A pseudo house tour and some plans

Now that we have the wedding and our getaway to Ocean City, MD behind, we can finally get down to business, both literally and figuratively. We are itching to get some projects done, and we have quite the list ahead of us.

Denny and I have so many plans for this house, this beautiful blank slate we have on our hands, and we are so full of ideas I can hardly take it in all at once. The type A crazy person in me has already created a Google Docs spreadsheet with project ideas for each room. And literally--no room is going untouched. This makes me happy, because I know this will keep us busy for a long time and will allow us to put so much love into this home.

The slacker in me didn't take any photos of the house while it was empty and we schlepped all of our stuff in (breaking the number one rule of blogging, I feel like), so without further ado I present the MLS photos I saved before we put the offer in. So, feel free to enjoy pictures of our home with other people's stuff in it. I'll also add some ideas we have for each room. So exciting! It makes me want to move into Home Depot. (But not really, because I like this house too much)

Thar she blows. Our blank slate of possibility. We've already hacked down/trimmed back a lot of those bushes, torn out the plastic edging around the beds under that twee little tree, mulched all the beds, planted a peony bush and some daylillies, as well as some annuals to brighten up the flower beds. We'd like to:

• Paint the front door (red)
• Replace all the hardware on the doors
• Replace the exterior light fixtures
• Fancy up the garage door
• Plant a few more perennials in the fall so we have more of a lush garden feel in the flower beds by the front door.
• Tear out a few bushes that grow a little too aggressively for my liking. We've already trimmed them back several times, but their roots are sprouting new bushes that are taking over the beds. I'd like to put some boxwoods there instead, since I feel like they'd be a bit more manageable.

The entryway looking into the house. We've hung some wall decor and a mirror but I'd like to

• Add some sort of molding feature (beadboard? board and batten? a chair rail?)
• Stain the banister and railing in the stairway
• Add some sort of visual feature to the wall going up the steps. Frames? Windows? Something else? My brain wants to explode every time I think of it.
• A long term goal is to tear out the carpet on the stairs. We've been here a month and a half and I'm slowly realizing that I don't like to vacuum stairs. At all.

The living room into the kitchen. This floorplan is amazing for us, because we love to entertain so having a wide open space like this is perfect. It comes with its own challenges though because you can see the previous owners used the space between the kitchen and living room as their dining area. We have chosen to make the yellow room our dining space, so that open area between the kitchen and living room had us stumped. We felt like putting another table and chairs there would be redundant, but weren't sure what we could put there that would make sense and fit in with the flow of the space. We've come up with a solution we're pretty excited about, though, and I can't wait to share it once we pinch enough pennies to make it happen. We're keeping this gray paint color the same, but I'd like to see some crown molding and trim around the doorways and windows to really spruce up the room.

The morning room. This photo shows it being used as a nicely lit sitting area, but when we actually came to see the house it was gated off and had a slew of baby toys and a tiny little dog hanging out in it. As I mentioned, this will be our dining room. The yellow paint was so bright, it screamed "GOOD MORNING, I AM A YELLOW ROOM" when we'd come down in the morning (this room faces east), so we toned down the in-your-face-yellow with a cheerful creamy yellow instead. We also already ditched the verticals and added some sheer window panels that let in tons of light. We placed an order with a local blinds company to have some white wooden blinds added, but I don't plan on keeping them closed all that often. This room gets amazing morning light and I want to take as much advantage of that as I can. Those paper shades have got to go, though! Some other plans include:

• Tiling the floor in here as well as the kitchen area
• Replacing the ceiling fan with an awesome chandelier
• Trimming out those windows
• Adding some art or a great mirror on the wall opposite the sliding glass door
• And finding a dining room set that fills the room in a little better and allows for more seating. Right now I have a 42" pedestal table I scored from Target and four Windsor chairs in this room, but that ain't gonna fly for Thanksgiving dinner.

Our kitchen area. Again, this layout had us stumped as we didn't want to put a dining room set where the previous owners had it. After a week of living here, I discovered I also wasn't so keen on the placement of the island. I can't wait to:

• Paint or stain the cabinets and add some hardware
• Tile the floors (I haaaaate linoleum. This stems back from our last house.)
• Ditch the island.
• Replace the pantry door with a shabby old screen door
• And therefore come up with a fantastic, visually appealing organization system for the pantry interior
• Replace the boob light
• Replace the pendant light over the sink. I already have the light, I just need to figure out how to hardwire it since it's plug-ready.
• Remove or relocate the chandelier. Ultimately, we would need additional light here, but our plans may dictate it's relocation. 
• Plank the wall to the left of the hutch and stain it a nice walnut finish.
• Build some sort of bar/peninsula extending from the soon-to-be planked wall with additional seating on each side and cabinet space about six feet across the room. I understand that this would, in effect, break up the flow and openness of the first floor, but it would still allow conversation to flow between those in the kitchen and those in the living room or dining room.
• Do something about that air vent. Yikes.
• Replace the appliances as they putter out with either white or stainless steel. 

