House: Before

Exciting news, which no doubt all of my readers already know: Sam and I finally closed on our house! It's the first home purchase for both of us, and we're both very excited/overwhelmed. I know at least one reader has been eagerly asking for pictures, so I wanted to post a few. I'm considering these mostly "before" pictures because we have a lot of minor renovations we want to make. Ideally some of them can happen before we move in at the end of February. Truth be told, I think these projects will be the main subject of this blog for the next few months. So far, all we've done is change the locks, but we have many DIY journeys ahead of us.

The outside

 This picture was taken the afternoon of the closing. Right when we got the keys, I had to run to an eye appointment, so it was late in the day by the time we finally made it there. I only got this one picture out front because these little girls on bicycles came by asking if we were the new neighbors. The previous owners had a young daughter, so hopefully they won't be too disappointed to find out we don't.

The living room

Above is the main room of the house. The blinds are closed on the back window, but it looks out on the backyard (that will have to be its own post later because it's been dark every time we've made it over there). We plan to paint this room for sure. Still trying to think of a color concept, but right now either a taupe or a warm beige to brighten things up a bit. We're also going to reface the fireplace at some point, but that's a little farther off.

Dining room from living room

This is taken from the living room looking into the dining room (with Sam for scale). You can't really tell, but it's a green which will also be going. Maybe replaced with a peachy color or yellow?

Kitchen looking into the breakfast nook (which faces the front of the house)

The kitchen is where most of our work will be focused. Luckily (in terms of renovations, at least), it's really small, so at least there's less to do. Plan is to replace the countertops with a dark/black granite or quartz, paint the cabinets white and add hardware, and put up a subway tile backsplash. We're also planning to update the florescent lighting fixture, not that you can really see it here. Trust me, it's ugly. The aforementioned green from the dining room will be gone. We'd hoped to move the fridge and extend the cabinets on that side, but alas we forgot that it's hooked up through water lines (automatic ice maker). We have some other ideas to increase counter/storage space though.

The master bedroom!

 This one doesn't look like much now. I didn't photograph the other bedrooms because they look pretty similar, just smaller. We're going to repaint in here as well--something in a serene blue/grey, probably. The bathroom (which I forgot to photograph) has this bright blue tile in it, so I think a more toned down blue in the bedroom will tie into that. We're also replacing the tile in all three bedrooms with carpet.

First house selfie!

Our realtor gave us a gift basket at closing that included some prosecco and champagne glasses, so we had a little toast in the new place. Certainly made changing the locks a little more fun. 

Anyway, thanks for all the well wishes. Stay tuned for more updates and hopefully (some day) a few after shots...