Old House, Young Family - Round 2

I'm doing it again! I've sold a house, bought a house, had a baby, and moved...again! This all happened three years ago, but I'll get to that later. For the past two and a half months, I've been planning, sketching, re-sketching, meeting with contractors, stressing lots, and sleeping little all in hopes of getting my second home. Well, the deal finally closed and we've started renovating, and by that I mean breaking things, digging holes, and generally making a big mess. Most of my friends and family know I'm a little bit obsessed with everything to do with houses. I have books and books full of floor plans I've drawn and a freakishly large interior design magazine collection. So when I started telling people that I bought an old house and plan on building/renovating, I've had a lot of requests for before and after pictures. So many, that I decided to start blogging about the whole experience. 

I'll start with some before pics and keep you posted on the progress. When you see the before pics, keep in mind that I have a real estate broker as a father, so I grew up touring houses for fun and appreciating hideous homes for their "good bones." 

The house is over a hundred years old, and it has had pieces added on over the years. The obvious ones are: a front porch, a wood shed on the side, and a carport. Originally, the house was cape cod style house, and that is what I intend to restore it to (with all the bells and whistles of a modern home of course). My little cape cod sits on five acres overlooking the river valley. 

The house comes with that cute little boy too!

When you walk in the front door, the living room is to the right of the stairs. The plan for this room is to sand the hardwood and replace the sliding glass doors with hung windows to match the kitchen. Later, I plan to tackle the paneling.

Nice, wide staircase.

Turn right, and enter the big, eat-in kitchen. I can't wait to renovate this room! It's definitely my favourite room to design.

Future upstairs play room.

I plan to create a cozy, reading nook for the kids.

Caleb's room

Charlotte's room. Caleb wanted to keep the "red room" because his favourite colour is red. Try telling a three year old that this wallpaper is hideous!

We'll demo the homemade closets and the creepy closet under the eaves to make the room a little bit bigger. I plan to put my double bed in Charlotte's room and get myself a nice, king size bed. Can't wait to have more than 10 inches of sleeping space...I think the other Mommies out there will understand this.

I've concluded that the previous owners thought wallpaper was even better than duct tape. They use it to cover messes, fix holes, insulate the walls, and last but not least, make things "pretty."

Front porch will be coming off!

Key ingredient to making lots of land pretty with little maintenance...perennials.