We finished up the inspection negotiations over this past weekend and all that's left between now and closing on September 3rd is just paper-work! So I thought I'd take you on a little tour, courtesy of realtor.com and tell you some of the things we want to do to update it.
First up, the front of the house.
For the front:
We want to paint the siding gray and the front doors will be replaced with something like this. We'll take the wire beams down and replace them with boxy, white pillars and maybe add some railing and woodwork to spruce up the front porch similar to this. Of course we'll spruce up the landscaping and hang a few flower baskets. I'd also like to add some benches or white rocking chairs to the front as well.
Again we'll update the landscaping and paint the siding gray.
We love the big patio off of the walk-out basement, but we'd like to take that upper deck down and build a new one that covers the lower patio entirely. We will more than likely move the stairs to the right side of the deck so that they aren't as steep and don't come right down into the driveway. We also will spruce up the landscaping, paint the back siding gray and probably replace the very old garage door and 2 exterior doors.
The Living Room/Dining Room:
We plan to have the hard-wood floors sanded and re-stained a walnut color. I'd like to paint the walls a light gray, add new white baseboards and I'd eventually like to add crown molding. We'll need new light fixtures and window treatments as well.
The Kitchen:
The kitchen will be gutted first thing, before we ever move into the house. :-) I plan to keep the kitchen in it's basic shape, but everything will be brand new. My dad is going to build us dark gray shaker style cabinets and I'd like to have light colored counter tops, a marble subway tile back splash, pendant lights over the sink and peninsula, built in cabinet pantries around the fridge that's on the opposite wall of the sink (not shown here but that's where it is) and my dad is going to build floor and wall cabinets on the far right wall where it's just empty now. We will do either new hard-wood (it's a horrible laminate now) or ceramic tile (I'm leaning more towards ceramic tile right now). I'd like to add stools (the same way they did here) to the peninsula so that the kids can still eat in the kitchen or do their homework there someday while we're cooking. I'd like to paint the walls a light blue color, similar to this.
We plan to have the hardwood floors sanded and re-stained the same color as the living/dining room, take down the wallpaper border, repaint the walls a light gray, add new white baseboard and possibly crown molding and a new light fixture. I'm thinking of going with a light gray. navy blue and gold color theme for our bedroom. We plan to get a new king size bed and new furniture as well and of course new window treatments and decorations.
The master bedroom has his and her closets on the left side of the room and that doorway in the far left upper corner is the master bathroom. They didn't take pictures of it, but believe me when I say, it needs some serious updating. Can we say blue tile everywhere? Lots of blue tile! We will also need to replace all the bedroom and bathroom doors with new white, six panel doors.
Jackson's Room:
Jackson's floors will be sanded and re-stained to match the rest of the house. We'll take the wallpaper border down, paint the walls the same color that we had in his room at our old house and we'll add white base-boards and crown molding at some point.
Avery's Room:
They didn't take a picture of the 3rd bedroom, but it's a little smaller than Jackson's room and has the same wall color and border in it as well. Her room has carpet that we plan to tear out and replace with new hard-wood. It will be the walnut color to match the rest of the house. I plan to paint her walls the same color that was in her room at our old house, add new white baseboard and crown molding as well.
Hallway to the Bedrooms:
The hallway going down to the bedrooms and hall bath has the same terrible laminate that the kitchen has. This will come out and be replaced with hardwoods, stained to match the rest of the house. I'd also like to do something like this down the hall.
Hallway to the Bedrooms:
The hallway going down to the bedrooms and hall bath has the same terrible laminate that the kitchen has. This will come out and be replaced with hardwoods, stained to match the rest of the house. I'd also like to do something like this down the hall.
The Basement/Family Room:
They don't show pictures of the stairs, but they are right in the kitchen on the same wall as the fridge. They are open which is nice. They need new railing and I'd like to add new pendant lighting and a photo collage all the way down, both very similar to this.
We plan to build built-ins on either side of the fireplace, cover all the brick with drywall, hang a t.v. over the fireplace and hopefully make it look very similar to this. We will also paint the walls and add new white baseboard and a new door.
There is a bonus room in that door-way to the left of the fireplace. It needs some new drywall added, a new window some new trim, paint, a new closet door and new entry door. This will probably be an office/playroom/spare bedroom.
There is a small hallway that has a wet-bar (pictured here), a half bath behind it, and an unfinished laundry room across the hall. The hallway dead-ends into the tuck under two-car garage. We plan to remove the wet-bar, gut the half bath and make it a full bath.
The door that leads out to the patio from the basement, also leads to the very nice-sized back yard with an in-ground pool. This back-yard is in serious need of some work. It is really grown up (even more so than in this picture). We plan to clean it up, tear out the old wooden fence, replace it with a white 6 foot vinyl privacy fence, add a black wrought iron fence between the house and the pool (to prevent little feet and paws from getting into the pool unsupervised) right above the stairs and put in a new stone walkway. We'll also be replacing the concrete around the pool (it's in really bad shape) with new stone pavers or new concrete. I'd like to do something similar to this.
The brick paver patio shown here needs to be cleaned up for sure. It is nice and level though, so we don't plan on replacing it, just cleaning it up. It will be nice when it's covered by the deck above and we can sit out here in the evenings. :-)
So this concludes the tour of our new house. There is so much work that needs to be done, but we're excited to get started on it and start chiseling away at our to-do list. Of course this will all take time and money and will have to be done over the course of a few months/years. So now all we need to do is win the lottery. ;-)
