Wrapping Up The Tour

If you missed it, here's the first floor of the house we just bought. But before we go upstairs and down, let's rewind a little and I'll fill you in on some details. 

We bought this house for a few reasons - loved the potential of the curb appeal, loved how close it was to John's work and loved the square footage. So briefly, let's talk specs. The house has four bedrooms, two full baths, a half bath on the first floor AND a half bath in the basement (Currently without a toilet. But, hey if you're going to lose one component of a bathroom, that's not a bad one, right? Ahem.) The garage is a tricky deal, but we'll get into that in a minute. For now, let's call it a two car. It does NOT share a driveway with a neighbor - a big plus in my book. The basement is partially finished. Not well finished, but partially finished :) An addition back in the 1940's left the house with a pretty unique den and large first floor master suite. It has an attic fan - woot, woot! All the bedrooms have reasonably large closets. And there's a questionably operating fireplace. For our budget, this house was a no-brainer. And maybe my all time favorite attribute was that it wasn't so ugly, dated and gross that we couldn't live in it relatively quickly, but it was just ugly enough to not feel bad about ripping things out. 

Alright, back to the tour. 

Here is the original master and what will be our bedroom. If you're wondering, yes, the drapes do match the bedding and - get ready - she left everything for us - bedding and all!! Best day ever. Because who doesn't love used bedding and drapes drenched in dust! ME! ME! But, hey, just because it's not my jam doesn't mean it isn't yours. Coming soon to Craigslist...

A shot of the his and hers closet. More like pretty decent closet on the left and room to store about five T-shirts in the closet on the right. Guess whose is becoming whose?

And now for some beautifully coordinated wallpaper and carpet. It will make it's final appearance this afternoon and find a new home in the dumpster tonight. Gosh, I wish I wasn't so cold-hearted! But who can deny the ugliness of this combination. Not I. Soon enough, though, this will be the nursery.

Here's Annie's room. Not much to say about the bones of the room. We're losing the paper and the curtains. Probably lose the chair rail, too. But the jury is still out on how much will get done before our due date.

Behind the door below is a laundry shoot down to the basement. I can't wait to find all the surprises that I'm sure Annie will surely be tossing down.

Below is a picture of what will be our primary bathroom until the day we move our master downstairs. It's not huge, but it's not tiny. And it has enough storage to make anyone coming from our condo swoon. Again, here's another instance of balancing what I really want to see happen in here with our delivery due date, our budget and our desire to get in the house sooner rather than later. Maybe we'll just splash on a new coat of paint and put up a new shower curtain. Maybe we'll rip the vanity out and go big or go home. Who knows. I think phase one will be paint and we'll see how content we can be with that. Unfortunately that built-in make up counter is a super odd height which makes it a little more than tempting to rip out.

And now for the basement. Oh, the basement. I feel like I'm in the basement of a countryside church. I can just see us now as a family sitting on the lovely floral cushions atop the wooden pews reading bible stories in front of the fire. Except rut-roh, within 10 hours of taking possession we kinda sorta tore them out. There went that wholesome family tradition.

The paneling is going to get a coat of paint - probably high gloss and probably a dark navy. We'll paint the brick fireplace, throw a rug and an old couch down there and call it a day until we figure out how this basement best fits into our lifestyle. Playroom? Movie room? Study? We don't have pictures but there's actually two decent sized windows down there so it's not your typically dark basement.

And last and least...this. This mess of a backyard. I know it doesn't look it but it's a world of problems. Let's start with how the seller listed the property as having a two car garage. But it turns out to be a 13 ft. 10 inch opening. So maybe it fit two cars back when cars weren't the large family-transporting tanks they are now. But today is a new day and a minimum opening for two cars is 16 ft. So let's just say we nix the door on the left and expand the car opening. Well we have to move the fence. And if we move the fence, we'll see about an 8 inch step up to the sidewalk leading to the garage. So whoever parks on that left side will have to propel their car over a massive "curb." And the sad reality is the driveway as it is is in terrible shape. A mudjacking job gone wrong. So it needs replacing anyway. But if we move the fence and redo the driveway we have to rip up the adjoining patio. Which we'd love to do. But just how much can we really afford right now? The question of the day. It's amazing how one thing leads to another. Not to mention a giant tree not pictured which is concerning not only to our foundation but also to the neighbor's roof.

And this last picture I almost don't even want to show. Because it's just so bad ugly and being that I'm more of an interiors gal, this exterior concerns me. I pour over enough pictures of kitchens and living rooms, etc every day that I can see potential in just about any house. But exteriors are a little beyond my realm of interest. Anyway, we'll certainly be working on it. But it's probably the one view of the house that makes me chuckle that we ever bought it. It's just so bad...

So there you have it. A full house tour. Funny how these are all the pictures the realtor put on back in March when I initially saw it on the internet. And I didn't even think twice about wanting to schedule a showing. And now, lo and behold, we own the keys!