our next remodel project

you might remember that my hubby and i are pretty handy when it comes to DIY projects....and that we did some pretty incredible makeovers at our old home. (remember THAT bathroom?!?)  

since moving to our current home, our projects have dwindled significantly and i think the primary factor has been time.  in fact, that is the only explanation that i can find for the fact that my upstairs bathroom was still carpeted until last weekend.  carpet?  in a bathroom?  where two toddlers go potty?  

um, not anymore.

we pulled it up and started one of our largest remodel projects to date (actually, it may be somewhat of a tossup against the basement remodel at 212 S. Hazel - from this to this).

luckily, the bathroom is a pretty large room, but the current layout doesn't do it any favors.  we plan to rearrange the fixtures, and add a washer and dryer so i can have laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms (rather than in the basement - which is two flights of stairs down)

doing projects is so much more complicated with kiddos, but they are also super awesome helpers!

after we pulled back the carpet, we found not just one, but two layers of unsightly linoleum underneath.  the demo process took a good full day of effort.....

and when we finally got down to the subfloor we were pleasantly surprised with a decent layer of wood.  it is possible that we will salvage it - at least on the laundry room side.....

we also plan to keep the claw foot tub, though we want to move it to the corner of the room.

so i didn't realize that by jumping into this project we were going to have to turn the water off and stop using it.....but that is where we are at right now.  project standstill.

i am super excited about our plans however, and am excited to get started on rebuilding. 

stay tuned....

wood floors! {mini house tour}

this is my room and the only room upstairs that was hardwood floors when we moved in.  the other rooms had cream colored carpet in them, which was getting quite stained and icky from the year that we have lived here with our two small children.

this weekend we ripped it up.

we were hopeful that the wood floors underneath would have potential, though we really didn't know what kind of shape they would be in.

we are thrilled!!!

while they could still use to be refinished (as could all the floors in our whole house), they are beautiful and worn, and perfect.  in fact, we are leaving them just the way they are (for now).

i wish we would have done it sooner!  ;)

now this only leaves the bathroom.  

this is the final room in our house with carpet.  

i hate it.  AND it is coming out too......but this one will be a bigger project.  there is linoleum underneath it.....and some parts that are just subfloor (from what we can tell from peeking up under the corners.......i know our end game involves a pretty big remodel......so we are still talking about the phases.

but today, i will think about our successful progress and ignore the stained footprints near the sink.  lol ;)

introducing our new home!

this is going to be my new home here in just a few short weeks!

(excuse the quality of these photos, i just took them off the realtor's website and they are really small files) 

we managed to find an adorable, charming home that is actually even older than the one that we currently live in!  Built in 1900, this sort of victorian, farmhouse has original oak woodwork throughout and is full of character!

it is on a large corner lot in a well established older neighborhood in town. 

want to go on a quick tour through some of the rooms?!

these photos are all taken with the previous owner's belongings in them, and while i think they have really great taste, i am sure it will look quite different with all our own stuff ;)

love the nice big dining room, and the cool built-ins.  the door frames and windows are all old and i love them!

there are multiple living rooms on the main floor, along with a nice sunroom/office, and a full bathroom (yeah, no more running upstairs when hendrix needs to use the potty!) 

there are three bedrooms all on the upstairs level along with another full bathroom. 

  

i am so excited for hendrix and blaire to get their own rooms, and i have already been plotting what their big kid rooms will look like!  

i am so pleased that these current homeowners have done so many things to the house to make it move-in ready.  it is an old home so there will be some maintenance (primarily repair and repainting of the exterior stucco), but we can wait until we get in and settled to start that project.

you may remember that when we bought our current home, it was NOT move-in ready.  we put some serious blood, sweat, and imagination into every single room of the house; including gutting and fully remodeling the one and only bathroom in the house.

i am so pleased that we were able to find a home that contains the same kind of charm we desire, yet won't require as much work and projects from us at the very beginning.  now that we have two little kids, our energy level for that kind of work is much smaller!

