the "before" tour

Last time we bought a house I only took a few "before" shots. Mostly because we were sort of aghast at the state the house was in and didn't really want anyone to see it until we had at least gotten the worst of it taken care of. In the end I wished that we had taken more. Because we did a lot to that house and it's fun to look at how far we came.

This house won't need the same kind of crazy overhaul, but it needs a lot of updating and brightening. New paint, new fixtures, new flooring. So on Saturday, before we could test paint on the walls or start hauling in boxes, I went through and took lots of before shots. I wont share them all here but I'll give you a little tour. Forgive the phone quality photos, I forgot the real camera and wanted to make sure the photos got taken before the house filled up with boxes. The exterior of the house is strangely hard to photograph, it's tucked up in the woods so much that you can't get a good angle, but this is the main entrance.

You enter through a big glassed in porch (which needs doors, instead of windows, across the front.) and into a mudroom. Yay! A mudroom. I'm sure we'll need it here!

 Most of the downstairs is one big open space built around the chimney. So we have the kitchen

 And the dining/living area.

At one end of the kitchen is a desk, which overlooks the living room. I think this will be our family computer space, perfect for homework, paying bills, all that jazz.

In the kitchen there is a walk through pantry that leads to the downstairs bathroom.

 Up the stairs we have an interesting combination. In the real estate pitch they called this room an "open bedroom",  but we plan to use it as the den/upstairs living room where the TV will be.

We also have this funny sleeping loft. At first I didn't know what to do with it but I think we will turn it into a reading nook with floor cushions and shelves along the wall. It has a little escape hatch to Briton's loft above.

Briton's loft room is the room that needs the most work and is the first that we will tackle. It needs some drywall in spots and a lot of trim. Oh, and flooring. Although he seems to think a rug over plywood is just fine.

Down the ladder we have the main bedrooms.

Evie's is the slightly smaller one but has a great window that she already loves to perch in. As you can see we are already trying out paint for her room. Blue, with lots of roses. Per her request (of course)

Our room has two closets (yay!) and a private deck with scary rails. Another thing to fix ASAP.

The bathroom is, without a doubt, the most hideous room in the house. It's really the only room that I find cringe-worthy. While I want to change things in other rooms, I can live in them as-is pretty happily. This room. Yuck. But on the plus side it's pretty big and the laundry is upstairs in here, which makes my day. No more basement laundry!

And speaking of the basement, we have a good sized one that's dry enough to finish out. At some point. I'm thinking craft room.

Down the hill from the house, closer to the creek, is our cabin.

It's rustic in a RUSTIC kind of way and needs to be totally redone. I think Will is most excited about that project. There is still some debate over what, exactly, it will be, but we'll figure that out.

So that's the ten-cent tour. Today we start unpacking the things that we brought from New York before we head down to Virginia to retrieve the rest of our belongings. Ah, unpacking is not my favorite thing. I hope, hope, hope that I will not be packing or unpacking again for a LONG time. Because, man, it's tiring!