Anyway, needless to say, I haven't blogged much. At all. Okay, I just straight up haven't blogged. But this morning marks an important day - one worth an early wake-up call at my in-law's to snag some internet before the house wakes up. Because today is the day I start ripping down wallpaper in our new house. The day I start pulling up carpet. The day the drapes go into the trash. And the chandelier comes down. Along with the kitchen cabinets. Along with the entire pantry and coat closet. Cover your eyes and ears, previous owner, today is the day your house stops looking like your house.
Because last night we got the keys to our new Brookside address. And nothing about that process was easy. Paperwork a beast and the seller a nightmare. But it's ours. Floral wallpaper, blue backsplash and all.
Given that it won't (pray to Jesus) look anything like it currently does in a few weeks, let's take a tour!
So the outside is huge part of why we bought the house. Because the inside is so bad in so many ways, that I needed to at least feel like by simply changing the black and white trim paint to something less...black and white, we'd have great curb appeal. Landscaping ain't my thing. So we needed a leg up here. But soon enough, goodbye bad paint and goodbye bad driveway.
Through the front door, you're welcomed, or in my opinion, accosted by a sea of popcorn ceilings and yellowed paint and yellowish hardwoods. It's almost blinding. But it's almost gone, too :) First half bath is to the right. All around ugliness up in there. Bad tile, fixtures, square toilet (what?!). It's weird. And it's staying. Because this little boy is kicking strong in my belly and we don't have time to do it all just yet. But savor your life, little powder room, because I'm only giving you another 12 months...tops.
Turn left through the front door and you're in the living room. Not much to say here. I'd like to square out the openings to the entry and dining room but our budget isn't exactly allowing for all these nonessentials.
We're told that the fireplace works. We'll see. Luckily John was a firefighter, right? We'll have extinguisher in hand as we light the first blaze this fall...
Back through the glass paned door in the picture above is this den/library. It's both my favorite room in the house and the room I'm most confused about as far as its future. For now and the sake of our sanity, we're keeping everything as-is. Down to the last thread of that stunningly red carpet. Painting wood is such a no-turning-back commitment that I want to live here awhile before we decide where we go with it. But say hi to the soon to be grab-a-blanket-and-watch-Homeland room.
Back into the living room and out through the back, curved case opening is the dining room. Won't lie. It's pretty small. But we'll be opening the right side up to the kitchen, so we'll see where that takes us.
For now, I'm dreaming of gray grasscloth. Yum.
And now for the real gem of the house. Ahem. Why bother? It's getting gutted in less than 24 hours. Anyone want the stove? Top dollar, folks. And an antique to boot. Check your local Craigslist soon!
What you can't see is that facing that indoor patio table is a 3ft by 5ft pantry plus a coat closet. Those two things will disappear and the opening to the dining room and entry will get bigger. Also, the window on the right below will shrink and sit above new countertops that will span the whole back wall.
There's a book that could be said about what we're doing with the new kitchen, but that's for another day.
And last but not least on the first floor, another fav of ours is the master suite off the dining room. While it's a sight for sore eyes now, it's a room we have big plans for. After hosting our makeshift kitchen for the next couple months during the remodel it's going to actually be our "family" room. Why, might you ask, do we need a family room on a floor with a living room and a den? Because often to our dismay we're crafty people with lots of crap. Like pianos and sewing machines and such. So while this room won't have a TV in it, it will have our desktop, John's upright, a couch, and a closet full of HomeEc things. Sounds cluttered, but we did something similar in our last few months in Branson and we were all about it. Spent way more time in that room than any other.
Then later, when we want to forget we have kids, we'll move the master back downstairs in here where it belongs, turn the left side of this next photograph into a walk in closet and update the bathroom.
I'm out of breath. The rest of the house can come tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that's when my dad's Scovell-Wolfe crew will come in and demo the kitchen. Then we've got an electrician coming to put canned lights throughout the first floor because there's zero overhead lighting in most of the rooms. Plus, we're overlaying all those popcorn ceiling and what better time to rip up the lids than when you're already scewing with them. After a week of that, we'll try to paint as much as we can muster before we have the hardwoods refinished to a dark ebony. A week of drying later and we'll try to actually live there! But for now, we're house hopping as our condo rented last month and all our stuff went into storage. Love living out of a suitcase. It's just sublime...but those hardwoods can't dry fast enough!
So that's the short of what's to come this month. But I'm going to try real bad hard to keep track of it all as we go here on the blog.
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