Welcome to my home

Front Room

Before-

After-


Hmm. Doesn't seem like it changed much. Notice in the first picture there are no overhead lights. Pretty typical for a house this age. In the after pictures you can kind of see the new overhead lights. Also, we sanded and refinished the wood floors. Hmm, they look almost exactly the same, but trust me they have a lot better finish on them now. Before it didn't look like there was anything on them. Also we repainted the walls and baseboards. Yes they are the same color as before, but I liked the color somebody else picked so we just gave it a fresh coat of paint.

Like our furniture? We had to use our furniture budget for other stuff. That's okay, someday we'll get a couch for upstairs. For now I think it's funny. It looks like an old lady lives here, sits in the chair all day, and stares out the window. I sit in the chair at night and stare out the window. Nothing too exciting going on. Although my neighbor across the street apparently has problems sleeping too.

Bedrooms

Before-

After-

There use to be carpet in the bedrooms. When we first looked at the house the carpet upstairs seemed okay, but when we looked closer, it had pee stains in it too. Of course they soaked through to the wood floors and ruined them. We just decided to recarpet. Wood floors are nice, but I like carpet in bedrooms much more.

Bathroom

Before-

The bathroom wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good either. White tile on the floor?! Also the placement of the toilet was weird. The vanity was next to the tub rather than the toilet being next to the tub. What happens when you are sick, on the toilet, and you have to throw up? I have had to throw up in the tub before. Chad thought I was funny about wanting to move the toilet, until his friend Kevin said exactly the same thing about the placement of the toilet. I don't really like the tile around the bathtub, but it was in good condition, so we decided it shouldn't be replace. Also, it's always behind the shower curtain.

After-

The family room

Before-

Pee soaked carpets. Ewwwww!

After-

I wish I had a before picture of this wall. We added the play area under the stairs and my dad had a great idea to widen the doorway in the stairwell. It made such a huge difference.


The Utility/Laundry Room

Before-

Once again my dad had a great idea to put up a wall and make a Laundry Room and a Utility/Storage Room.

After-

Lots of storage-Love it! My dad of course found the stuff or had the stuff to make these very useful shelves. A bit messy right now because we are still getting settled.

My uncle hooked us up with this shelving for free. Thanks Alan!

And finally, the Kitchen

Before-

The kitchen had white tile. Again, not a good idea. I actually didn't mind the cabinets, but there weren't many of them. And look at that counterspace. Not a whole heck of a lot. And the kitchen had a horrible layout. Three doorways into it made for an awkward layout.

After-

Yup, I went with light, painted cabinets. I love them! But I've only lived here a week. Maybe ask me in a year how much I hate cleaning them. I originally chose maple, but then found out cherry was the same price, so I told the cabinet guy to do cherry. Then one night I really couldn't sleep because I wasn't happy with my decision. Even with a natural finish cherry was just too dark and I didn't like the grain on the maple, so I told the cabinet guy to paint the cherry off white. He thought I was crazy, but did it and I love it.

Dining Area

Before-

After-

Still lots to do, but isn't there always lots to do when you own a house. The big things we need to do are redo the bathroom downstairs. It's Chad's bathroom and it doesn't even have lights in it. He has to wear his headlamp when he uses the bathroom at night. Also, we need to finish the 3rd bedroom. We had to rip out part of the ceiling because of mold. Then we decided to rip out the whole thing to make rewiring the kitchen easier.

I was sooooo sick of the house before we moved in. It will take a while to adjust to moving, but even now I'm okay with the house. I think it's beautiful. Just don't look too close.

The pee house

Remember this picture-It's the light in the dining room at our new house.And this picture?It's part of the mantle around the fireplace at our new house. The upstairs bathroom-

The downstairs bathroom-The upstairs kitchen- The downstairs kitchen-The house was a foreclosed property. It's got a lot of great things going for it though. It has newer windows, a newer roof, central air, a newer hot water heater and furnace. (Newer means it's under five years old.) The bad thing about it is that the lady had dogs that she let pee every. Mostly downstairs, but some of the wood floors in the bedrooms upstairs are ruined. Chad works with a guy who lives down the street from this house and he helped the lady move out. We had warning about the smell, which was a good thing.

