So, about a year ago, John and I started talking about possibly looking to buy a house. And by talking, I mean "Wouldn't it be nice if we could buy a house?" said in wistful tones every couple of weeks. Neither one of us thought we would be even close to being able to actually buy a house.
At the time we were renting a house from John's parents - a very old, small 2 bedroom one bath. The house was built between 1900-1910, and had not been well cared for before John's parents bought the place. After they bought it (in 2005) they replaced the flooring, replaced the kitchen, re-plumbed the house, and replaced the roof. John and I moved in two weeks after we got married in 2008, and while we were there, we replaced the bathroom, painted all the rooms, paved the backyard patio, replaced the kitchen floor, cleaned the fireplace, tore out a retaining wall, and replaced the carpeting.
We put a lot of work and a lot of love into that little house.
Ready for some pictures?
 |
| Our little home. When we moved in, there was a brick retaining wall along the front of the house. John happily rented a jack-hammer for a day, and tore it out. Apparently that's where all the roaches were living - he said there were so many of them that it was like being in an Indiana Jones movie. I wouldn't know. I refused to go outside and look. |
Probably one of the biggest changes we made to the house was painting the kitchen. Here's why:
BEFORE:
 |
| Sorry I don't have a picture of the not in the process of painting everything. Check out the Coral Orange! |
and ... AFTER!
 |
| Rather nice, I think. |
 | ||
| Although the green curtains (not pictured) and green tablecloth on the other side really tie it all together. And yes, that is bags of dog food on the kitchen chairs. Why do you ask? |
One of the bedrooms had some water damage on the ceiling from before the roof was replaced. No one really wanted to deal with it (did I mention this house had 10 foot ceilings?), so I found an alternative to completely replacing the ceiling.
 |
| John and I spent a day putting that ceiling up. Despite not having any square corners on the room and uneven surfaces, this project was surprisingly easy. The tile designs go with the age of the house, and the high ceilings hide any imperfections of our install. Win! |
Next up ... the bathroom. I can't find any before pictures of it ... but let's just say it was fairly grim. Due to some water leakage, we had to tear the room up down to the dirt underneath the house and re-build it. Here is the finished product - all clean and ready to start moving our stuff back into it!
 |
| When John and his dad were installing the linoleum, John did the classic "I didn't realize there was glue there" and got stuck in the glue on the floor. Those were old shoes anyway. |
And here's the Dining Room. This was actually the first room that we "renovated" when we moved in.
 |
| I loved this room. It felt homey and comfortable and classic. I especially like the molding across the top of the room, and the fact that you couldn't really tell that the walls weren't white until you saw the molding, which was. |
That's about it for our first house. I can't seem to find any of the other pictures that are any good (and I know I took some).
Next up: Part Two ... looking at houses!
No comments:
Post a Comment