Tag: new house

Bright, Fresh Blue

The first room we tackled in the new house was the kitchen (and “kitchen part 2” room where the oven will go). We bit off a small chunk to gain some momentum and have one room under our belt before beginning the daunting project of tackling the living and dining rooms (including arched ceilings).  This was a smart move because painting the other two rooms (over the 3 day weekend) just about knocked us out. More on that another day, though.

First, let’s get a little glance at the kitchen and kitchen part 2. Excuse the haziness of the photos–I feel like my camera’s quality just gets worse and worse every day. I guess I did buy it in 2008. Here’s Doug, faithfully washing out his roller (I had to get on his case about it…)

Here’s the kitchen and “kitchen part 2” from by the exterior door in the dining room. Please excuse the mess from painting and rehabbing the house–it only got worse as the weekend progressed…

In the second picture, take a good look at that light-sucking beige/taupe (in the dining room) because you won’t be seeing much more of that around these parts.

The color I chose was part of Valspar’s Historic Colors line. It is called La Fonda Mirage, and it is taken from a famous hotel in Santa Fe. I thought it would really pop once the front two rooms were painted white–it was easy to see the immediate effect even with the beige paint still hangin’ around. It’s a much crisper color in real life, very cheerful and it will be a joy to cook in a bright, light kitchen!

New House (With Pictures!)

This post is extremely long. I feel like Sherry from YHL! Get comfortable!

The moment has arrived. Photos of the new house. The interior, at least. It’s been dark out while we’ve been over there working, so I couldn’t get any shots of the exterior. Those will go up next week after I take some more pictures this weekend! All of these photos were taken after mopping the floors (didn’t want to majorly gross you out).

When you enter the front door, you step into the living room, with non-functioning fire place, which you can kind of see here. I can’t wait to paint everything a lighter shade and liven up the inside of the fire place with a glossy pop of color! The reason the front room light isn’t on is so you can get a better view of what lies beyond the arched doorway… the dining room, kitchen (you can see the cabinets) and small strange off-kitchen nook. The nook has a window with a high bar counter. I can envision eating breakfast there.

 

Here’s the living room from another angle. On the right of this picture you can see the doorway leading into the dining room, and the front door is out-of-frame on the left. What I stupidly didn’t take a picture of is the view as if you were standing by the fireplace. There are 5 windows in this room! The two on the front wall are really tall, and the 3 on the other walls are “normal” sized. Whatever normal is.

Here’s another view of the small off-kitchen and bar area, taken from the middle of the dining room. In the following photo you can see….

My doggy! And… one of our many doors for exit (we have 3). This one was painted shut and Doug had to use all of his manliest strength to open it from the outside. One of the first things to do is get our glass guy (we have a friend who does glass for a living; I love saying “our glass guy,” I hope someday I can be somebody’s “something guy” or gal) to replace that missing window. Due to the nastiness around it I assume a window AC unit used to be there. Note the breakfast bar area on the left. Getting your bearings?

Here is the kitchen. The room isn’t small but the counter space is surely limited. Is it sad that this is an upgrade from our current apartment? I assume the refrigerator is going to go on the blank wall next to the window. There’s no other spot for it!It will be SO nice to have a double sink. The drawers are tough to open and close so we are toying with the idea of turning them in to shelves (with cabinet doors). Out-of-frame, on the left side, the wall comes back and there is a door to the basement.

Now for the second half of the house!

First, I’ll show you the hallway. This is taken from the front bedroom. If you go through the doorway next to the fireplace (scroll up and picture it) and make a left, you are in the front bedroom. As you look down the hallway on the left you have a small closet, and the bathroom, and at the end you have the back bedroom. On the right you have two doorways. The first leads to the living room and the second leads to the dining room. This hallway is navy blue (even the ceiling!) and absolutely abysmal.

This is the view into the front bedroom. The window that goes all the way to the floor makes me hesitant about making this the master bedroom–harder to arrange furniture– although this room is slightly bigger

Eek! The bathroom. Look at that paint job. This room will be brightened up. I kind of hate the arch over the tub but we’ll see how it is once it’s repainted.

Lastly, here is the back bedroom. In my mind, this will be the master. I feel like the back of the house is safer than the front and the size of these windows lend to more interesting furniture setup (as opposed to the floor-length mirror in the front bedroom). However, this room is 11×11 as opposed to 13×11 so we shall see what we end up with.

In summary:

I am so excited over the floors in this house. So easy to keep clean. The wood is actually in quite nice shape. The smallness of the bedrooms is going to be interesting after going from our more loft-style apartment to this little hacienda-style bungalow. (You’ll see the exterior soon enough). I also have big plans for this place and I’m really excited about it.

First Things First

Moving into a new house.
Yes, you heard that right.
We’re going to be moving MUCH sooner than anticipated! We got the keys from our landlords (cough, cough, my in-laws) yesterday! Instead of late October, as our last news had indicated. The sign is out of the yard and the keys are in my hand.

Now, we’re not going to cart all of our junk into the house just yet. There is a LOT to do before establishing residency in our new abode. In fact, we are planning on staying in our current place well into September. Side note: the word “abode” looks like “adobe.” Which is ironic because the new house looks like adobe. You’ll see pictures tomorrow, I promise.

  • Take out all remaining nails (left over from hanging items on the wall)
  • Spackle all holes left by said nails
  • Wipe down all the walls with a wet (very slightly soapy) sponge
  • Scrub all the baseboards with a Mr. Clean magic eraser (be careful; the magic eraser can and will remove many kinds of paint. We plan on paining all the walls and trim so we aren’t worried about damaging the existing paint)
  • Sweep all the floors (there’s no carpet in this house, just tile and wood). After being vacant for a while, there are lots of cobwebs and dead bugs. Gotta take care of that before my lil’ pupster starts running around free in there.
  • Scrub the floors. Hardcore. I don’t know who or what was living in this house before it went on the market, but they were slobs. The floors are reeeeeally icky! Icky floors, meet Mr. Pine Sol. And Mr Elbow Grease.
  • The yard: I have left this one up to Doug and his family because I’ve never done a day of yard work in my life. They’ll trim some tree branches, Dig up some soil. etc.
  • Call the exterminator. Before moving all of our stuff in, I’d like to make sure it’s a bug-free zone. Especially the basement.
Other things on the “before move-in” to-do list but not imminent are:
  • Paint every available surface (you’ll see once I post pictures)
  • Plant some pretty plants in the dead-grass-patch in the front of the house
  • Replace the garage door (my in-laws are taking care of this–it is their property)
  • Take inventory of all the stuff previous inhabitants left behind, decide what to keep, what to trash, and what to donate to charity. (Free Christmas tree for us!)
The slip of paper we found on the kitchen floor, from a long-since eaten fortune cookie said, “All things are hard before they are easy.” Ain’t it the truth!
The next post will be less list-y and more picture-y. Get pumped, y’all; this blog is going to get exciting again!