Sarah’s House: Introduction

Happy Valentine’s Day peeps, I decided on this day that we celebrate love I’d introduce you to the house that I’ve been in a rocky relationship with for the last couple of months.

In January of 2011 we said goodbye to Bungalow 404 and have now successfully moved in to our new house.

And here’s the overdue introduction,

Our new house was built in 1928. It sits on a large private lot which was a major selling point for us and it includes a separate one bedroom guest cottage for extended family or a tenant to help with the mortgage payment-that was also huge as you can imagine.  The house experienced some mild updating in the late 1980s which has already aged out and I expect the 22 year old Sub Zero to croak any day now.  The exterior is sheathed in vinyl siding and there have been some bad updating choices made along the way.

In addition to what you see here there are two more bedrooms, a full bath, a tiny office and four crazy big attic storage spaces upstairs.

Most of the interior pictures were taken when the house was occupied by either the previous owner or tenants. I apologize for some of the dark pictures but I think you’ll get the idea.

Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room

great fireplace and built-ins in living room, not sure what type of wood the ceiling beams are made out of yet but I think it gives the room an English country vibe

Living room again with view of front entrance

there are french doors on either side of the fireplace in the living room, this is the right side

french doors on the left side of the fireplace

Den/library

view of fireplace in den/library, the mantle appears to be constructed out of the same wood that was used for the ceiling beams

The den has a whole wall of built ins that I have re-worked twice already and they still need some additional tweaking.

Master bedroom

Master bedroom, window seat #1

Master bedroom, view of window seat #2

We are unpacking as steadily as we can but when everyone in the household works full time, you can imagine how the process might progress a bit slower.  We are also making necessary repairs as we go along.

This house presents a mountain of challenges.  The last time it was updated was in 1988 and that was mainly the kitchen and master bath. We’ve began attacking the short list of repairs that are emergencies but I’m apprehensive about making the “real” list.  Two weeks in to living here the dryer died, the door nearly fell off the dishwasher and the ceiling in the basement began leaking.