We’ve officially owned this Tudor style home for three weeks now. I thought I’d give you an update.
So far we’ve been doing work around the place, just getting it family-ready. Let’s take a peek inside.
This is the main living area. I like all the windows, the hardwoods, and the gas insert fireplace, but I’m not a huge fan of the paint color. It extends into the dining room and hallways. It’s a neutral with some yellow and green undertone, and while it’s not my favorite, it’s also not a huge priority to change.
You can’t really tell from the photos, but the dining room floors were in rough shape, mostly right in the doorway that leads to the side deck. I believe this door was used as the primary entrance and the previous owner didn’t use a door mat. WHO DOESN’T USE A DOOR MAT? Anyway, we found some hardwood refinishers to give us quotes and we found a guy who is awesome and honest. He gave us the option to just refinish the dining room and hallway that’s attached and then just seal and coat the rest of the rooms. It’s a fraction of what it would cost us to refinish ALL the rooms, and a full refinish was not in the budget and not really necessary. Our hardwood guy just finished over the weekend and now the floors are dry enough that we can start moving in furniture.
My main focus is going to be on painting the bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen. Do you see the neon green color peeking in the background?
Isn’t she a beaut? I mean…I see potential.
The color has been dubbed ‘wasabi green’ and it has to go though. And it’s not just in here, it’s in the laundry room and upstairs bathroom.
But yay! A laundry room! I really wish we could put a sink in here, but that door leads to our basement so I am not sure that’s even possible. Maybe there’s a barn door in my future.
How about more green? And this time with stripes? This is an interesting wall treatment. It’s like a sea foam green in an eggshell finish and alternating stripes with a clear satin or gloss finish?
We’ve already demoed the poorly constructed “built-ins.” They look almost nice from a distance, but up close they looked and felt rinky-dink and there were wires of all varieties coming out of the walls. How many nails DOES it take to install a built-in, apparently a million.
Since we were having the floor in here worked on, we felt it was the perfect time to remove the shelving unit so that the floors would be relatively all one color. I say relatively because we aren’t totally sure about the random patch near the header, and two thirds of the floor underneath the built-in had never been refinished like the rest of the house. I’m not too worried about about the floors looking pristine, but our hardwood guy did a great job.
This room is really oversized, so we’ll be using it as the master bedroom, but I also plan to have my work space down by the French Doors.
If we can, we’d like to add a master bath in here down the line. Obviously that’ll take a lot of money, but one can dream.
This is the only picture I have of what will be Rory’s room before I started putting paint samples on the wall. Oops. While Nick was removing the beast of a built-in in the master bedroom, I had my dad help me remove the built-ins in Rory’s room to-be. I initially thought about keeping them, but the more time I spent in the room, the less fond I was of them. The bookshelf and desk really limit furniture placement. The desk unit is also very tall, probably good for an artist, but not ideal for a toddler. They also took a notch out of the window casing to make room for the desk. SIGH. Yet another thing I’ll have to patch. Also, removing the built-ins made sense since we did the seal and coat in here too.
I think I’m going to start painting Rory’s room first, it’s the most straight forward and I’m a newbie. I have a mood board for this room and I’ll post about my inspiration for this space soon.
This is the main (and only) bathroom downstairs. It looks like it’s tiny, but it’s not. I love that the previous owner kept the original tub and some of the original tile work. The floor is not original, but matches the maroon tiles that are original. The grey vanity is very odd. It’s obvious that it does the job of maximizing the space, but otherwise is not something I’m in love with. Also, I didn’t know that wall mounted faucets are more expensive and harder to find than regular sink mounted faucets! I found this out after we realized the faucet doesn’t work. Ugh.
If you think I have chosen any other color than pink for the walls then you clearly don’t know me at all. I am obsessed with pink and grey bathrooms.
Let’s head upstairs.
We have a full second floor in what used to be the attic. The stairs are behind a door in the hallway that looks like a regular closet door. The former owner was an artist, and up here she stored a lot of her work, hence all the storage and nooks and crannies.
There’s great natural light from the skylights, windows, and the door to the balcony.
This little nook is right under the highest pitch of the roof.
Right now the plan is that Nick will used the attic as his office and it’ll also be our guest room. In the future we could use this as our master bedroom or it could be a kids or teen bedroom/study/hangout space.
The attic bathroom has a full three pieces. More ‘wasabi green’, more unique storage (see that little cabinet next to the shower, and there’s a matching one on the other side, and not pictured right by the sink is a mirror with more storage behind it), and a decent sized window inside the shower.
Here’s the house from the back.
Yeah, the pool and deck need work.
The covered patio and the attached car port on the other side of the gate are getting torn down very soon. The structures have wood rot and need to go. We’ll be putting in grass and move the fence line forward so Rory has more room to play. To the right is our garage turned artist studio. In the future we’d like to convert it back to a garage that faces the alley.
So that’s the full tour of our place!
We know the house has lots of projects, but Nick and I are still excited to make this place our home. I’ll definitely be posting more about our move-in, painting projects, landscape, and pool reno. Thanks for following along!
Photo Credits // 2-10, 12-21 via Zillow / 1, 11, 22 by Nick