OUR NEW HOME - FULL TOUR

HELLO HELLO! The "before" home tour has arrived. This house obviously needs A LOT of work, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We are in love with the mid century elements like the slate entry, the brick fireplace with a spot for plants, the master bathroom orb lights, and the tri level layout. We will be keeping as much character as we can salvage. The rest of the house will get a COMPLETE overhaul. Today, I have shared my overall "plans" for each room. I will share the design details for each space in a later post to keep things brief.

EXTERIOR

Ah, the exterior. Like I said, the interior is laden with mid century elements. The outside on the other hand, looks like a predictable suburban 80's home (I hate it). We are going to paint the exterior charcoal, remove the ground cover, restore the walnut front door, remove (just a few!) trees, and add landscaping.

ENTRY

This is where we fell in love. We will barely touch this space. We'll keep the slate floors and the walnut door. I would love to replace the light with something midcentury, but Ty likes the existing light (I think it looks like Grandma's house meets cheesy Florida vacation home, or welcome-to-my-hipster-house-with-25-succulents). We will see who wins this battle (I would hate for it to accidentally break, or something). 

LIVING ROOM

Another debate. I want to paint the brick matte black. Ty wants to paint the brick white or keep it as is. The rest of the room will get white walls and blonde European oak floors. We will keep the built in shelves, painting them white as well.

DINING SPACE

New light fixture (existing one is almost cool), white walls, hardwood floors. We will be knocking out the wall adjacent to the dining room to open up the space. We will keep the wall across from the fireplace. Yes, it would be more open without it, but we actually want to keep this space from feeling too vacuous. We also like the placement of the wall as it will be a great location for our couch (the Andes sofa that you know I love so much!). 

KITCHEN

This will be a gut. The East wall will not exist. We are undecided of whether or not we will leave the peninsula (the one under the microwave), and add an overhang for stools.  We will remove the bulkhead, along with the other peninsula (to the right of the sink). We will be removing all upper cabinets on this wall and installing a large picture window to run the entire length of the kitchen. 

We have not decided exactly what to do here with the 'fridge wall.' We are thinking we may replace the wall oven with a free standing oven and range. We'd like to keep the fridge where it is, but replace it with a counter depth fridge to keep it from sticking out into the kitchen. There will be no upper cabinetry. To the right of the fridge, the wall will be tiled counter to ceiling. However, with the parallel 'window wall,' we would have little storage. I am not worried about this for us as we don't need that much storage, but need to consider for resale.  Decisions, decisions!

We are still undecided on this little corner as well. It would be simplest to drywall where the railing is and extended the kitchen, BUT we don't want the living space below to lose any natural light. We do know that we will be removing the back door as it hinders the flow of the kitchen (there is a way outside through the sunroom). We are not sure if we will put a floor to ceiling pantry in its place, or more cabinetry, or potentially a built in bench that runs underneath the window. 

LIVING ROOM

The main family room (with the fireplace) will be the space where we entertain guests, relax, and enjoy a cup of coffee. This will be the "cozy space," where we will keep our TV. We are on the hunt for a leather sectional able to host many guests (who wants to come over for Bachelor Mondays??). Initially, I wanted to paint the walls a dark color like charcoal or navy, to change up the "all white walls" theme. However, I feel as though it would be too dark. Instead, we will paint the paneling white, and will install new carpet, likely something with a fun pattern (like what we have in our current house).

THREE SEASONS ROOM

Insert Hallelujah chorus. I FREAKED OUT when I entered this room for the first time. We discovered that above the drop ceiling is a vaulted, wood ceiling. Insert Hallelujah chorus again. We will expose the ceiling, and paint the wood beams white. I foresee us spending a lot of time in this room!

MASTER BATH

I am in love with the light fixtures (which you may remember from our last post, that they remind me of the fixtures in Mandy Moore's kitchen, which has been virtually circulating the design world for weeks). We will spray the base and cord gold. Everything else in this bathroom will go. We will replace the vanity with a floating wood vanity, switch from two sinks to one (as the two sinks are not proportionally correct with the light fixtures). We will replace the mosaic floor with a large format concrete tile visual. The toilet will be replaced (I call dibs on not carrying the toilet out). We will reglaze the cast iron tub (would love to replace it, but reglazing is easier than figuring out how to get it out!). The tub surround will get new tile walls (installed by me!).

BEDROOMS

We will paint the master bedroom white (because it is a little smaller than we are used to, and we want to make it feel larger). We have plans to paint both the guest bedroom and the office a dark hue (navy or emerald) to add some variety in an all white home. We will keep the all of the walnut doors in the house natural (yes, not white, who am I?), but replace the hardware with something more modern. I am unsure about what to do with the hardwood floors! The floors are original to the house, and are in pretty good shape, BUT I don't love the color, and we didn't put refinishing in the budget. I could live with the color, but we are installing a blonde oak throughout the main floor. I don't love the idea of clashing wood tones one level away, but I also don't want install carpet over perfectly good hardwood! 

LAUNDRY

This will be my first time with an actual laundry room! (as opposed to a closet). I have always wanted to decorate my own laundry room. It's a space that attracts "fun." It's not as crucial as a kitchen, or bathrooms, so it's a great place to incorporate some unique finishes. We will likely paint the upper cabinets and add some fun hardware. The sink will be replaced with a cabinet, and maybe even a quartz remnant from the kitchen. I would like to tile behind the washer and dryer, but that is something I may do later (so that I have at least one project to look forward to, that way we won't have to move in 8 months because I will have something to redecorate. ha!)

GUEST BATH

Yikes! This bathroom is a real bummer because it is small; it will rarely get used (except by occassional guests); and it's going to be pricey due to the extensive work that the shower needs. We don't love pouring money into a room that we will hardly use BUT we are going to tackle it for the sake of resale. I am thinking a floating vanity, new floors that continue into the laundry, and a new tiled, marble shower. (Also, notice the window over the sink? No mirror!?)

YARD

I have to admit, I will have to lean of some of you for this one! I have extensively renovated and built many homes, and am fluent with interior construction. I don't, however, have much experience with landscaping! We love the trees, but they make it difficult to grow grass, and shed leaves and branches on the roof. We are going to remove the three trees in the center of the backyard, and keep the rest (we would like to remove more, but will wait due to $). We plan to rent a Bobcat to rip out the ground cover. This way, the perimeter will be lined with ivy and trees, and the rest of the yard with have soft grass. We'd love to add a patio east of the sunroom. 

There you have it! More "design" plans coming soon (cabinets, counters, fixtures, etc.), but there is the list of our overall reno plans! We have to nail down the exterior plans, the kitchen layout, and the hardwood situation. We always welcome opinions! 
​HJJ