Hello from Virginia and a house tour

Hello from Virginia! 

We closed on our new old home about a week and a half ago and have been busy unpacking boxes, settling in, meeting our new neighbors, and of course, celebrating Christmas in the middle of it all.  It’s been busy and fun and overwhelming all at once.  But we are happy and excited about our new life up here.
The home we bought is a mid-century Ranch.  It is in wonderful condition and was very well loved by it’s previous owners, but there are a lot of updates that we plan to do to make it home for us.  I’ll start off by giving you guys a little tour of how it looked when we moved in.
When you first walk in the front door, you are facing straight into the living room area. (If you turn to the right immediately, you are looking into the eat-in kitchen area).  I love all the windows overlooking our backyard and the natural light that floods into this room.


Same room, different angle.  Standing in the dining room area, facing the living room.  That hallway goes to the bedrooms.
 

Continuing around through the dining room, here is the view into the kitchen.  I’m loving that brick wall and the character it adds to the area.  I’m undecided on whether I will paint it white or leave it as is.  Your opinions? 


The cabinets will definitely be painted white or replaced with new white cabinets. Also, imagine butcher block counter tops, stainless steel appliances, a farmhouse sink, and subway tile backsplash. And new floors!
Kinda like this:

via here
or this

via here
But right now, it looks like this.


Other side


Master


Master Bath


Boys Room


Peyton’s room


Kids Bath

That sliding door on the bathtub has already come down.
I did not take as many pictures in the walk-out basement.  There is a large living area down there, guest room, full bath, small room, laundry room, and workroom. 
Basement Fireplace (It will be painted white!)


As soon as we finished closing on the house, we started ripping up the carpet in the main living area, dining room, hallway, and bedrooms to reveal the hardwoods underneath.  We wanted to get it up and out of the house before the movers delivered our stuff a few days later. 
We started in the Master.




Ta-da!


Tyson and Peyton helped with the labor.  Going into this project, we really had no idea how much work it would be or how long it would take.  But we got all the carpet ripped up and out of the house in one afternoon.

The most tedious and time consuming part was then pulling up all the staples and the tack board that goes around the edge. But it was so worth all the hard work. The difference the exposed hardwoods make is dramatic.
Overall, we are extremely pleased with the condition of the hardwoods. There are some areas that aren’t perfect. It could definitely be sanded down and refinished, but there is nothing that bothers us enough to do that right now. With three kids and a dog that scratches the floors with his claws, we decided to just embrace the flaws as character. They’re old and creaky and I love them.
Here are a few pictures of the space afterwards.




Since then, we’ve done a few other things on our (very lengthy) to-do list. 
On Christmas day, on a whim (as in, I saw a small piece of wallpaper that was beginning to peel up from the wall), I started ripping down the ancient wallpaper in the kitchen. 


We got it all down, but still have a long way to go in there. 

As my father-in-law says, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Small steps, one thing at a time, and we will eventually get there. I just have a hard time being patient in the process though. 
I plan to “try” to keep this blog updated with all our home improvement projects.  We’ll see how that goes.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  And Happy New Year to you too!