Old school
House Plans
Back of the house.
Large antenna to right has now been taken down.
The backyard is like a park. This was the main selling
point for us. So perfect for Wilder and the dogs!
Bridge over small ditch in back 1/3 of yard.
Love the large patio with built-in gas grill!
We plan to build a fire pit into that circle of grass.
Living Room
Love the huge bay window and dental molding.
Funny story about the piano... After the owner of the house passed in the spring, the family had an estate sale, which we now so wish we could have attended and bought up some of the original furniture! When we first looked at the house in July the piano was still in the living room so we asked our agent to write it into the contract when we made our offer. The sellers responded that unfortunately it had been sold in the estate sale and the buyer just hadn't picked it up yet. We were bummed but didn't really think about it again until my sister-in-law's husband, who, if you'll remember, we were living with at the time ha, came home one day and said that he'd found out that the person that bought the piano happened to be his mom's new husband. Was he willing to sell it to us? Yes he was! So we ended up with something original to the house after all. Score! Now someone just has to learn how to play it. I vote for Wilder.
Dining Room
Kitchen
One of our favorite things in the house...
The intercom can play music from the
record player, the radio, or the iPod
(which my handy hubby figured out how
to hook up to it) throughout the house.
This brick wall is another one of our favorite features. I
feel like I'm cooking in an Italian restaurant every night ;)
Oh, and original 1960's Thermador double ovens and stove
in beautiful condition are pretty exciting too.
feel like I'm cooking in an Italian restaurant every night ;)
Oh, and original 1960's Thermador double ovens and stove
in beautiful condition are pretty exciting too.
This indoor gas grill is another
thing we love about the kitchen.
Breakfast Area
Door leads out onto screened in porch.
Foyer
Looking from kitchen to front door.
Love the broken tile floor.
Looking from front door into kitchen and
stairs down to den and up to bedrooms.
Wilder's bathroom
Office
Wilder's Room
Guest Bedroom
Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom
Looking into vanity, bathroom, closet area.
Love the vanity!
Especially since the master bath is so tiny!
Love the den so much!
Downstairs Bathroom
Basement, which is now full of junk
Carpet gone from all of the upstairs!
We dominated that carpet!
Ask us how long it takes to remove and label 43 cabinet doors.
Paul and my brother removed the set of
cabinets that were over the peninsula.
If there's one thing this kitchen is lacking
it's not cabinets. Taking that out really
opened the room up.
900 square feet of laminate set to be installed
Countertops gone!
Laminate going in!
Paul worked so hard putting in all that
laminate himself, with some help
from my brother and his dad.
Paul worked so hard putting in all that
laminate himself, with some help
from my brother and his dad.
I drove 2 1/2 hours to Cape Girardeau, Missouri,
to pick up our butcher block countertops.
They were worth the drive -- we LOVE them!
Whoohoo! Laminate done in dining room. Now
just a few hundred more square feet to go ;)
Kitchen getting painted!
Cabinet doors getting painted!
New gray color in kitchen. So much brighter already!
Laminate going in in living room and new blue paint color!
New dusty beige color in foyer and upstairs hall.
New gray color in Wilder's room!
New carpet!! Whoohoo!
Decorating for Christmas amid renovation chaos.
First furniture in the living room.
The couch was free (!) and Paul bought the
chair for $30 at an estate sale. Call us cheap, but I
think they are both perfect in there.
think they are both perfect in there.
Helping Uncle William and Dada install the new dishwasher.
We don't have any dining room furniture right now nor any plans
to get any right away so we asked our artist friend, Drew, if he
wanted to install some of his artwork in there. He came over
one night and helped us paint the walls white, Paul painted
the existing chandelier white, and we now have a gallery in
our dining room.
First fire in the den!
I found these 1950's Plycraft Pretzel chairs at an antique
store and snatched them both up for $100. Talk about retro!
We've been living in the house now for a month and 10 days and are still in constant work/project mode. The house is livable and presentable though so here are some early "After" shots of what we've done. We still have a list of about 50 things left that we want to do and I tell everyone who visits that, if it looks unfinished, it is. We really need one of those "Pardon our Progress (aka Mess)" signs at the front door.
Living Room
We will be painting the bookcases and actually putting
books in there hopefully soon and need
some kind of drapes for the windows and
a coffee table/more furniture and things hung on walls.
Currently one of the only things on the wall in this room
is a relief sculpture that belonged to my great-great-grandmother
and was given to me by my granddaddy. It depicts Aurora, the
goddess of the dawn, leading Helios, the sun, over the earth
and dropping flowers down onto the humans.
Kitchen
This room is my favorite transformation so far because
it has transformed so much! It is so bright and cheerful --
we hang out in here a lot. It's almost completely
complete except for a backsplash that we're still
trying to decide what to do with. Top left of the cabinets
is a chalkboard we put in that has become a favorite feature.
Master Bedroom
Need more furniture!
Guest Bedroom
Wilder's Room
I love how his room is turning out! Paul made the wooden
tools to hang over the bed -- so handy! We still need to
change out the light fixture and get some more shelves
in there for toy storage but it's coming together and
Wilder loves all the light and space.
The office currently has no furniture, only boxes, in there so
no need to show you that just yet haha ;)
Den
We love getting a fire going and watching movies down
here. Still quite a bit of work to do here like mounting
the TV and building some shelves and a new coffee
table but it's a comfortable room that I know we'll
get a lot of use out of. And I love how the paint on the
paneling really brightened it up.
So that's it so far. Just wanted to share our progress since it has been such a process buying this home and getting it ready to live in. It has been stressful at times but we have had such fun working on it and making it our own.
~~~
And I can't forget to thank the people who have helped us so much in making it happen...
My mom, who spent hours entertaining and dealing with a cranky Wilder to give us time to work on the house.
Paul's dad, who helped us get work done that we couldn't have done ourselves, put in a lot of elbow grease himself, and helped move boxes.
Lisa, Paul's stepmom, who helped us with renovating/decorating ideas and also helped with moving boxes and watching Wilder.
My brother, who has helped in countless ways from letting us borrow his trailer to moving boxes to so many odd jobs to climbing on our roof to help us remove the antenna, etc etc.
My brother's wife, Lauren, who has pitched in her share of elbow grease and also made us pillows for our bed.
Paul's sister, Audra, and her husband, Michael, who helped me pack up and load up a ton of stuff from the golf house.
Paul's sister, Lizanne, who helped move boxes and helped us clean prior to moving in.
Our real estate agent, Beth Haltom, and our mortgage lender, Jinny Ballard, who both went above and beyond to get us into this darn house!
Thank you all SO MUCH! We really couldn't have done it without the "village" that rallied behind us during this process. We love you all and you're all welcome here anytime! :)
