Our first night in our new house ended up being a sleepover at Johnny’s parents house because we had a gas leak about the time the baby needed to go to sleep and we had to wait for the repair man. The next day when we officially began living here, the only dishes I had to feed the baby with were my good china ones. I know the food tastes the same and since we hardly use them, I was grateful for an opportunity to pull them out but amongst the craziness of our home, here I am using plastic cutlery and fine china. After dinner at baby’s bath time, the hot water had a strong sulphur smell to it from sitting unused for so long but she was desperate for a bath so I scrubbed my daughter with water that smelled like rotten eggs and put her to bed in her crib surrounded by boxes in her room. Later that evening, I lay in bed and recalled the events that lead to using fine china and bathing my baby in rotten egg smell. It all start at the end of June when we signed a contract on a home and were given a closing date of around August 3rd. On September 19th, we finally closed and started another great adventure.
On our favorite show, Fixer Upper, the opening credits asks “do you have the guts to take on a fixer upper?” Well, we kinda, sorta, maybe have the guts but this experience will fully demonstrate what those guts look like. You see, the house we bought was built in 1941 and in all definitions, meets the criteria of a fixer upper. It’s a 3bed/2 bath colonial home with a large den, separate dining room, kitchen with a nook, laundry room, huge backyard and beautiful porch that spans most of the front of the house. Instead of a garage, it has a barn like structure that I’m not confident would be a safe place to house anything, especially a car and behind that a playhouse that is a mini fixer-upper. The house is quite large with just under 2,200 sq ft so our goal is to live here for 6-10 years (the difference in years depends on which of the two of us you ask) until all our children are born then move back to country and build the house of our dreams. With this house costing us much less than any other home this size, we’re hoping to save enough to do what we want with the future with a good cushion.
Our dreams for this house is to restore some of it to it’s original state and to update other parts. We have reason to believe that behind the paneling walls and foam tile ceilings, there are planks and planks of shiplap just begging to be exposed and painted. We want to install barn doors leading into the den and rework the laundry room as well as master bathroom. I personally want to rip out the pink countertop in the hall bath and every single yellow and blue tile from the shower. Half the house has original hard wood floors but the other half has carpet and buckling laminate floors so we want to place those as well. Every square inch needs painting on top of some electrical work and plumbing items. A big project I’d like to do next summer is have French doors put in from the den leading outside to a brand new deck.
Clearly we bought this house for the potential of what it could be with a little sweat, hard work and money! We’ve decided to blog about our experience so our friends can tag along on this journey and maybe pick up a few tips on what to do or not to do.