Pictures First...Story Second

WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY POST ALERT!  And quite possibly, longest post of mine, which is saying a lot.

Yes, when I announced I had big news, it was about moving (thank you Andy for pointing out the obvious). However, we are not just moving, we actually bought a house. Our first house together. How sweet, right? Before I bore you with all of the sordid details of how this came about, I thought I would share the photos of the house as of the day it became ours. We plan on making changes, so in addition to giving you a feel for the home, many of these will act as before pictures as well. Enjoy.

In no particular order (God bless Blogger, it appears we are working through these backward), but with explanation:

Starting with the good stuff. This would be our super tiny dishwasher. Really...can you see how tiny it is? I think it will hold two dishes, two bowls and maybe four glasses. It will not hold the crockpot which you know is how I do much of my cooking.  So, pending a kitchen renovation which is LAST ON THE LIST*, I guess I will be hand washing dishes.  HAHAHHA I crack myself up.

This is the back of the house and is the bay window in the kitchen that you will apparently see further down:

This is our lovely screened in back porch.  As you can see, it is not screened in at all and has snow in it.  Good thing they kept that screen door on right? Or how about that lovely little "out hole" for their cat?  What, could he not jump out the huge gaping unscreened window area? Lazy animals.  We want to screen this back in and perhaps later insulate it and make it a more all weather type room.  Of course that is LAST ON THE LIST.  Oh, and I already have fond memories of this porch as B and I sat in the former porch swing, swinging and contemplating the house.  Bastards took that swing.

Isn't this a pretty picture?  This is our laundry room. Ugly and dirty.  B plans on painting it.  I plan on doing something to make it prettier and useful.  Kind of like my sister-in-law's but on a smaller scale.  Of course, that plan is LAST ON THE LIST.  Don't know if you can tell but we have two electrical boxes.  One can plug into a backup generator outside. The main one, apparently is big enough to provide electricity for our neighbor so says inspection guy. We won't be doing that. Sorry neighbor.

This is one end of our "partially finished" basement.  At first I thought those were built in bookcases (they are not). Then my Mom pointed out the two different floor patterns.  She suggested it was at one time a dry bar. I figured it to be a dance floor and started imitating dancing while putting your drink on the bookcase. No one was impressed.

This is the other end of the basement in all of its glory. Yes the ceilings are really low.  Yes they are that shiny. I don't know why either.  Many parties were had in this basement, I just know it.  Our plan is to make it into a game room or party/TV/game room.  Of course that is LAST ON THE LIST.

Okay, inexplicably we are on the second floor of the house and looking into my huge linen closet.  Upon closer inspection you will note that the top two shelves are smaller than the bottom shelves.  Then you will explain to me why that is.  I suppose that if they were all even, you would not be able to reach things in the way back of the top shelves, but I still can't without a stepladder, so it doesn't matter to me either way.** It just looks goofy.

Great! Now we are all the way up on the third floor a/k/a the future Dani's Big Room. As you can see this is totally unfinished, uninsulated, unheated and not fit for use. However, I dream big when I see this space. I see it as a future office/scrapbooking/contesting/blogging/internet surfing/napping room.  Right now it is rather hard getting up the stairs without bending over and almost falling down them, but that does not diminish my dream. Of course, that just makes it LAST ON THE LIST (sensing a pattern yet?).  This space is what sold me on the house.  Big dreams, I have.

From another angle:

Looking up the treacherous stairs. At the top you have to turn right to go up about three more and because it is so sloped you really have to bend down and there is no guardrail.

Back to the second floor a/k/a where all the bedrooms are.  This is the back smallest bedroom. Snazzy right? That door leads to a small balcony that the inspector advised us not to use during the summer months as it is made with tar and we could either (a) put our foot through it or (b) burn ourselves.  So fun!  Do you wonder why the lock to the door is way down low?  No, short people did not live here. We surmise it was so if some superhuman scaled our brick wall, got on to the balcony and decided to break the window to get in, they would not be able to reach the lock.  However, I am quite sure that they could just then enter through the broken window, but what do I know? That is going to be one of the first things to be replaced. Safety first!

