October 19, 2020

A Peek Into Our New House

I still cannot believe we’re moving. It won’t be until mid January, so I have some time to paint and refinish some floors and maybe tackle one or two more projects (at least get them started). I thought I’d share the “before” pics of the house and some of my thoughts before kicking off the redesign. Above is the front entrance. I love the double doors – I’ve always wanted to have a two wreath situation on the front door at holiday time. I have to believe that there was a center window at some point in the middle set of windows above – so may look into putting one back in (it’s just the landing for the staircase outside the master).

One of the more exciting things about this house is the post and beam barn/ garage! At some point I want to paint the exterior of the house white with grey-beige shutters and front door, and would either paint this building white or the greige shutter color.

There is a great open space above (unfinished) that has lots of possibilities…

The side porch leading to the mudroom from the garage – will just change the light fixtures for now.

The front has a half circle driveway, which I love – and the Boston Marathon goes right by the front of the house so this area would be amazing for a marathon party!

The entrance – the paper is going.

New lantern and paint for now here. Am going to leave the runner also for now because it’s fairly new and with the long staircases a new one will need to be saved up for.

Looking into the formal living room… the ceilings on this floor are 10 feet!

Oh, this room. I’m going to paint it for now and redo the fireplace surround with a white marble.

The dining room. I have big plans for wallpaper here! I also have ZERO dining room furniture!

The butler’s pantry leading to the kitchen. Another wallpaper spot, some cool tile and maybe replacing the glass with antique mirror?

So the big selling point on this house was that it had the charm of a historic home, but most of the hard works were done during a renovation in 2005. So the family room was added on, as well as a basement playroom and this kitchen was done (also the systems!)

Seeing as this is not the kitchen of my dreams, but the cabinets are all nice and inset and we maxed out our budget on buying this house itself – and therefore have a small reno budget for now – we’ll just be doing a facelift in here as we save to do a dream kitchen in a couple years… painting cabinets, replacing counters, backsplash and lights.

The family room is large and SOOOOOOO bright and looks out onto the back yard.

But it has this awkward half wall fireplace situation that I need to remedy. Stay tuned.

The mudroom doesn’t have enough storage, but rather ample light. We’ll redo this when we do the kitchen in a few years, so for now I’m going to cut those curved benches straight and put lots of baskets underneath! I might redo the floors sooner if I get too antsy.

The powder room is adorable and I’ll just add paper , new mirror and lights in here.

The landing outside the master – that mirror is where I want to add back in a window. Obvi, the lace curtains are coming down :)

The master is smaller than our current, and is the only “sort of” bummer. This wall barely fits a king bed with small nightstands, so we have a plan to make this the guest suite later on.

A dressing area looking into the closet and to the right is the bathroom.

Another fine for now space – we may turn the tub into a walk in shower like we have now…

The current guest room/future master. There is a small jack and jill bath leading into the office and we plan to take ALL of these rooms and make the master suite over here. For now Emma will sleep in here until she’s older.

The office, too small to be a bedroom, but great for a future master bathroom. We’ll probably take out this built in and use it as an office for now though!

Ummm, a second floor laundry room!!!! So excited for this… will be leaving this alone for now until we re-work during the master suite renovation.

The third floor has two bedrooms and a big full bath. This will be the “kids floor”- there are a bunch of window seats and cute nooks, but the ceilings are low – but the rooms are good sizes! And there are two landings that are big enough for some seating/ desks….

The kids bath…. an easy revamp!

The basement has big windows and is walk out, which is SO nice. And has a half bath and huge storage closet. This will be the playroom.

Off the family room is a nice sized deck.

That leads down to a wide patio…. fire pit coming, for sure!

So happy the kiddos will have a big yard to play in!

Up on the side yard we’ll be getting Henry his own swingset! He’s beyond excited (as am I).

So that’s the tour for now! I am excited to see what a change just paint makes in this space, and some new light fixtures. I think it’ll be amazing. And it’ll be fun to document all our design changes as they happen!