Home, At Last

So, we bought a house last year.  It was a long, frustrating process because it was a foreclosure (just like the last house we bought).  This house is in a great neighborhood, but needs A LOT of work.  We have slowly been chipping away at projects to make the house livable (all the money-hogging invisible stuff that has to be done for the house to be safe & livable, like plumbing, electrical, HVAC work and TONS of cleaning!).  This place was seriously nasty when we bought it.  Henry wasn't allowed to be in the house for a few months after we bought it.  We still stayed at my parent's house while we waited for the unsexy house stuff to be completed.  Then, we had to pull up all the gross carpet...it was everywhere and had clearly been there forever.  Major sinus infection followed.  We had to air out the house.  There was a mold issue in the bottom part of the house that we had tested...thankfully, it was only surface mold & not dangerous.  We bleached everything!  Then had to air out the house again.  We pulled down wall paper, primed over wild colors, and threw up a fresh coat of paint on almost everything.  Bill & I laid flooring for the first time...I thought for sure one of us would kill the other before that project was over, but we actually made a really good team & knocked it out over 2 days :).  We've done so much work.  My little paragraph doesn't even begin to describe it.

Please feast your eyes on the following pictures for a better idea of what we're dealing with:


This is the living room/dining room at the front of the house.  Gross carpet, right?

This is the other side of the same room.  This room was in the best condition of the house.  You read that right...it goes downhill from here...

This is the kitchen.  Say hey to Henry!  This was the only time he came into the house before we moved in & he never left that seat.  We had already started trying to remove wallpaper in here only to reveal paneling.  You like that paper?  Goes good with the green counters, green floors, oh...and that pretty gold fan.  In this picture, the cabinets appear to be white.  I believe they were white at one time, but they were more of a yellowed white...there was an incredible layer of grease and gross all over them.  I'm not even going to tell you about all the nasty stuff we found under/beside/behind the stove...seriously....I wanted to burn the house down & start over.  It was bad.

Kitchen wall across from the cabinets.

In all it's glory.

A better pic of the colors in that wallpaper...just for you!

Oh, I had forgotten about the border...there was border, too!  Isn't it amazing how pictures can bring back memories.

This beautiful room is in the middle of the house.  It's a den, I believe.  It has no windows.  *heavy sigh*

This used to be an exterior window to the back yard.  When they enclosed the carport/garage, they just left the window, painted over it & added shelves to this side of it.  Yep.

 

This is the small hall in the top part of the house.  There are lots of doors in this little hallway.  It joins 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, the living room, the den, and it has two small linen type closets.  7 doors in this little hall.  The ceiling also holds the entrance to the attic.

This is the main bathroom.  It's small, but functional.  The shower is behind the door on the left.  All of the tile in this room is a light, pastel yellow.  I'm not complaining...could be worse.  Wait til you see their other color choices!

 They even painted ivy on the mirror to go with the border.  Cute, right?

I'm not sure how I missed getting before pictures of the bedroom colors, but this is the room that is now Henry's room.  It was very bright red with a white, scroll-type border.

 It does have a nice sized closet!

You can sort of see remnants of the red paint.

 This is the bedroom that Bill & I now use.  It has a small attached bath.  I'm really sorry I didn't get a picture of the colors that were in this room.  All of the walls were bright purple, except that back wall...it was an accent wall painted in lime green.  Yes.  Wait...it gets worse...there was also a border in this room.  Well, it was sort of a border...it was hot pink and black, zebra printed duct tape!  I'm not joking!  It went around the whole room.  Wait, wait, wait...I've got to tell you about the matching bathroom & closet.  Yep, those were both decked out in a bright pink.  I'm serious...keep scrolling down...there's pictures of the bathroom.

 Ta-da!!  Pretty, right?

Check out that toilet seat!  What are those blue stripes under the top cover, you ask?  Well, that's Ole Miss duct tape, of course!  Isn't that what everyone is using these days?

 Another view.  Look how gross that trim is...nasty!!  How about that weird light fixture?  It was actually in both bathrooms.

I will never understand why they put a full vanity in this tiny bathroom.  I can barely get on the toilet without hitting my knees when I sit down.  Too much info??  Ha!

I wanted you to get a better view of that light fixture. Vintage?  Retro?

This is another view of the small hallway.  It's very dark.  We need a better light.

This is the long hallway in the added on portion of the house.  That door is the one we come in & out of every day from the carport area.  That jutted out wall on the right is the back side of the fireplace from the den.

More border!!

Well, that's all I'm showing for now.  There's a whole other mess in the rooms on the other side of that hallway.  I'll give you some time to digest the mess you've seen so far.

 You're probably wondering why in the world we would buy a house that needed so much work (& you've only seen a portion of it!).  I'll be honest...there have been plenty of times that I questioned what we had done!  Only recently, after about 4-5 months of living here now, have I finally started to see the real potential.  I'm finally to the point that I've accepted that this house needs a lot of work, that will cost a lot of money, and take a lot of time to get done.  I'm ok with that.  We are in a good neighborhood.  We're close to family.  We are here.  We've been planted.  We will make this a home.

The fact that Henry will grow up here is my main motivator to make this house into our home.  I want it to be comfortable, colorful, & fun.  I want him to feel safe & loved here.  I want him to enjoy having friends over & spending time here.

I hope you'll follow our journey!