here is a final tour of the home that we are saying good bye to........

as i look through these photos side by side, i am kind of amused by the similarities i see.  the woodwork is very similar,

this space is similar, except i love the built in shelves in our new house better!

and i am even going to get another white kitchen!

the big difference is that we don't have a finished basement in our new house, and really it isn't a "finishable" basement.  we are willing to give that up since we are gaining so much square footage of living space in other rooms....and of course going from a two to three bedroom house was something we really desired with our different gendered kiddos.

we will still have room for a playroom, it will just be right next door to the family room on the main floor.  i am sure that i will miss being able to shut the basement door and walk away from the toys; but i guess maybe this will help me keep the toys more organized!  lol

as for the sale story if you are interested......

our house. sold. quickly.

so quickly.

we put it on the market on a monday morning.....and since we were getting new flooring installed in the kitchen on thursday, we decided to have a delayed showing of the house for friday.  our realtor thought it would work well that way as it gave people time to hear about it and get interested in it; and the hope was to line up lots of showings for the weekend!  

i knew that it was going to be really difficult to keep the house spotless for showings so i had really been praying that it would go quickly.....i didn't want to be too optimistic, but as our realtor was keeping us posted about the number of showings he was lining up, my hope was that we would get an offer by the end of the weekend.

little did we know, that we would get an offer before noon that first day.  

and it was for more than we were asking for the house.  

and then we got three more in the next few hours.  

our realtor encouraged us to let everyone who had scheduled an appointment to view the house for that day look at it before we decided (this seemed a fair way to even the playing field because of the delayed showing); and then that night we got to pick who we wanted to sell our house to.

it was unbelievable.

and then we turned around and made negotiations for the house we wanted; and we literally sold and bought a house in less than 24 hours.

what an affirmation to us that this was the right move for our family right now.

then everything moved in a whirlwind with inspections and appraisals, and our closing date is june 14th.  we don't have much time left here to say goodbye, and really i should start packing things up.......

but instead i am savoring these deliciously warm days with my kiddos in the yard.....smelling all the sweet flowers that i have tended and love, and enjoying the neighborhood kids before we move on and have to start fresh in a new place.

it is bittersweet, but i am very, very excited!

playroom art gallery

i finally finished up my last project for the playroom.  it has been something that i have been developing for a while, thanks to some inspiration from pinterest, but it just kept getting pushed to the back burner.

after hendrix's fabulous finger painting artwork the other day, i decided that we needed to make displaying his creations more of a priority and i just got the supplies and set off to work (with my little helper of course)

the frames are a random collection acquired from a combination of garage sales, good will, and one that i got from the 80% off clearance section at hobby lobby.  i wanted to have varying sizes and styles of frames to make it interesting.  i also picked up the ART letters for 99 cents each.

i did have to pick up one extra paint color, and i chose a spray paint can because i wanted something that would stick well to this frame that is made of some sort of plastic, not wood.  the other two colors i used were leftover from our previous projects in the playroom which i thought would help tie the whole project together. ;)

my helper really wanted to get messy and use the brush to help mommy.  

he was actually a pretty good helper, and he sure made the project more fun.  i thought it was fitting that he wanted to be involved.

i learned that painting on the grass is not probably the best route....as the grass got stuck on the frames, and i had to do extra coats to make it all nice and even.  and there are some big blue patches of grass in my yard now.  oopsies....

hubby was impressed when he came home to these sitting in our yard......i had talked about doing this project, but i don't think he knew how it would turn out.  he loves it!  

as soon as it dried he helped me hang it in our playroom.  and i was so excited to sift through the piles of artwork that i had filed away to find the perfect piece for each frame.  i love that the use of the alligator clips is going to make it so easy to change out the artwork regularly and keep it fresh and current!

it is great way to utilize a big wall and make it bright, colorful and personal!

i love that the playroom now finally looks complete.  

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