Last Friday we celebrated one month of new [old] home ownership! In honor of that, I thought I would do one last "meet our new home" post, for any interested! I have described that we are about 90% moved in, but only 1% cute. We have so many projects in front of us! Can you imagine how excited I am that
Young House Love announced right after we bought this house that they have recently bought a 35 year old home (same age as ours) that they are going to start renovating soon?! Yes please, show me how it's done!
Will and I were just talking at breakfast about our plans. This week we are hoping to finish the little bit of settling in progress that needs to happen. Like, confession: my and Will's toiletries are lining the floor of our bedroom because we have not put the shelf-liner down in our bathroom cabinets, and take my word for it, shelf-liner is a must! After we do these last 2 or 3 small things, we plan to really clean the house again. Really clean. Then we can finally start our projects. So, when we need a break from cleaning, we will be making the lists: Expensive, so start saving; Just some muscle, so get started; Room-by-room, so prioritize rooms.
For now, here is our home!
This is a peak into our dining room. We don't have a dining room table; it has that small buffet for now. Note, the so-great accordion door from the kitchen to the dining room. There's a second one from the front entrance to the kitchen. This Saturday, those doors were taken off their tracks and disappeared! One small step toward home improvement...
Of course also take note of that incredible, more-legs-than-an-octopus chandelier!
Aaahh, the kitchen! There are so many points of "ooh, I really enjoy that" as well as "how expensive is it to change that and how quickly can we do it" about this room. For example, the updated light above the island that is next to the not-at-all updated light above the table. My goal: change both!
Here is another shot of the kitchen. (There is another short row of cabinets with the fridge along the third wall not pictured.) The cabinetry we would love to replace. How soon? Good question. I don't love the range in the island. But, I do love the window above the sink! Love it! I actually smile when I bring a dish to the sink because of that window; now that really is love!
The bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs are a less intense love / how-quickly can we change relationship. For instance, the master bathroom. I love the double sink. I love that the sink is separate from the shower. That track lighting, however, not going to live a long life here. The powder blue counter tops and flowery mirrors, not on my favorites list.
The cream color and the design of the floor tile, love! It needs some grout-TLC, but love it! And, I can't help but love the window above the bath tub!
The kids bathroom I really enjoy. It is big enough that we could put a double sink in here one day if we want to. This cabinetry is probably in the worst shape of all. So, replacing it is a must. When and double sink or not, those questions remain. The yellow honeycomb tile, I like it! For now, I am going to embrace the yellow tile. A bathroom renovation will be a question and a conversation for another day (like 15 years from now).
The bedrooms are so spacious! The only real improvement the bedrooms need are painted walls and trim. I show you Benjamin's room because the 1% of cute that has happened is in his room!
Ah, one more bedroom item, our master. I do love this window! I love the green outside it. I love that it is a double window. I am really enjoying that we chose these cloth-style blinds. (There were no blinds anywhere in the house when we moved in; bedroom blinds were bought in the first 2 days!) Easy to use and so tidy when they are up!
Now, we head back downstairs to the family room. Yes, it is wood paneling and yes, it has a non-working intercom system. (Our neighbor, who is a contractor and did a lot of the work getting our house ready to be on the market, told me that he convinced the previous owner to take out and patch all the other places this intercom system existed. Thank you kind neighbor for that convincing! Only the two that are on paneling still exist.)
But, man, I love this room! I have such the vision for it already. I know how I want it painted. I know the new furniture I want bought for it. (Our green couches against the dark paneling make a really dark room, but it is what we have.) For now, we wait until we have made our priorities list and our plan of attack. And, I continue to daydream about the beautiful room that I know it will be!
Finally, the yard! I am quick to tell anyone that the location, the flow of rooms (and quality bones of the home), and the yard, yard, yard are why we bought this home! It is already fenced in. It is majority grass! It needs some attention, some bushes removed, etc. But, look at these surprises that came along with the house (we didn't notice these until the house was already under contract):
3 peach trees, 2 pear trees, 1 apple tree, and some blackberry bushes!
They look pretty young, but we already see this little guy growing on one of the peach trees, along with a few buddies!
And, these guys on the pear trees! Could we have some home-grown fruit this summer? We are hopeful!!
We have lots of mole holes in our back yard. Some lizards that enjoy the stones in our yard. We have a hawk that we have seen more than a few mornings on our back fence post. Our neighbors have warned me too often about snakes. I will not freak out. I will not freak out. I will not freak out. This daddy cardinal hops around the clovers outside our kitchen window often!
We have met some of our neighbors and are learning more about the neighborhood. Most of the neighbors seem really nice. A few definitely enjoy friendly neighbor chat. A couple have seemed indifferent to our arrival, but more often they seem happy to see us!
We have one vanity project that we will post after it happens, hopefully in the next week or two. Meanwhile, I am watching Flea Market Flip, stalking Young House Love's blog, bantering lots of ideas with Will, and just trying to enjoy this new chapter of home ownership we have started!
