Tuesday, June 23, 2020

O.k. guys, I have finally gotten up the courage to invite you in. Are you ready? I’m not sure I am. Why am I scared? There are spaces in my house that are not great. It’s hard to believe that we haven’t gotten around to fixing them yet, but life happens and I have been a happier person by being content and looking at the positives. We live well in this country. Our most modest homes are mansions by the standards of many other countries.

First a little history…we bought this house right before we got married. My husband had lived next door with his roommates for several years (one of the roommates owned it and the others rented rooms from him) and this house came on the market. Tom was friends with the family who lived here – a precious mom, dad, and cute little girl and boy who adored Tom. He didn’t want to move far because he loved the area of town, he loved the mature trees in the neighborhood, he loved the elementary school playground behind the houses for added green spaces and for dogs to run around. I lived alone in an apartment not far away. Everything came together and we were so lucky to start our married life in this home – it has been good to us for almost 20 years! We have done so much but we still have more to do. I will talk you through it as we tour. I will also try to explain future remodeling plans and what we have already accomplished. Bonus to this house – one of the best public high schools is a short walk away and Tom convinced me to apply right before we bought the house. I had been driving 30 minutes to another district. I got the job! The year 2000 was a big one for me as I got the house, the husband, and the job I still have today… I was a lucky gal. The other thing I want to mention is that it was a bit bigger than a starter home which I think was a good decision. It had room to grow so that is why we never moved – that, and the fact that we love this area.

Come on in…

We replaced the outdated door with this beautiful door and recently re-stained it. It needed it badly.

I don’t love how there is no transition area but we always come in the back anyway.

This is our family room. We will be changing the paint color soon and ripping up the carpet and replacing it with the same hard wood as in the new Master bedroom.

We used Agreeable Gray in the mudroom and Egret White in the Master bedroom. They are both a greige and I will most likely use Egret in the living room and hallways and Agreeable Gray in the kitchen and maybe dining room. They work well together and we bought a ton of paint so we have plenty. Rainwashed and Sea Salt are potential for Master bath.

This is our hallway off of the family room. I will be replacing the mis-matched rugs. It was a quick buy for Ernie and I just never changed it. Ernie doesn’t like hardwood floors which could be a problem as we will have even more hardwood. This paint color has been here the whole time. We will be changing this soon, too, but I have liked it. It is like a latte color tan? It is the only paint I didn’t change when we moved in. We are also replacing all of the wood floors here to match the Master bedroom flooring.

This is the hall bath. This will be demolished soon, I hope. The sink is messed up. It works but see how the basin is off of the pedestal. I didn’t even ask for an explanation from Tom because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t understand.

Jack’s bedroom door.

Mason’s bedroom door. We replaced the doors recently. The handles will be replaced to match the rest of the new handles soon. I can’t show you the insides because this isn’t their blog – ha!

This is our old bedroom. This will become the Master bath. The dark green looks so dated now but I really do like a dark bedroom for sleeping. The paintings on the wall were 25 cents at a garage sale 20 years ago and I paid to have them professionally framed.

This is the current Master bath which is a joke because it is the size of a shoebox. It will be demolished soon and this will be combined with the hall bath to make a bigger hall bath. I can’t wait. The virus set us back a bit. I am thankful our project was in a good transition state when it hit. This will be a solid wall and there will be a hallway leading to the Master bed and bath.

Tom’s new closet.

My new closet

New Master bedroom. We haven’t bought anything new yet. We moved into the room right when quarantine started.

Master bedroom doors

We want to put a bigger flatscreen on the wall and get rid of this piece of furniture I bought when I was 22. I added the little plant. This is the flooring we have already purchased for the rest of the house – J and M’s bedrooms, the hall, the living room, and the dining room. I cannot wait to rip up the carpet in the living room.

The dining room which is next to the living room. I am tired of this mustard yellow and this will match the new kitchen or living room or both with the aforementioned Egret White or Agreeable Gray. I can’t wait to see this room lightened up. So, the dining room will get new paint, new flooring like the Master bedroom, and a new light fixture. I loved the fixture 20 years ago, though! We love, love, love our table. It folds open to seat at least 8.

O.k., this is the room I have tried to hide. And, you know I love to cook and entertain. The kitchen will be the last part of the renovation. The footprint will be slightly larger as we have about two feet behind the current sink that will butt up against the new mudroom. We are thinking we will do white again with the new cabinetry that will go all the way up to the ceiling with no soffet, the slate tile floor from the mudroom, new countertops (not sure what material yet) and new peninsula that is raised higher. We are talking about a custom wood countertop for the peninsula.

As ugly as my kitchen is, the layout has been functional and I have always had nice appliances. The ugly table and floor have allowed me to let my kids and my nieces make messes without me worrying! So, there is the bright side to an ugly eyesore kitchen! I sound like a brat, but the paint is peeling and it looks so bad.

The hallway has this pantry that was already here.

The pantry door has our heights measured throughout the years. My nieces are on here. They came over one day each week in the summer and we always measured them, too, for some reason! The boys adored their older girl cousins. They are almost 21 and 19 and Jack and Mason are almost 18 so they were good ages to play together.

This is our staircase that leads to the basement. We put in a basement bathroom and did drywall where there had been paneling. We did new fireplace surround and built ins, new paint, and new carpet about 10 years ago. We plan to do something to this banister but we don’t know what yet.

Looking down to the basement

Looking up from the basement. That is the mudroom you see at the top, too.

This area is cluttered from distance learning. I need to work on that. I also need to work on the shelf stuff.

The bathroom we added. Jack uses this bathroom which is the nicest in the house. Tom uses the tiny one and Mason and I share the hall one. Not ideal, but it worked for us.

Our basement storage space has a sliding door. This is where my washer and dryer were until the mudroom was finished. I need to work on this clutter, too.

Also, there is a giant room that has a ping pong table, an L shaped desk, another desk, a futon, a giant bean bag and this is where the boys do homework, game, have friends over. I can’t show you right now because it is a mess that the boys need to deal with.

New mudroom off of the kitchen

And, that is it for the inside of our house.

When we bought the house it didn’t have a garage. Tom designed and built a lot of this himself but also had subcontractors help. The house also didn’t have a fence and Tom and some friends and family built our first fence which has now been replaced.

New addition on the back of the house where the Master and the mudroom are. We added on 560 square feet.

Patio off of the side of the garage

And, that’s it! I am so happy with what we have accomplished, but we still have some big projects ahead as you can see. Our boys are supposed to leave for college mid August and we have decided to not disrupt their summer by doing any work. But, also, the virus makes it maybe not a great time to proceed. I am so thankful we got to the point we did by mid-March, you guys. I am not great with having workers here making noise and messes. Of course, that may end up happening if we do distance learning from home again in the fall, but that will be o.k. and may even make it easier. In the meantime, hopefully we can make final design decisions and map out a plan for finishing this. But, in all honesty, is a house ever really finished? Ha!

Any advice is appreciated! Tom is very opinionated but I am open to ideas when it comes to construction.

Amy