This is the master bedroom and the least offending color scheme of all of the bedrooms.  Allegedly this will be my office, but that is still up in the air right now.

This is our shower. Can you even see how tiny it is? We could practically be showering in the dishwasher.  I stepped inside and thought (a) don't gain any weight and (b) never get pregnant or its just baths for you lady!

And maybe in that last shot you couldn't really see the tile or get the full effect. It is orange.  Really orangey peachy with that bad paint job. I think it will look better with some neutral paint.  And that toilet? Huge because it is original to the house. 1940s toilet means some power flushing. Watch out!

How scary is this bedroom? Or more importantly, the drapes? I swear those were not in there when we visited. This was the daughter's room. She had a complicated six letter name that I cannot remember but that started with an A.  Anyhow, this room is all kinds of scary right now.  And I would like to point out that per the purchase agreement, they were to leave us window treatments. Pretty sure we didn't mean THESE WINDOW TREATMENTS. Maybe we should have been more specific.  Meanwhile, I should have told them to leave that swing...

Or maybe this one is the most atrocious? It's a toss up.  What you can barely see to the left is the red shelves and behind the door? White shelves. A bright blue room with white stars, white shelves and, for some reason, one red one. Make sense? Didn't think so. This was their cats' room.  I kid you not. All that was in there was a cat bed and a scratching post thing. Our cats will not have their own room. Unless they want the basement. They can have that until it is renovated.

How pretty is this door? It is at the top of the stairs of the second floor where the bedrooms are.  You can kind of see the bathroom through the glass. What you cannot see is the other side which was painted white and which apparently they used to keep their dog from going downstairs a lot because he CHEWED HALF THE DOOR OFF.  Yep, this has to be replaced.  Good thing my uncle deals in antiques and gets old doors all of the time.

Finally, we are back on the first floor. Here is our living room,  No window treatments left in this room. Thanks. Just the area where all of the neighborhood can see in.  Yes, that is a real fireplace. And the windows are original to the house.

Hard to see but that is a small back room off of the living room which was used and will still be used as a TV room. I also call this B's room because the big TV with all of the games is going in there and you know how he likes to game.  Give him his laptop and I don't see him leaving this room ever.

Looking from the TV room into our kitchen at our refrigerator:

The kitchen.  Thank God they left us extra paint for those cabinets (country baby blue - is there such a thing?). Worst set up ever. That empty space used to be for a fridge, but now it is for nothing and there is a total lack of cabinet space and counter top space. Renovation needed but, say it with me, LAST ON THE LIST.  The floor is interesting because although it is wood, it is a different kind than the wood floor in the dining room, which you will see shortly.  And that stove to the right? From 1955. The oven is TINY.  But we are keeping it for now. It looks cool.  I will let you know how the baking comes out in it.

Another view:

The big bay window with seating in the kitchen (you saw the outside of this in the first picture).  The cats are so going to love this:

Stairs from first to second floor:

Glass door between living room and small foyer.  As you can see a pane is missing in lower right. This must have happened when they moved as it was there both times we saw the house. Again, thanks guys!

Foyer and front door:

And finally, last but not least, the dining room:

So that's the house folks.  It will be changing slowly, but surely.  And even though it sounds like everything is LAST ON THE LIST, we have a lot to do to keep us busy and I will be updating as we go along.  

It may sound as though I think this house is awful, but I assure you I do not. Luckily B and I were able to see past the color schemes and the owners' furniture and see what we could make it.  Together.

We can't wait.

*Everything big is LAST ON THE LIST due to the money factor.  However, it does get ridiculous when talking about plans to hear that said almost every single time.

**Yep, today at the store I had to have some guy get some iced tea for me that was in the back of the cooler. I am not that short, but I sure felt it. He didn't seem very happy to be helping.  Thanks anyway random tall dude.