House Pics

I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of the house. I was nerdy and e-mailed a nifty PowerPoint presentation of pictures instead.

These pictures are before the house was ours, and once we get ALL the painting done, I'll post a before-and-after blog.


Exterior of house (obviously). We'll probably redo the white picket fence (and attach something so that Marley can't squeeze out).








Living room. Yes, the ceiling is crimson. No, the ceilings are not high (in fact, they are about a foot lower than standard ceiling height). This is the only room with Pergo. Since this photo was taken, we have painted (the ceiling is no longer crimson). What was odd was the fact that our Realtor was shocked when we said we wanted to paint.

I mean, the paint looks nice, but honestly, unless you have high ceilings, why in the hell would you paint the darker color on the ceiling??!


Kitchen. The green tile is granite, the light tile is travertine, and the counter is that neat composite material.

While I'm not a huge fan of lighter-colored wood, I do love these cabinets (and they're fairly high quality)! And yes, we had to paint the ceiling in the kitchen, too...

On the weekend of move-in, I decided to scrub down the kitchen before putting anything away, and I soon realized the Seller had never cleaned the cupboards. The interior looked white, but once I started cleaning, realized they were a light grey. Yecch.

And my husband was wonderful enough to scrub down the dirtiest part of the kitchen: the oven. We threw away the burner pans (they may have been black when they were put under the burners, but they were really black when we tossed them out. While my counter, floor, and cupboard cleaning endeavor was certainly gag-worthy, I think I may have lost my cookies over the oven. Thank god it is a self-cleaning oven.

And relief for our wino friends everywhere! This portion of the kitchen has an awesome built-in wine rack with stemware storage underneath--which was perfect since we sold our china hutch. Now we'll just have to find some barstools...

Master Bedroom. Well, not really a Master since both bedrooms are the same size. But this is the one we chose for our bedroom. While the walls are a light green in the photo- the ceiling is--you guessed it--a darker green. Yeah. That went bye-bye when we painted, too.

So my photos will be much better in the before-and-after blog, because after will be so much more awesomer (I know, not a word).

This room is the study- it's considered a bedroom, too, but I don't know anyone who would make it a bedroom. The French doors lead out to the dilapidated deck that we are planning to redo next summer. All the floors except the kitchen, bathroom, and living room are hardwood and recently refinished.

And the walls of this room are also a crimsony-red. They are also painted. Shocklingly, the ceiling is white. They must have run out of paint.

Bathroom. Yes, there's only one. And yes, we had two and a half bathrooms at the last place.

It is small, but it's okay. The mirror is also a medicine cabinet, and it's one of the coolest I have ever seen.

Amazingly enough, Rob and I are making it work beautifully in the morning rush (and I'm pretty high-maintenance, too!).

The tile work in the shower/tub is gorgeous. We don't think the Seller ever cleaned these, either, because my husband scrubbed them down, and they went from black to blacker and shinier. Gross.

And the glass shower doors are indeed clear. No, the glass is not frosted. It's going to take some mega scrubbing and some mega vinegar to get those clear again.

Second bedroom. Will become guest room/Holly's craft room. I'm very happy about it.

What I'm not happy about is that purple. Boy, that is purple. But don't worry, I have some very creative painting plans for this room...and some very demo-like plans for that ugly ceiling fan...

But aren't the floors and trim gorgeous?

Backyard. When we moved in, we had to buy 100 feet of chicken wire to staple around the bottom perimeter because there were plenty of open spots for Marley to get out (and spots for large, mean dogs to get in).

The lot is huge- it's a lot and a half, so we are very excited to plan landscaping and a deck (I'm trying to talk my husband into a hot tub, but we'll see how rich we are next summer (HA)).

And these are the very weedy raised garden beds. My mom in law is a Master Gardener, so she was able to name everything at the drop of a hat. I'm going to need her to come out and name them again, and I'll need to write them down on those little stakes.

I am not a gardener. In fact, I think I may have an Anti-Green Thumb. Granted, it's mostly been houseplants that have died the horrible and slow death upon being faced with my gardening incompetence, but I did try a topiary, who survived for about six months (the longest record to date). That's another blog for another time, though.

So that's our house. The way things are going, we'll be able to have a housewarming party in August.