I had a blast making a list of all of the home improvements we planned to do, and of course the list has turned out quite differently than I planned.
We've lived here for 4 months now, and it has felt like home since the first night. Seriously, no first night jitters or anything. I can see us living here with our children and having our friends and family over for parties for all the years to come.
The funniest thing about the house is all of the 80's details: wood paneling everywhere, the intercom system, the diamond pane windows, and all of the gross wall textures from popcorn ceilings to skip trowel, grasscloth wallpaper that was painted over, and really bumpy orange peel. Eventually we will have it all under control and looking beautiful. Don't even get me started on the flower beds, weird rotted decking and backyard.
In the meantime, we are trying to balance our wants with the pressing needs. So far, we have had the popcorn ceilings removed in the main areas and the wood paneling in the living room painted- that was done before we moved in because it's such a messy job.
Then we paid to have all of the trees trimmed correctly- there are 4 huge trees, I think 3 of them are oaks. I'm glad we did because the next week there was an ice storm and our power went out from tree branches messing with the wires at other houses!
Another need is the hot water heaters and the A/C system- both will be replaced in the next few weeks. The first big want is our master bedroom.
Now, see- I'm going off on a tangent about all of the things we want and need to do, but to fully appreciate it, you need to see the house in it's glorious BEFORE state!
I'll take you on the tour I do when guests come over. Prepare to be exhilarated.
First, the Exterior. Not much curb appeal if I do say so myself, but we can work on that.
The Entryway. This has the grasscloth wallpaper that's been painted dingy yellow. We have big plans for this room including the stairs, but the wood makes it like a puzzle that we have to figure out what wood goes to the painted side and what wood gets to stay.
To the left is the Living Room. It has great floors and built in bookshelves, plus three huge windows. The amount of stained wood in this house is overwhelming!
Then you are led into the mail center. I love that there's a specific place for stamps, the return address stamper, and magazines. Also I really do use it for sending cards to people.
Continuing on, you enter the Dining Room. It has great built in bookshelves, and a storage closet for all of my party supplies. Who could resist those shiny brown bubble curtains? In between the panels it's shiny textured and white. Also known as gross.
Inside the dining room is the Bar. With fully mirrored walls, enough wine storage for 5 years, a brass footrest and a padded countertop, what more could you ask for? It also has doors that open up into the living room. This was something we thought was funny in houses but was not on our must-have list.
There's a hallway attached to the dining room that leads to the garage.
To the left is the Laundry Room. Too ugly for words, but it's the utility area so we will live with it for now. The old owners left the washer/dryer- good thing Bean has a cousin who was starting college and needed them!
Across the hall from the Laundry is the Powder Bath that has a door leading out onto the patio. One of the first things I did when we moved in was rip down that floral valence and put in privacy film instead.
At the end of the hallway, there's a staircase that leads up to the Game Room aka Man Cave.
It looks so different with their furniture in it. We've already started some painting in this room and it looks so much better. The texture is really heavy and it takes 2-3 coats. 
Included in the Game Room is the most hideous bathroom ever. Check out the awesome bricks holding up the tub! The good news is I can see the potential and there's a lot of it.
When you come back downstairs, I didn't mention before but there's a pass-through in the Dining Room that looks into the Kitchen.
When I saw the kitchen online for the first time I thought it was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen. The cabinets were the same ugly wood color as every other room in the house and the hardware is in the middle of the doors. So weird. But the granite is good, and we love the copper sink. We didn't even know we had that until our final walk through.
When you come back downstairs, I didn't mention before but there's a pass-through in the Dining Room that looks into the Kitchen.
When I saw the kitchen online for the first time I thought it was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen. The cabinets were the same ugly wood color as every other room in the house and the hardware is in the middle of the doors. So weird. But the granite is good, and we love the copper sink. We didn't even know we had that until our final walk through.
From the kitchen, the doorway on the left leads to a hallway. But it's also just across from the Study. If you start back in the Entryway, the Study is to the right. This is the one room that I think someone had good taste when they chose the paint colors.
But that light fixture! Gross!
Now back to the hallway. It's L shaped. There's a cedar closet. For real- who has those? There's also a coat closet in the Entry that is really helpful (we didn't have one of those at the old house and it was on our must have list). This view is actually from the Master Bedroom looking out.
The bathroom attached to it is ok. It's dated but not horrible so we will live with it for awhile.
Then at the back of the house is the Master Bedroom.
Please notice the poorly installed trim around the window that goes all the way to the baseboard and doesn't match at the top with the frame around the door. Please!
Also please notice the hideous light fixture! The medallion, however, and the plaster moldings are great. The popcorn was already taken out of this room before we came around.
Two doors lead into the Master Bathroom.
And here she is: our next big project. As in, the first couple of weeks after Christmas. I can't wait! I don't even think there's a picture of the gross closets. They will be the first thing to go.
Disclaimer: I don't think old houses are gross. This house is 31 years old. We have friends who just built a house and their closets were beautifully fresh and clean and it grossed me out to come back to our cool home with character and put our clothes in the closets. Even in the old house we painted the closet shelves before we put our stuff on them.
The Master Bath is so 80's it's awesome. Bean's favorite part: the Saloon doors. My favorite part: the super deep built in drawers on my side. We both like the hanging mirror and having our own counter space. And our own closets too.
The door in the Master Bedroom with the ugly trim around it leads out to the patio. There are also doors leading out there from the Kitchen, Dining Room, and Powder Bath.
The backyard has huge lovely trees, a fence that needs to be replaced, a leaning wooden fort, a rotting deck/pergola, and lots of pavers. And the whole outside of the house needs to be painted. I swear the only thing any of the previous owners did was weird projects and house cleaning. Although the game room above the garage was a pretty great addition. But back to the backyard...
Um that vine is crazy and it could kill the tree next to it. Looks great here though!
So at this point in the house tour, our guests are usually very excited for us and tired of walking for miles all around the property. So I decide to end on a boring note so they don't have to be too overwhelmed. Remember the stairs in the Entry? They lead up to 2 bedrooms.
The front one is the Guest Room now, nothing has changed except the furniture. When we have another kid, we will get the popcorn taken down upstairs and change the carpet. Which leads to a whole can of worms with the Entry stairs.
A Jack & Jill Bath connects the two bedrooms and since I have no idea how to photograph that, here's the MLS picture of the counter in the sink area closest to the Guest Room. Ugly, but easy to fix.
And here's the 4th Bedroom. It's even uglier without the furniture. Yes those red squares are painted on the wall. There's also a chalkboard thing nailed to the wall. This is the only room with faux wood blinds. Nice ones.
So that's it in a nutshell. If you were here, I'd walk you back down to the kitchen and pull a bottle of champagne out of our wine fridge, then mosey on over to the bar where I would pop the top and celebrate your visit!
Stay tuned for updates we've already finished: the front door makeover, the Nursery makeover, and the Living room makeover.
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