Now that we have lived here almost 4 months, I thought it would be fun to share how much and what we have done to put our stamp on this house. I am proud we are 40% of the way through my to-do list. Even if a task as involved as"finish basement" is equally weighted to something so easy as "change burned out light bulb". It's important to recognize every success!
Exterior
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| As you drive up |
Not much has changed, we did have that front tree and bushes trimmed, but otherwise we are looking forward to spring! These are still the realtor's pictures
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| Front Door |
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| 3 car garage! |
You can't see it from this view, but we do have a basketball hoop. I did spray paint that to protect it from the rust; I also sprayed the mailbox because it was suffering the same fate.
Interior
Welcome in! When you first walk in our home, this is what you see!
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| Front Entry hall before |
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| front Entry hall after |
Ok, from the moment we walked into this house, the wood color and paint colors throughout, though very well done, just blended together. Not allowing any details to stand out. Throughout the first floor, we had the hardwood floors sanded and re-finished a darker color, which you can see in the office. We also had changed the wood trim in key rooms to white, to go with the overall plan to change it all to white. On the stairs, we had the risers painted white, and the treads stained with the floors. We also had the railing stained a dark color to match the treads.
The white door you see is a coat closet! I've missed having this, and in such a great location too! Though we've only really used it for cleaning supplies so far, but now that it's getting colder, can I please take your coat?!
Office
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| Office |
The previous family raised?/raced? horses, I'm not sure. But it was everywhere, including the mailbox! In this room, we had just the cabinets painted for now and Jared installed a ceiling fan. Almost every room now has a ceiling fan! We tried a different layout first, but settled on this one. It protects our customer's personal info since you cannot now see in the window. I love that I can look out the window as I work, and see people approaching too! With the cabinets behind the desk, rolling around makes a much better "work triangle".
Living Room
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| Living Room before |
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| Living Room after |
We budgeted X for painting this house. Initial quotes came in at 2X, so we prioritized the main living areas of the house. At the time, I didn't think we would use this front living room as much, so we decide to put this on our "next" list. However, I have found, we use it for daily quiet reading time after school and my morning quiet time. So it will probably be high on our list of what to do next. In this room, we changed the ceiling fan and are playing with furniture arrangement, though we started with a similar layout as the previous owners. This room is still very much in flux
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| Dining Room, from Living Room before |
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| Dining Room, from Living Room, after |
In the dining room, paint paid a key role in the change, as we took the former owners' layout and copied it exactly. We do have a few more pieces we'd like to fill in and decor to personalize, but this room is almost done! I did have my painter paint the ceiling and bottom of the soffit white, and the walls the grey. I did love the different color below the chair rail, but instead of a different color altogether, we just went with a bit darker grey. Decorated for Hanukkah next week!
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| Dining Room from corner, before |
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| dining room from corner, after |
We need some art above the buffet. A project of photos from all of our 14 years of travels is in the works...
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| Entry, from the kitchen before |
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| Entry from Kitchen, after |
Coming from the dining room, to the kitchen, on one side you have another view of the "Great Entry". I love this two story space! It's grand, impressive and functional. Here again, you can see the paint color and wood trim really highlight key features of the house. We did have our painter change all light bulbs. 8 of the 9 were burned out, indicating to us, that the previous owners found that task difficult. Hopefully, with LED's it will be LONG time until we have to do that again. You'll also see how we had the spindles painted white. It was not a fun or easy task for our painter, but I love it! In the before picture you can see a door on the right. That's the powder room. we have done absolutely nothing. The same artwork is in there in fact!
Kitchen
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| Kitchen before |
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| Kitchen after |
And now you enter the most used room in the house. I always wanted a big open kitchen, that was one of my key frustrations from Connecticut - being closed off - and Arlington Heights - no movement for people! Not sure if you can see under the bar stools in the before, but the wood floor had been scratched pretty badly; love how refinishing them corrects that. In this room before, you can see how all the furniture and cabinetry are the same, making the appliances stand out. Not exactly my ideal set up. We had the walls and cabinets painted, spray painted the hardware, and bought new blue counter-height stools. We also painted the kitchen cabinets, not white, but the grey from the bottom of the dining room. I love the contrast!