First floor powder room. So. Purple. Paint is definitely in the future. As well as replacing or getting rid of the towel bar, adding some decor, and framing out the mirror. There is also linoleum in here, but I haven't decided on it's fate yet.

 The mudroom. I'm okay with leaving the linoleum in here, but I would like to repaint as the blue doesn't necessarily flow with the paint colors on the rest of the first floor. The layout of this room is a little odd as there are about seven "walls" in this room, but I'd like to add an upholstered bench with a spot for shoes and some wall-mounted hooks for coats and bags.

Bedroom number one. This is actually going to be my craft room. I say "going to be" instead of "is my craft room", because it's still in boxes. It's tricky to get this room unpacked because there is no overhead light, I haven't found a lamp I like yet, and I only have a few precious daylight hours during the week to plug away at it after work. Aside from getting it unpacked, I'd like to paint as the white paint is dinged up and add a lot of inspirational/crafty wall art and LOTS of built-in storage.

Bedroom number two. Peyton's room. This room in PINK. Because it's west-facing, this room literally glows pink during the afternoon, and casts a pink shadow into the hallway. It suits Peyton for now and works with her existing bedding and decor, but I can't wait to start transforming it into her "big girl room." This includes

• New paint
• A DIYed area rug
• A reading nook or built in desk for drawing and (sob) homework one day
• Adding curtains across her closet. The previous owners took the folding doors out as well as the track they were on and must have thrown them out. I'm not really sad that there's no closet doors in here, because I'm not so keen on those pull-out folding doors anyway.
• Crown molding and window trim.
• Window treatments.
• Switching out that ceiling fan for something a little more "big girl" when the time comes.

The hall bath. The only person who uses this bathroom is Peyton, and that's only to take a bath since potty training is proving to be quite the challenge. I can't wait to add some printables and art and paint. We also haven't bought a shower curtain for this room since there's no need and we haven't had overnight guests that would need to use the shower yet. So that has to happen.

The master bedroom. I LOVE our master bedroom. I wish I could say this was our awesome sleigh bed, but these are the MLS photos so it left with the previous owners. Our current bedroom furniture slightly resembles that of a dorm room (i.e. mismatching dressers, no headboard, no nightstands...sad). I have so many plans:

• Paint
• Trim and crown molding
• A sitting area by the walk-in closet
• Upholstering our own headboard
• Scouting out some nightstands and painting them
• Window treatments
• Art and decor

The master bath. I thought we could just paint, stain the cabinets, frame out the mirror, and find a longer shower curtain, but I just learned Denny has a lot more plans including floor to ceiling tile and a walk-in shower. This should be interesting.

The back patio. I love a good outdoor space, so this is what we've come up with so far:

• Build some sort of pergola or find a way to provide some more shade over the patio.
• Stain the concrete
• Replace the light fixture
• My mom offered us her old patio set, so I'm looking forward to sprucing that up
• Create a designated "grilling area" off the patio so both of the Denny's grills (yes, he has two charcoal grills!) don't take up any valuable real estate on the concrete pad.
• Add flower boxes under those windows
• Dig out flower beds along the long side of the patio and plant some decorative grasses and taller perennials to provide some privacy.

The back yard. Our lot extends almost 250 feet back from the street, so we have a pretty large backyard. This is where the biggest change has already occurred, since none of those pine trees are there anymore. We hired a local company to take those pine trees down. They were WAY too tall and WAY too close to the house for my liking. The slightest breeze made them sway literally from top to bottom. We had a pretty bad storm here about a year ago that resulted in a LOT of tree damage, so that's a risk we didn't want to take. Not to mention, as our house sits on a fairly busy street in our township, creating a safe fenced in space for Peyton to play is a huge, huge priority for us. Right now the yard just looks like a lot of dirt, but we're bringing in topsoil in the next couple of weeks, seeding will be next, and the fence will be going up soon thereafter. Can't wait to share that process. I love doing yardwork, but I've never done an outdoor project so large. Should be one for the books, at least for me!

So, that's our new casa and the end of this insanely long post. I have some photos of some progress/painting we've done so far, so I can't wait to share those, too! You should see the difference in that yellow room.