I took some pictures as we did our walk through. I didn't get pictures of all the rooms but here is a little preview of the "before" with this old place.
This is Hallon. I was so excited to get to walk through the house that I totally forgot to make sure the child had shoes on. Oh well..
This is the front door. That is our realtor Pam. Please note the choke cherry bushes encroaching on the entryway. I need to find some pruning shears and get those out of the way. At least the bushes done have thorns. Right? The choke cherries are named well. I tried one today because I found out they are edible. They taste awful!
So after you unlock the door you enter the covered and enclosed porch I personally don't like the enclosed porch no matter how "functional" it is. Yes, I know it's nice and will be great in the winter but there is just something in me that wants it open again. David doesn't see it my way but perhaps someday I will get my wish.
One of the first things you see when you get into the house is the beautiful carved banister. It was one of the things that made me fall in love with this house. Isn't it lovely? I think if the listing agent had just put a picture of this in the listing he would have had more people want to go through the house. The three pictures he put up were really awful and show none of the house's charm
This is the entryway light. Yes that is a pull cord on the light. There are very few light switches in this house. Apparently they didn't feel that they needed them when they put in the electrical. This will change I promise. I don't know how but it will change.
I wish you could see the cool detail on the fireplace. The top is made out of cast iron I believe. It pains me to say that the fireplace is not functional. What is painful is that it will probably never be so. I keep trying to convince my husband that having a fireplace would be fun and awesome but he has other plans for the space that include running wires to the attic and such. So sad for me.
Here is a view where you can see the stairs and entry way as well as what will become our dining room. Absolutely love the transoms above the doors. What else are you going to do when you have 10' ceilings? None of them function on this floor because they have been painted shut but I plan to help them become in working order again. Some of the glass has been painted too. For privacy I am guessing as the house was split into three apartments at one time. I don't know how they managed that with only two bathrooms none with showers but I guess I will just have to speculate.
At first I hated the wallpaper but its beginning to grow on me. At least in this room. There is no lighting at all in this room. Just the large windows. This bay window extends up into what will become the master bedroom. I love the windows. SO LARGE!
Here is a picture of what will be our dining room. Lots and lots of wallpaper. But more on that later. Here you can see into the kitchen in the middle. to the left of that is the first floor bathroom. To the right is the only rightful "Bedroom" in the entire place. It is the only room that has a closet except for the kitchen.
To the far left you can see the door to another first floor room. This one backs up to the front living room. See below.
This is the second room on the first floor. It does have a light and even a light switch. Woo hoo!
It also has a dryer vent. However, there is now washer hookup. We thing that they had a washer set up in the kitchen. So I guess this was just a drying room. Split laundry rooms I do not want. I also want my laundry room to be on the second floor so this will probably become an office. I don't quite know yet.
LOOK LOOK LOOK! Its a claw foot tub!!!! I can't wait to fix this room up. It has a slight lilt toward that tub so we will have to fix the flooring and what not. I have no plans on putting a shower in the room. It will be just the awesome tub as there will be no one living (or I guess sleeping) on this floor.
Lovely kitchen right? Well maybe not so much. With the pipe coming down form the upstairs bathroom right through the kitchen ceiling it makes for a little of an ick factor for me. The upstairs bathroom will be reconfigured so that this pipe can be moved to a better location. This entire kitchen will get an overhaul. It will be epic!
The door way you can see behind the cabinets is a small pantry where there are a set of very treacherous stairs going to the second floor from the outside. That will be torn out and the wall taken back to open up the kitchen some more. I have planned this room for a while. I can't wait to tell you all about it.
Here we are downstairs. Look at the paneling. I need your help to convince David to let me take the paneling down in this room. I hate paneling. He has consented to let me remove the paneling everywhere else but he is afraid about what we will find under these particular panels. I guess we will see.
A view into the "Finished" downstairs room. Lovely fake stone accent wall don't you think?
So this is where I stopped taking photos because we were to busy talking about everything we were going to do to the house. Then David had to go to work and I had to leave it. Kids needed breakfast and naps and what not. It's overwhelming and exciting to finally own it and be able to go over whenever I want. I hope we can make it our own in short order but I know we will have to figure out how to pay for everything I want. We have a long road ahead of us but hopefully there is some light at the end soon.