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| Kitchen from corner before |
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| Kitchen from corner, after |
In this picture, you see on the left, the kitchen desk. Yes, there are two work spaces in this house already, with a 3rd on the works! This one is for home tasks: grocery planning, a place to charge cell phones, etc. Installing an outlet with built in USB ports was helpful, but gosh is it hard to find black outlets and covers! You may also be able to see the control panel for the whole house intercom system. It has made trying to find the kids in this huge house, much easier.
Next to that, you can see a pantry! A huge pantry, almost too big. It's not the best use of the space, but I have plans to rip out the shelves, and make better use of that space with more shelving. Stay tuned
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| Kitchen from eating area before |
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| kitchen from eating area after |
LOVE LOVE LOVE having a kitchen island with barstools. If you knew us when we lived in our condo, we had them then too. I work at this counter making dinner every night, and breakfast is served here. When guests come, they naturally sit here, even adults, for a cup of coffee and it is great! You can see the oven is now black. We have a home warranty as part of the purchase of this house. This oven did not work, and they couldn't repair it, so we got a new one! It's not super fancy, but as a cook and baker, not having an oven for that first month, was tough! I'm still getting used to it being in the wall, and I would like to have double ovens, but for now it's great. It is weird that the oven is electric, since the cooktop is gas, so there has been a bit of an adjustment, but recipes do cook better, I'm afraid to say! (They also fixed our ice dispenser, which I hear repair costs almost equal a new fridge, so I am very happy with the home warranty) I haven't figured out the lights under the microwave yet. I got the burned out ones out, but can't figure out which ones I need to replace them with. It's on the list. Now the cook top. I much prefer knobs in front, I don't like reaching over or even the sides; my kids are grown enough so I don't have to worry about that safety - even when I did, I took off the knobs when not cooking. I also don't like how there are two simmer and two full size, and the location. I wish both full size were in front, but it works and I make do, and someday we will get it right for us.
One other thing I LOVE is the single tub kitchen sink. I've never had that before, and it makes washing big pots and pans easier! It's so deep too, but we do not have a garbage disposal, so hopefully that is near on the horizon.
Eating Area
Love having a table in the kitchen again, though we really only eat dinner here and do homework, but that big window is so great! I can't wait to see the kids playing in the snow this summer.
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| Eating Area from Family room, with Kitchen behind before |
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| Eating Area from Family room, with Kitchen after |
In the after picture, you can see our trampoline outside! It's been a great source of fun for the kids and friends.
Family Room
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| Family Room, from eating area, before |
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| family room, from eating area, after |
Here in the family room, you'll noticed we changed a lot. The paint color and trim, as well as the layout of furniture. I think the way we've used the space really underlines how big this space is! We did have the TV hung as part of our relocation, but it is the same big TV we had in the family room in Arlington Heights - where it was massive, and the basement in Connecticut, where it seemed even bigger. In this room, dare I say, it's almost too small?! Those photos on the wall are all taken with our phones from our travels out east, printed on canvas. The room still needs some life, so we are working on it.
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| "Great Room" before |
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| Great Room after |
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| Great Room, from another view |
This room really is great! I love having the spaces we spend most of our time in, open to each other. The TV is only on during the day for football on Sunday, so it isn't too loud during meals.
Laundry Room
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| before |
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| after |
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| opposite view |
This is the largest laundry room I've ever had! So much storage! It is also the entry from the garage. The a second coat closet, which you cannot see in the photos, is in here. It's where we put our family coats. I have thoughts of somehow converting this space so that we can have 4 cubbies, but time will tell. It's probably the lowest on the priority list, even though we use it multiple times per day! We put in a motion sensor switch so when we walk in from the garage with full hands of groceries, we don't have to turn anything on. We also replaced the overhead light from the tube fixture to a very simple one.
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