't any projects to start or finish, you can better believe my mom will come up with something to upgrade. I only moved out 6 years ago and their place looks different. Now, one may assume that living in this environment of constant change would mean that I am a total pro when it comes to the whole home reno business. You would be wrong in this assumption. I am no pro. But I figure you've got two stages here before we are move in ready. Stage 1 being the actual knocking down and building and stage 2 being the decorating. While I pledged to be involved in Stage 1, the plaster dust, rusty nails and sheer yuckiness of this stage thus far have kept me on the sidelines, flipping through Ikea catalogues and perusing design blogs. This brings me to Stage 2...or the comfort zone as I like to call it. I have ideas, I have plans, but man am I spoiled for choice! More on this later.

The plan (for now):
New roof
New floors
Take down the walls on the first floor
Make the front mud room more functional (closet space)
New kitchen
New bathroom
New furnace and ducts and stuff
New electrical
Cut back the crazy backyard jungle

And of course, the before pics: