Oh, the PLANS!!!! Every room…Plans. I have so many plans and ideas in my head right now. Just swirling around in there. Just marinating. Blossoming. Reconfiguring. It’s.so.dang.FUN!!!!

We finally got possession of the new house Wednesday, and are now in the process of getting a few things done before we move in (more on that in another post).   In the meantime, I thought I’d begin our tour of “before” pics of our new pad. I’m gonna break down the tour into smaller segments because… Well… I have a lot to say (feel free to feign surprise).

I thought I’d start at the beginning… with the foyer.  This is the view when you walk in (ignore the unpainted door jamb… it’s on the list)…

When you walk in, you’re faced with a small foyer area. To the left are both the hallway to the bedrooms and entrance to the living room….

From the other direction…

And towards the right there is a sizable coat closet and an entrance to the kitchen…

And from the other direction…

Walking into the kitchen you see this…

This kitchen features original cabinetry, chipped laminate countertops, a dented sink and mismatched appliances.  It’s not nearly as offensive as it could be, though. Seriously, some of the kitchens we saw when we were house-hunting were epic. This kitchen is livable and is actually starting to grow on me a bit. It just needs a little face-lift.  We definitely have a good deal of storage space in the cabinetry. Though, for some reason, whenever I walk in I get the distinct feeling that I’m being watched….

Heehee!  Not sure when the whole hardware-in-the-center-of-the-cabinets-thing was a good idea. It seems inefficient and awfully schnoz-like, but what-evs. The 70’s were a crazy time (or so I’ve been told. #eightiesbaby).  The kitchen is the space where you’ll likely see the least amount of major changes at first.  Of course, I totally plan to decorate and tweak the space.  It’s just that we plan on a giving this room a total overhaul down the road.  I’m talking opening walls, new cabinetry, new layout, new countertops.  The whole chebang.  Except for the floors… I really like the slate.  We want to live with the space for a while before we decide what we want to do with it reno-wise to be sure that we account for how we truly use the space.  We’re lucky that it’s a large room, with a nice eat-in space…

The French doors lead out to the pool, and the closed doorway to the left leads to the laundry room and half bath. We’ve already tossed the idea around of opening the wall that separates the kitchen from the larger dining space (that huge bank of upper-nose-cabinets shown two pics above) and then using this eat-in area of the kitchen to house more cabinetry to make up for the loss of upper cabinets. We’ll see though. Much can change between now and then.

If you go through the door to the laundry room, you see this….

This beautiful blank slate of a laundry room. We’re definitely gonna add shelves or cabinetry for storage and possibly a little mudroom area for pool stuff. That door straight ahead leads to the covered patio out back. I’d love to replace it with a door that has a window in it. Maybe something to match the French doors in the kitchen. This room needs some natural light and that would be an easy way to do it. To the right, is a nice-sized pantry, and the so-called half bath. I say “so-called” because it’s literally a teeny room with a toilet…

You have to use the sink in the laundry room to wash your hands, I guess. We think they put this in to be convenient to the pool, which is pretty genius in that sense. It was just kind of weird seeing it for the first time during our showing. It was like… Oh, hey, a random toilet… (Pause) Mmm’kay, cool.

Now, coming back into the kitchen and facing the opposite direction, you see this view of the kitchen….

That open doorway to the right leads to the dining space….

And just for fun, here’s a better shot of the view out of the window…

The dining area is open to the living space…..

Now, I’m standing where the sliders are in that last pic and looking into the living room….

It’s darker in this part of the room since there’s no overhead lighting or skylights. We plan to add some recessed lighting to the vaulted ceilings and possibly a solar tube to brighten up the space with more natural light. That open doorway back there leads back out to the foyer and hallway.

As for projects in this room:  The built-ins will definitely be getting makeovers…

This one next to the fireplace will likely be painted white to allow the fireplace to shine. The two compete visually right now since they’re such similar colors. Then, we have the wet bar….

Joey thinks this is the coolest thing ever. I personally don’t get it. I mean, why a sink??? Wouldn’t an ice-maker make more sense?? Or better yet… a wine fridge??? Just sayin’. I guess I’m more of a dry-bar person. No sense in wasting perfectly good plumbing. In any case, at this point, the sink stays and this little area will look completely different when I’m done with it. I’m thinking: remove mirrors, add a pendant light, paint cabinets white, remove side/backsplashes, apply a concrete overlay treatment to the countertop, add some art. Oh. Yeah. Come to mama.

Here’s the view of the living room when you walk in from the foyer….

I just love it. That fireplace!!! You had me at that fireplace. The fireplace will remain original. We’re planning on changing out the carpet in this room for wood floors before we move in, so stay tuned for that.  And the view of the porch through the windows will also change, once we’ve gotten our hands on it.  Joey’s already busting at the seams with eagerness to get started on that project.  I’ll go over the plan once I get to the outdoor tour, though.

So, my friends, this is where I end today’s tour. I’ll pick up next time and cover the rest of the house. Until then, we’ll be tirelessly working on some of the maintenance issues that were picked up in the inspection (post about that later) and getting estimates for various items.   So, wish us luck!  🙂