This Old House

Well, it's obviously been a long time since I've posted on here. Life has been busy. Connor is 20-months (almost 21!). He is a walking, talking bundle of energy and so much fun! I will update some more about Connor in another post, but this post is about our new house!

We put an offer on a house back in October and we just closed on it yesterday. It was very satisfying after years and years of putting pretty much every penny I earned into savings, though a little less satisfying to see all that money leave our account :-) It is a great house with great bones that just needs some elbow grease. It was built in 1927 and has so much charm and character! It's 5 bedrooms (with another small room on the 2nd floor that's considered a den, but could easily be a bedroom), 2.5 baths with a great backyard for Connor and Oxford. Before you comment on the bedroom count and how many kids we are going to have, you will see that we are turning two of the bedrooms into a third floor playroom, so it will ultimately be a 4 bedroom house. We will be in the same town where Danny and I grew up, but a slightly different neighborhood which will be a nice change, so it won't feel like we are exactly reliving our youth.

Anyway, on with the exciting stuff...pictures! The big picture is that we are painting all the woodwork white and painting every other wall. So even if I don't say it in the picture, assume it's happening.

The house side, taken yesterday! To the right is a covered porch, with an open part further back. 

This is the front walkway up to the house. I love the curved front door. 

Front hallway. The floors are marble, not vinyl. They just need a good cleaning and will look great. We are going to paint the wood, skirt boards and wall here. 

 Painting old woodwork white seems to be quite controversial we've noticed, but it is a look we far and away prefer. Also, there is some damage to the wood in a number of places that would require us to refinish the woodwork, so we figure if we're paying for it might as well get what we want.

This is the other side of the front hallway. There is a coat closet and a built in storage bench, plus the neat little built in shelf right there. Again, we will be painting the wood white.

Front hallway again. Straight ahead in the dining room and to the right in the living room. 

This is the living room standing in the doorway. It's such a great room. I love the windows and the french doors.  

This is straight ahead from the doorway. The  bay window is such an awesome feature here.

We also love the built in shelves. Our plan for this room is to build a window seat at the bay window, paint and fix up the mantle. The hardwood is original (we believe) and it's in great shape, so we will just have it recoated. 

This is the dining room. Again the floors are in great shape, so we just need them buffed and recoated. We will paint the wood white, and pick a new wall color. We will also look for a cool new chandelier.  

Here  is the kitchen. A bit dated, but in great shape. We will remove the wallpaper and paint and fix the spots on the floor where the stain/finish has come up, but otherwise don't plan to do much here for the time being. The appliances will ultimately need to be replaced, but are hoping to get a little help from our home warranty for that. 

Small mudroom off the kitchen. To the right is the attached garage and straight ahead is a door to the driveway. 

Not much point to this picture other than to show the location of the bathroom/basement. It's right off the kitchen to the left. 

Downstairs bathroom. This needs a smaller sink because it's a tiny little powder room.  

These are the stairs going upstairs. We plan to replace this carpet with a runner and paint the stair backs white. 

Just another kitchen view. We are removing that desk and putting our kitchen table over there. 

Landing to the second floor. 

Second floor hallway. First right will be a kids' room, second right our room, straight ahead Connor's room. To the left the bathroom and next to the stairs the "den". We plan to remove this carpet and refinish the floors underneath.

This will be our master bedroom. Forgot to take a picture, but the closet is great, which in these older homes is hard to come by! 

Second floor bathroom. The tile work in here is beautiful.  

This room is the den. We don't know why they call it a den and not a bedroom, but they do. It's pretty small, but will work great for a nursery some day.  

This is outside the den.  

Here is the third floor landing. We will replace this carpet.  

These are two bedrooms on the third floor. We plan to knock out the wall between them to make a playroom. This is the room on the right (so left wall is going) 

And here's the other room (so the wall on the right is going) 

Third floor bedroom. Again, the tile work is beautiful. We will likely paint the vanity, but who knows maybe we will keep the yellow. Grey and yellow is really in right now ;-)

A future child's room  

Connor's room