Its the little things.....

We spent the evening at H House. Ryan was able to finish the mudroom (he covered the exposed cinder blocks and put down carpeting. It still needs the painting finished and the window/door trim and baseboard, but according to the appraiser its considered finished at this point and that's all that matters at this time. We'll finish those details once we're moved in.

Its funny the little things that are making me so excited about this house. I keep telling Ryan "We're actually going to have a REAL house" and he always says back "As opposed to having a fake house? What did we used to live in?" HAHA! Well, our last home was more like an apartment it was so small and the bedrooms were right off the livingroom. H House, however, has room. Space. Little details that make it "real" LOL!

I'm obsessed with the little things I'm so excited to have. Like the fact that we have a sidewalk that goes up to the front door. And a foyer with a coat closet. And a doorbell. We have a doorbell at both the front and the back doors!

Since we're about 90% of the way to having the keys in our hands (today I cleared up some things with our financing, and once we complete the FHA required repairs and have it reinspected, we will get our closing date set, which we've asked to extend to July 15th to complete these repairs), I think its somewhat safe to take you on a virtual tour. I am still nervous that something will come up and we'll end up living with my mom and grandpa forever, but I'm trying to have faith and confidence that this somewhat dream come true "real house" is ours.

So, let me take you on our virtual tour. Please keep in mind that there is a LOT of work to be done. Primarily cleaning and painting and lots of other little details. I'll narrate along the way with our "ideas" for the house. Although, many of these ideas aren't going to happen for a few more years.

Here's the front of the house. There to the left is the garage and above it is the apartment (which is about 500sq feet). We plan to paint the front door and shutters black eventually. The neighbors house is nearly identical to ours (the same 2 story style with tan with green shutters, but minus the brick on the front). I have already trimmed up the jungle...err... landscaping... and I have a few ideas to change that up as well.
Here's the floorplan. Hudson's room will be bed #1. Porter's will be bed #2, the office bed #3 (which has the walk-in closet) and our room will be bed #4 (only because it has a solid wall to put a queen bed on... the other rooms have windows in the middle of the walls and no decent spot for a queen bed and headboard).
When you walk in the front door here is the foyer. Wallpaper will be stripped and the carpeting on the stairs will be removed (there is hardwood on the stairs). We'll probalby put up a narrower carpet runner up the stairs for safety reasons, although I'd love the look of all wood stairs.
To the left is the dining room. More on that later.

To the right is the living room and playroom.
This will be painted asap. Curtains thrown away. Carpet will be removed as there is gorgeous hardwood underneath. I would like to take out the fireplace insert because its bulky, metal and ugly. I want a new ceiling fan too.

Right off the living room (to the right of the fireplace) is a playroom... (or den, or office... but we'll use it as a playroom)
Playroom... no big ideas for this yet. We'll replace the carpet, take down the valances and strip the wallpaper.
Walking back through the living room toward the back of the house is a hallway to the kitchen. In the hallway is a pantry, the basement door and a bathroom.

Ohh... the crazy bathroom. Well, it has this funky, drinking-fountain-like sink in it. Its ugly. It has a stall shower and really, who wants to shower right off your kitchen? Anyhow, first up for remodeling is the UPSTAIRS bathroom (which, scarily, is in worse condition than this). We'll keep the shower down here for the time being so we have a shower to use. Then we plan to remodel this bathroom, take out the shower and mini-sink and put in a big vanity and mirror across that wall. Obviously, curtains will go and it will be painted.
The kitchen... I've already tossed the fake leaves. These people must have loved leaves. The cabinet handles are leaves (I want to replace those soon). Eventually I'd like to strip that wallpaper, but it really isn't terrible. And new countertops. And put in a new floor. The grout is an awful shade of... black. Eww.
Here's the other side of the kitchen. See the fake leaves? HAHA! Well, we can't put cabinets under that countertop b/c it has the baseboard heating. So, we would eventually like to take down the cabinets, bust out that wall into the dining room and replace the countertop and make that a bar to eat at.
Walking through to the dining room.... Curtains, wallpaper and chandelier will be outta there. We will probalby put up a chairrail and panel molding.

Going up the stairs....
Here's the upstairs bathroom. (Its in between Hudson and Porter's rooms). Its a mess. Unfortunately we probably won't be able to remodel it right away, so a good scrubbing will have to do for the time being.

Porter's room (#2), the linen closet and the office (eventually a guest room once we finish the basement and move my office down there).


Another view of the upstairs from Hudson's doorway.

This is the room that will be the office (eventually guest room). I'll have my stuff in the walk-in closet though.
This will be our room. The window to the right has been filled in because the apartment is on the other side of the wall. Someday we'd like to make a doorway on that wall into the apartment and remodel the apartment into a master suite.
View of the upstairs (Hudson's room and bathroom) from the green room/office.
The back of the house. That door there on the right goes into the kitchen.

Here's the view of the backyard from Porter's room. THe driveway goes up the side of the house and wraps around through the backyard. There's a basketball hoop and a playhouse (treehouse?) in the backyard as well!
The basement had paneling up but we need to take it down, seal and insulate the walls and put up drywall. There is a large family room area down there, a separate room off that with double doors that we'll eventually replace with french doors and make that my office, and there is a laundry/utility/storage room thats a great size as well. Lots of potential in the basement. Now if only we could win the lottery and have the money to do all these great things LOL!

So, that's it. That's my "real dream house" at this point. I can't wait to show before/after pictures once we're able to do some painting and carpet ripping out and all that fun stuff. We have access to the house right now, but we legally are only supposed to be doing the repairs the the appraiser has required.

Oh... and this is totally disgusting. I was wiping down the walls today and in Porter's room there were these crusty spots on the wall I was scrubbing. I noticed they were all around this corner and on the ceiling. And then I realized... they were boogers! Dried flicked boogers. Sick! And what's worse... I looked at the window trim and there was a whole collection of them all up the side of the window trim. HOW SICK! I took a picture for laughs...