You’ve heard all about the big exciting news that we’re moving, so now it’s time for the fun part… the home tour! To avoid waiting for a gazillion photos to load, we’re going to divide the tour into two parts. Today we’ll look at the living spaces and on Wednesday, the bedrooms.

We filmed a little video tour, as well, but we’re having computer issues (which may actually be to everyone’s benefit because it’s super awkward, haha!).

A note on personal style … I just wanted to take a second to make a little disclaimer about personal style. I think we all, and especially me, have a tendency to be like, “ugh, this light fixture/tile/wallpaper/curtains is so UGLY,” but it’s important for me to remind myself that just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong. Our new house was done very well in a style that isn’t ours. It means we get to have fun making this house our own! So, I’m going to be conscious of not being too judgmental about any decision that the previous owner made, because I know she chose the things that she loved, just like we’re going to choose new things that we love. But now that that’s said …

THE HOUSE TOUR!

The entryway. Let’s start at the front door! You walk in the front door to a narrow hallway with a coat closet on the left and steps on the right that lead up to the living room. Down the hall are doors to the attached garage, half bath and basement. Then the hallway opens to the family room. Right now the entry isn’t exactly screaming “WOW” or even whispering “Kerry and Andy live here.” It’s mostly saying, “BLAH.” Though I do like the wood on the front door, with no art or color, the space is boring and not so welcoming right now, so it’ll be fun to come up with ideas to really spruce it up and make it feel like us!

The half bath. This is a tiny room full of style — but not our style. Giving this room a makeover will be one of our first projects. After a fresh coat of white paint on the walls, we’re going to replace the mirror, light and faucet. I’m thinking brass fixtures?! Maybe we’ll freshen up the vanity with some paint as well? Then with some cheerful art, I think this room can be really cute.

That mirror… whoa.

The family room. Like most houses of this era, our house has both a family room and a living room. We want to use the living room as our main living space, so we’ve been calling this family room space “the playroom” because we imagine this to be the perfect spot for baby to play when she gets a little older, especially because we’ll be able to see her from the kitchen. For now, we think it will be more of a multi-purpose room while we figure out where things are going to end up. One of the walls features a huge, dark-brick, wood-burning fireplace, which we plan to brighten up and modernize, probably with paint. There’s also sliding doors leading to the back yard, so this is where Ruby will go in and out. This will be a fun space to work with.

From the other direction, you can see how the the kitchen overlooks the family room.

The kitchen. Our kitchen is tiny, but we have some BIG PLANS for it. We want to knock down the walls around it and open it up to the living room, expanding it to create a big, modern kitchen. We’re sooo excited!! We’re hoping to be able to finish the new kitchen before the baby comes in January, but it all depends on when we sell our old house. If we can’t do it in time, we’ll wait until next year. What’s nice is that what’s there now is pretty good, so we’ll have no problems using the kitchen until we’re able to renovate.

The dining room. Below is the view from the living room towards the dining room and kitchen, so you can see how it all fits together and the walls we want to tear out. The plan is to expand the kitchen into the dining room on the right and add a nice big kitchen island, giving us uninterrupted sightlines and natural light from the back of the house to the front. We LOVE the idea of having a big open space that will allow us to be able to see Ruby and the baby from almost anywhere. It’s so exciting. Getting this open living room/kitchen is probably our #1 reason for buying this house.

The living room. We love this room and can’t wait to hang out in here all the time. It’s a bigger space than it looks like in these pictures, because of the angles, but it’ll be huge and awesome when the kitchen gets opened up. We love the vaulted ceilings and the huge front window that lets in tons of natural light. Plus, Ruby and the cats are going to love sitting in front of this window all the time! We mentioned the other day that we already ordered a new couch for this room, which will be delivered next weekend. We also already bought new white curtains from Ikea to replace these heavy, dark brown ones. We’re going to raise and widen the curtain rod while we’re at it, to let in as much light as possible. Plus, all the walls are getting painted a bright white. Actually, we’re doing that throughout almost all the spaces, which will be awesome. Since I’m not allowed to paint or even be around paint (boo!), we may hire someone to do it for us or else Andy will need to do it a little at a time every day after work. Once the painting is done, we’ll be able to start moving in!

So that’s a quick tour of the living spaces in our new house! On Wednesday we’ll head up the stairs and show you the bedrooms. What do you think so far??