One drawback of buying an older home is that you have to replace what is old and worn out. But one advantage of buying an older home is that you get to replace what is old and worn out with what truly matches your taste.
Our home has good bones, but there are certain elements in each room that will slowly but certainly be replaced one room at a time. For instance, I really don't like our baseboards. They are very plain and not very farmhouse/cottage-like. I love nice wide baseboards, so what I have in mind are about 5 inches wide. We need trim around our windows (our windows have none...*yawn*)and also some pretty crown moulding throughout most of the house. All of the plain core doors will be replaced by more substantial doors with more detail. And the ceilings throughout our house are either popcorn or plaster, which does not at all go with the kind of environment I'm trying to create. I would love to cover over the ceilings with pine planks painted a gloss white or off white. Yeah, we're going to be busy for a while, lol, but it's very exciting and fulfilling for me to slowly turn the cottage that currently only exists in my mind into a beautiful real space.
On to the rub-a-dub-dub part of this entry...Our house has two and a half bathrooms, but one of them is upstairs and incomplete (our whole upstairs is one huge incomplete space!). So that now leaves us with only one whole bathroom...a small one at that. I didn't at all mind this when we were considering buying the house because I knew that when the girls were old enough for us to move to the master bedroom upstairs, Sydney would take over our current bedroom/half bath and the two younger girls would use the full bath for all of their girly needs. And I hate cleaning bathrooms, so I wasn't at all turned off by the idea of having a smaller bath. It was still bigger than the ones we had before when we were renting.
The decor, however, is a different story. The flooring is linoleum that is relatively new but very plain. The light fixture above the sink screams 70's, the one above the door is a sad little excuse for lighting. The shelving is plastic-coated ClosetMaid, which is great if they are inside of a closet, but mine are just out in the open. The countertop use to be ugly yellow laminate covered with contact paper (ick!), but that was our very first makeover tackled our first month here. We replaced it with tile and it looks much better. It looks like what you might find in an older country home. Below is a picture of the countertop we did...it's certainly not perfect but looks better than yellow laminate!
The tub, ugh, has seen better days. It is very old and unsightly. And narrow. I keep it hidden behind shower curtains. We knew that someday we would replace it, but we'll soon be replacing the linoleum floor with tile and if the tub is ever going to come out, now is the time to do it. I've had my eye on a certain Whirlpool tub (below) and told Jeff about a month ago that this is what I would love to have. Since the bathroom is small, why not make it small and cozy and relaxing...a pretty little jewel box in which to escape? And I can't tell you how much this would help me when my joints are giving me trouble or when my stess levels are at their peak.
Well, today Jeff called me from work to tell me that not only are we ready to get our roof replaced, but we'll be able to renovate our bathroom now as well...*and* he's even springing for the Whirlpool tub:) I was so happily surprised! Surprised because, for one thing, we'll have to literally move the wall on one end of the tub down about an inch and a half...tearing down and building it up again. Plus, the tub will need to be surrounded by tile so that we can also us it to shower. So lots of work involved.
Besides replacing the lighting and sink faucet and door, we'll also have to build real wood shelving to replace the Closetmaid shelves. This shouldn't be hard, and I'd like to add some nice moulding to it for an added touch. The old baseboards will need to be replaced with nice wide baseboards, plus crown moulding added around the tops of the walls. Ah, and I would love to put up pine planks on the ceiling, but that is kind of spendy, so we'll have to see. I know that we are putting this in our kitchen this coming spring, so maybe we should practice installing it in our bathroom, lol. It's not a big space, so maybe we can fit it into our budget. As I mentioned, our floor will be tile that looks really old world. The color is called Toasted Wheat (below). I'm not sure if the tile surrounding the tub should be the same as the floor or more similar to the countertop. We'll see.
We are going to have so much going on here at home. We have a roofer in mind but we'll probably be getting our roofing shingles in Chattanooga, and I don't know *when* this month we'll get down there. Our weekends are booked with activities (yardsale, congregation picnic, wedding!) I hate the thought of waiting until November to begin, but that is probably when it will be. This month, Jeff is going to start on whipping the deck back into shape, replacing old boards and then restaining it. Plus, we're working on our living room. It would be nice if we could just put the paint up, lol, since I finally have the right color, but we need to first repair and dings in the walls, and before that, Jeff has to run the wiring for surround sound and a couple of wall sconces that are going to flank the fireplace. Such a process! But it's enough work to keep us busy this fall.
Poor Lindsay and Zoe...I have all that new bedding, etc., that I bought several weeks ago for their room, and it's yet to even come out of the packaging:( They don't even know I have it! It's at the top of my closet now. Eese and I often talk about how with our homes, if we do anything, we want to do it right. I don't want to pull out the "accessories" for their room until the room itself is completed (new paint, moulding, baseboards, doors, refinished furniture...), but I'm happy that I have something to go on and a design plan for their room.
That's my home news for the day:)
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