Well, it'll be ours in about 30 years, but that's beside the point.
It is official! The seller's leaseback period is over, he is moved out, and WE can begin moving in! The reality that we are homeowners, complete with all the financial and maintenance responsibilities is slowly hitting us, but we are thrilled. And praying that the house doesn't hit us with too much drama all at once. Spread it out, please.
Many of you have mentioned that you can't wait to see pictures, so I am here to satisfy your curiosity. And in keeping with the "Be A Good One" theme of this blog, I will demonstrate to you all the ways in which the house is, indeed, a good one, and some of the ways the ball has been dropped (not by us, mind you).
Here we go!
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| There she is! Pretty much a blank slate. She was built in 1964, so this year is its semi-centennial anniversary! Without the protection of gutters, the beds around the house have been pretty much decimated. As you can see, the yard is basically dead, too. Reviving the landscaping is high on our to-do list. |
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| View of the front door and hall closet from inside the house. I don't know why, but I really like this photo. |
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| To the right of the front door is what we are calling the "front room." It has a huge window and an awesome built-in situation; I am going to have to learn how to properly style display shelving. The floor hasn't been well-taken care of, but I don't like it anyway, and someday we plan to upgrade to more contemporary wood floors. |
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| Built-in fail: The back of the shelving is mirrored, but they didn't paint the inside of the unit, which CLEARLY reflects in the mirror. I hate the color and plan to repaint the whole thing anyway, but FOR THE LOVE OF DUH, paint the parts that can be seen in the mirror, people! How do you not notice that, not have it drive you crazy, and not fix it? |
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| Here is the living/family room. It is pretty big and we love that we'll have ceiling fans and overhead lighting all over the place in this house. HOWEVER. The walls in there are terrible painted paneling and the color of the walls in the house are, as you can see, BORING khaki. It is EVERYWHERE and it needs to be covered up as soon as we can afford gallon after gallon of paint. I can feel Drew wanting to attack the walls with a sledge hammer, so I could be in for a surprise project one of these days. |
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| View opposite from the one above. |
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| I. Hate. Almond. Outlets. It's like they only exist to remind us that the '60s happened. Does anybody choose these on purpose anymore? They gotta go. |
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| The seller was really proud of his "updated" kitchen. The counter-tops and sink are awesome. I am going to have to take a while to get used to that style fridge/freezer. The cabinets are ancient and have a hard time closing and could really have stood to be upgraded with the counter-tops, but remodeling the kitchen is at the way bottom of our to-do list. We'll be making the best of what we've got. |
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| Already littered with junk mail. But, I can turn on that sink with my elbow! No more salmonella hands on the faucet! |
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| Not sure how I feel about the cooktop yet. Time will tell. |
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| This is the only thing that truly bothers me about the kitchen. That oven is only 17 inches wide and 15 inches deep. My cookie sheet won't even fit in there. I doubt I could even safely roast a chicken. Drew has been scheming up solutions for accomodating a larger oven. |
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| The kitchen might be smaller than my ultimate dream kitchen, but when I get through with it, this pantry is going to be UHMAYZING! I have plans for black and white tile floors, yellow walls, and epic shelving. This is also probably the best place to hide in the event of a tornado. |
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| Eat-in section of the kitchen. It is larger than it looks and I think we can fit a sizable party around a table in there. |
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| This bathroom sink is probably the object in the house most far removed from the 1960s. |
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| A whole room for laundry! |
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| Ready to go upstairs? It's a little scarier up there. |
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| Four dogs, two cats, and who knows what else have been living in the house for about a year. This is what happens when you lock your cats in one room while you show your house to prospective buyers. Needless to say, the carpet looks bad and smells AWFUL. We have carpet cleaners coming tomorrow, but we CAN NOT wait to rip it out and replace it. Let the months of penny-pinching begin. |
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| One shockingly great feature of this home is the amount of closet space. This is the built in hallway closet upstairs. It is so big I could not get a full picture of it. Once we get some sliding drawers installed, this might become one of the best features of the place. Second only to the pantry, of course. |
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| Master bath - I don't even know where to begin. We have been dreaming about how to re-do this for a while. It is going to involve some demolition and reconstruction and a lot of time and effort, because everything about it is pretty awful. |
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| Master Vanity, complete with the same atrocious walls as the shower/toilet room, and a broken light fixture. Eventually we want to push that wall back into the bedroom and make this a double vanity. Because we are just that vain. |
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| The bedrooms in this house are big! This is the master. Guess where they had their bed? We also have two walk-in closets. Can't wait to take care of those! |
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| Some genius decided to install this chair rail upside down so that it catches loads of dust and dirt! Hopefully it can be taken down and gotten rid of, or at least replaced by something that doesn't make me feel gross. |
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| This bedroom will initially serve as an office/craft room for Drew. We assume that we'll eventually be kicked out by children. That closet is huge, and on the opposite wall is a linen-style closet (that's going to become my craft closet!). |
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| This is bedroom #2 with a built-in dresser and two sort of walk-in closets. It is a big room and will be our guestroom at first and eventually a room for our children. |
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| This bathroom is connected to bedroom #2 and we'd love to Jack-and-Jill it to the office so that we can someday close off and create a truly master bathroom. |
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| More ugly bathroom tile! Yay! In the house-hunting process I realized that I am really picky about bathrooms. I hate anything that even remotely looks pink. Clean and simple is my preference. |
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| There is the view of the back of the house. This is likely to be an on-going project. There is so much we want to do back here, it hurts my head to think about it. |
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| Poor Bruce is probably never going to fit in the garage. At least he is clean, though! Look how shiny he is when he isn't covered in mud! |
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| The house is already helping us make our first mortgage payment. :) |
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| This is what happens when you don't have proper drainage for the condensation from the A/C unit. Fortunately, Drew feels good about being able to come up with a fix for this. |
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| It is hard for us to leave Home Depot without a plant, so here is our first flower for the new house. We just have to figure out where to plant this little beauty! |
I fear that I may have come across as a bit negative in this post, but I am just so grateful to be moving into a house and really excited to put the "Angie & Drew" touch on it that will make it our home. Now, I need to get over there and work on cleaning and getting ready to move box after box after box after box . . .
Stay tuned for what I am sure will be more posts about our house projects than you care to read. :)
In the meantime:
God Bless the Corners of this House
and be the Lintel Blessed
And Bless the Hearth
And Bless the Board
And Bless Each Place of Rest
Bless Each Door That Opens Wide To Strangers and to Kin
And Bless Each Crystal Windowpane
that lets the Sunshine In
And Bless the Rooftree Overhead
And Every Sturdy Wall
The Peace of Man
The Peace of God
The Peace of Love to All
