We've been working steadily since the move and I'm now convinced that the house is clean enough that we can begin some projects. At the moment, we're living in the basement, which is not ideal but we're pretending we're camping. Not really, but it actually does feel a bit like camping. The sellers left a bed in the basement (yuck) and we think we'll need to saw the box spring to get it out of here so Corey and I are cramped onto our own double mattress on the floor. We're hoping to have the floors done this week!
And now, I'm finally going to show you our house on the day we moved in. Don't worry- we're already making some progress but this house is going to keep us busy for A WHILE! So strap on your seat belts, because here come the "before" pictures.
(I don't know why but I actually still haven't taken an exterior shot. I just noticed this... oops!)
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Living Room: Don't worry, that window A/C unit will soon be a thing of the past! |
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Dining Room |
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Kitchen with Entrance to Family Room |
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Family Room: This picture was taken during the move so those are our sofas... This room is now packed to the gills since it is one of the few rooms without original hardwood to finish. |
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Backyard: Not our furniture. |
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Entrance: Pay no attention to the green carpet or the knob and tube light switch plate... They won't be around for long. |
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Upstairs Hall |
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Bedroom |
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Bathroom: Again, not our stuff. We'll start work on this bathroom next month. |
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Tiny Bedroom |
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Master Bedroom |
What are we going to do first? Well, remember the list from
my post about finding our dream home? Here it is again:
Corey will need to update some of the electrical work. Not a glamorous task but necessary and important. Still a priority according to our insurance company. This will be done in the next few weeks!
We discovered original hardwood underneath the laminate and carpet. Who has two thumbs and is excited to use a floor sander? This girl! (I say with my thumbs pointing at my chest.) Corey is skeptical but I'm going to attempt this project on my own. I'm still not sure whether I want a dark, light or natural stain. Our current condo has light floors but the dark dog fur really stands out against it. Feel free to weigh in. Yes, we found hardwood in the closets... then, when we ripped the downstairs floor we just found regular sub floor under the laminate. But then we found hardwood under THAT! We're diving down the rabbit hole in terms of flooring and hoping to have all the hardwood exposed by the end of the day! We are going to have the hardwood professionally refinished, as I mentioned in my last post.
The upstairs bathroom is wheelchair accessible. (Actually, the entire house is and we plan to donate the wheelchair lift and stairlift.) We had considered just finishing the shower nicely but decided we wanted a tub. I found a fabulous clawfoot on Craigslist which was being sold by a couple in Trinity Bellwoods who were also refinishing a 1926 house. They had an extra clawfoot tub and I just couldn't resist. It seemed so perfect finding a tub from the year our house was built! It will need to be painted but I already have some ideas. This is still a priority, but floors come first so that we can start to move our furniture and boxes out of the basement and begin to unpack.
We have a lovely front porch which we would love to enclose to create a mudroom. It would give us some storage for coats (the house does not have a coat closet) and I think we may have finally found a home for our church pew which currently resides in our dining room. Hahaha. We may need to take our time budgeting (time and money) for this one!
The back yard is begging for a new fence and some trees. We want to plant some trees right away so we can enjoy some shade in a few years. Our priority right now is cleaning all the garbage, debris, broken glass, exposed nails and sheet metal from the yard. A fence is still a priority but once the yard is safe, Barkley can enjoy it. The existing fence isn't great but we know Barkley won't try to jump it so we'll just supervise him outside.
Since I'm not budgeting for a kitchen renovation just yet, I'm thinking of purchasing a lovely hutch (A friend and client of mine is selling one and she was sweet enough to offer it to me. She said it could use a "fresh coat of paint" :) ) and painting it white. It would offer me some extra storage as well as a chance to display some of my pretty dishes. The existing cabinets seem to be in good condition (although not my taste) so I'm thinking of painting them white and changing the hardware for now. The beautiful hutch is here (thanks Janet!) and once I moved the fridge and positioned the hutch, our kitchen started to appear larger. I actually think it's slightly larger than our condo kitchen. There is no painting going on here just yet though.
Add to this list:
I actually wrote this before the move and have since modified in red...
- Have a company install central air. I don't know why I left this major change out of the last post, except that we're not doing it ourselves. We have hired a company and they will likely start next weekend. Unfortunately, most of the duct work in the house is going to be usable so this will cost more $$$ than we thought and likely take at least a week to complete.
- Create a closet for the master bedroom. We're going to do this as affordably as possible for now.
- Install wall-mounted bedside lighting. Soon.
- Create built-ins for the living room. Soon
- Find or build a garden shed for Corey. Maybe next year. This is not a place to spend money at the moment and we discovered a very functional crawl space under the family room, which will give us storage for gardening tools for now.
We thought we'd add some fun, smaller projects to the list of major things to do. Still, this is just our list of things to start with.
As you can see, our house is throwing us some curve balls but we're learning to be patient and flexible. We are finally home and it has always been our dream to renovate and restore an old house together so we feel very lucky!
We are limited only by time (We are obviously both working full time at jobs which require long hours. In fact, I've already seen clients this weekend.) and money.
This is going to be an interesting year...
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