It’s official. Our house is on the market. (And if you want to buy it please email me and I will put you in touch with our realtor straight away!)
It’s a little bittersweet. We always knew that this wasn’t our forever house. It’s been a great house, but it was VERY dated when we bought it and we always wanted to own several acres of land. This house has a nice lot, about 1/3 of an acre, but we still wanted more space. Having a master bathroom wouldn’t hurt either.
This house has been good to us, though. This is where we brought both of the girls home from the hospital. It’s where we’ve had birthday parties and Gotcha Days and it’s where I became a stay at home mom. It’s also only a block or so away from a park, and in a good school district. Funny enough, one of the main reasons I fell in love with this house was because there are sidewalks on both sides of the street (surprisingly hard to find around here) and a big driveway. I really do appreciate being able to let the kids ride their bikes or push the stroller around the block and not have to worry about their safety. I remember that I kept saying to the realtor, “We can fix ugly, but sidewalks are a must. And no double yellow lines on the road.” Also, the windows, roof, furnace, and hot water heater have all been replaced within the last 8 years.
Even though it was dated when we bought it, we’ve been able to update quite a bit over the last 3 (almost 4!) years. Hopefully another family will like the back yard, large room sizes, and great closet and storage space as much as we have.
It’s a split-foyer house, so when you walk in the front door, you see these stairs.
If you go up the stairs you come right into the living room.
Since we’ve lived here, in this room we exposed the hardwood floors, painted, added crown molding, replaced the trim around the windows, installed new doors & shelves in the coat closet, put a new light fixture in the entry, and Eddie & his dad replaced an old metal railing with these built-in shelves. (We also exposed the wood steps, and replaced the floor in the foyer.)
On the other side of the wall where our couch sits is our kitchen, which is finally FINISHED! (It only took 3 years) Literally everything in this room except the ceiling has been replaced. We replaced the cabinets, counters, appliances (all of which will be staying with the house), moldings, back splash, lighting, pantry door, paint, floor, and brought the electrical stuff up to code.
The kitchen stretches into the dining room, making one large space.
In this room we redid the floor, added the molding, and painted.
The sliding glass door in the dining room is how you access the back yard. There’s a small concrete patio at the bottom of a small stair case and then…
Our back yard has been by far one of our favorite parts of living in this house.
There is a hallway off of the dining room that leads to our main bathroom and 3 bedrooms.
This next picture is a blog exclusive. You won’t be seeing this in the mls listing. It’s my least favorite room in the entire house, but it has served us well.
We haven’t really done anything to update this room and sadly, it shows. The floor is not dirty, it’s just over 40 years old and worn out. You can’t really tell from the picture, but it’s actually a pretty decent sized bathroom considering the age of the house. Hopefully the next owners will be able to update it because it has a lot of potential. We need to de-clutter this room now that we’re selling, but it’s hard when 5 people share 1 full bathroom and some of them are still potty training!
Nick’s room is across the hall from the bathroom. If it takes a while to sell the house, we will repaint it a more neutral color, but for now we figured the kids had enough change to deal with and we left their rooms alone.
The master bedroom is on the right. The only thing that designates it the master is that the closet is bigger. It’s not a walk-in, but is does extend almost the entire length of the wall, so we were pleasantly surprised to discover that it actually holds more than the smallish walk-in we had in our last house.
The only updates we’ve made in the bedrooms are paint, light fixtures, and a closet system in the girl’s room. (Also, note to self: You have horrible taste when you are pregnant. Stop buying ugly grandma curtains and bright yellow paint.)
If you go downstairs, there is a door directly at the bottom of the steps that leads to a very large unfinished storage room. (The same size as our kitchen & dining room area) That’s where our laundry, furnace, and water heater are.
If you stop at the bottom of the stairs and turn left, you’ll find our family room. We’ve been using this as our homeschool room since Nick started kindergarten.
We’ve tried to update this space a little by painting the paneling and replacing the baseboard. The brown shag carpet wouldn’t have been my first choice (or 2nd, or 3rd…) but it is in really good condition and comfortable for the kids to play on, so we kept it.
There is also a large storage closet and crawl space off of this room.
If you turn right at the bottom of the steps, there is a small foyer and powder room. There is also access to the garage in this area.
The powder room is another area where we replaced everything except the ceiling.
Uh, yeah. I don’t know why we bought it either looking like that, but we did. Hopefully there will be a new family coming along soon who will be blessed by all of the hardwork, sweat and tears that went into this house.
Wish us luck!
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