We found the house and made an offer on it around the end of January. All the financing took a little longer than usual because banks were back logged because so many people have been refinancing. We got the keys two weeks ago and the first thing we did was rip out all the carpets. It was soooooooo disgusting. We call the house the 'pee house' so that we know what house we are talking about. Last week Chad had to fix the sewer pump at the house we currently live at (my aunt's house), so we call the house the 'poo house'. I know, kind of juvenille.

The house is pretty nice and we got a good deal on it. Since I spend a huge portion of my day in the kitche, I'm really bummed that the kitchen is so small. Since we paid a lot less for a house than we were expecting to we have money to redo the kitchen. So, we can get nicer cabinets, flooring, and appliances. We are going to take out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. It will open the kitchen up and make it feel bigger, but it's still a small kitchen. Oh well, it could be smaller.

Last week my grandpa, uncle, aunt, cousins and their friend came over and took out the kitchen for us. And took out the toilet and vanity in the bathroom. As we were taking stuff apart I thought to myself, "I can destroy stuff, but I really have no idea how to put things back together." As my aunt would say, "I'm a good laborer, not a craftsman." But I can lay tile, I can paint, I can sand and stain the floor, and I'm willing to learn. Fortunately I have family members who know all about construction and fortunately I have a husband who is really and willing to work (he knows a little bit himself too.)'

We've got a lot of work to do and we have a lot of decisions to make, but I'm excited for the end results. First things first though, get rid of the pee smell. We aren't planning on moving into the house until May.

I'm excited that we finally have a house, but it's bittersweet. I have loved living so close to my family, especially my sister. We aren't moving that far away, it's under two miles away, but it's not within a stones throw from my sister which is deep down what I really wanted. I've just been seriously spoiled the past couple of years.

Bummer

The other day I was looking at houses online. I do this often and have done so for the past couple of years. We are at a point now though where I feel a little more ready to buy a home. House prices and interest rates are dropping. (I'm hoping home prices will continue to drop.)
I was pleasantly surprised the other day to find this house for sale and it was in our price range.Isn't it nice? Love the front porch (it has a porch swing), love the detached garage, love it, love it, love it. I love old houses. This old house is especially nice because the electrical, plumbing, and heating/air conditioning have been recently replaced. I also love the location of this old house.

But it's not just the outside that's beautiful. The person who currently owns it is an architect and has perfectly updated the inside. It's just beautiful. (Almost too beautiful like it's just a house to look at not live in.)There are beautiful big windows everywhere and the house is light and cheery. The kitchen is big for an old house with lots of counter and cupboard space. There is also amazingly quite a bit of storage space throughout the whole house.

After I saw the house online I called and made an appointment with the realtor for later in the evening. All day long I imagined living in this house.

We went and saw the house and Chad and I fell even more in love with it after we toured the upstairs. I made a comment to the realtor that the price for the home seemed unusual low for a house of the size and condition of it. She said, "wait until you see the basement." The basement is finished with one bedroom, an office area, laundry area, bathroom and possibly a third bedroom (if you put up a wall.)

So, what's wrong with the basement? It's too short. Two inches too short for me in fact. I had to hunch over. It's not a problem for the current owner because he is short. It's a problem for me because we need the space and I need to be able to go down there.

So, the house isn't completely perfect for us. The basement is short and there is no where to put a kitchen table (besides out in the front room right by the front door). We could figure out how to deal with the kitchen table thing, but the basement just won't work and I've heard digging out basements is a pricing endeavor.

Bummer! If it weren't for the basement I might have gotten this house for Christmas.