I shared last week that we are now the proud new owners of this lovely foreclosure. We have big plans for it and are excited to make it truly shine!
Overall, the house was in very good condition, but needs some cosmetic help. From the outside, you can see that it is a nice secluded-feeling lot with lots of vegetation. The mansard style roof kinda threw me off at first… but it’s really growing on me.
We are going to freshen up the outside with a new paint color that will make it more modern and hopefully complement the metal shingled roof. I’ve played around with a few options and I’ll have to show you all what I’m thinking design-wise in another post. 😉
The entry is tucked away in this little nook. What color should the front door be? Something fun, right?? This area will need some landscaping and a better walkway put in, hopefully we can make it feel like a feature and not a creepy entrance.
As you walk in you are greeted by a hallway with living spaces directly to your right and left. If you go straight through the entry hall it leads to the kitchen. I’m going to take you around the house from left to right…
Directly to the left of the entry is this nice-sized living room. There is not a lot to be done in this space other than paint and flooring. We’ll be painting all the doors, windows, and trim a shade of white. And I’m thinking can lights would be a nice touch in here.
Welcome to the dining room… I am actually so stoked that there are sconce lights in here!! It’s something we probably wouldn’t pay to add, but will bring so much extra character to the final space! Once we replace them, of course, and say goodbye to the faux wall finish…
To the right of the dining area is the kitchen. Guys, this kitchen is massive! It’s truly already a great space… no rearranging needed. We will likely open up the dining room doorway a bit, and that is it. We’ll have a fridge and built in pantry on the left side. The range will be on the dining room wall and we’ll incorporate a large island down the middle.
I’m truly so excited for this kitchen, I think it will make the house sing. Hopefully it will be one of the elements that pushes the house up into that higher sales bracket 😉
Next to the kitchen is an eat-in nook and an office. We’ll be keeping the eat-in area as is and then doing a french door into the office so it feels more incorporated with the space yet still private. In the time of Covid and widespread work-from-home, we’re hoping this office will be a huge bonus to buyers!!
Continuing around we have this second living area. It has some nice glass patio doors, a fun fireplace, and some funky stairs. I’m excited to let this fireplace shine, I don’t plan to do much to it but give it a clean. The stairs, on the other hand, need some help to be safe and functional. Don’t worry, I plan to still honor the floating style, just add some features to make it feel much more kid-safe.
Possibly the coolest feature of this house… right of the living are and to the right of the entry there is this MASSIVE mud room / laundry room. It has washer/dryer hook ups, closets, and a half bath. And from this room you can get to the back yard, basement, and garage. I have some big plans to make this a really special space and another one of those “must-buy” features for the future home-owners.
Upstairs there is a long hallway that connects 5 bedrooms and a hall bath. As you can already tell, I think the previous homeowners liked bold colors. This hallway is purple everywhere and has some crazy track lights going on….
First door to the right is the master bedroom. It feels dark and cave-like with the purple ceilings, but some white paint should help a lot. We are planning to do a carpet upstairs. Mainly because we believe that lots of people still like carpet in the bedrooms, it’s simpler, and it’s makes the second story a lot quieter. Weigh in below, what is your preference? Are you team #woodfloornomatter what? Or are you ok with new carpeting in the bedroom areas?
The master has two closets in the room and then another two through this hallway to the en-suite bath. Ideally there would be a walk-in closet in a house of this size, but we feel it’s more important to expand the foot print of this bathroom.
So, we will be losing the left closet area for a larger vanity and keeping the right closet. That still leaves three closet spaces in the master, so I’m hoping that’s good enough.
Next we have several bedrooms, with some very interesting wall treatments…. These will need a lot of drywall help I think.
This hall bath actually already has some good bones. We’ll be keeping the marble floors, jetted tub and marble tile surround. And thankfully that glass block wall hiding the toilet will be gone! Also, can we just talk about this vanity?! I have personally never seen anything like it. It’s not staying because #weird. But I’m hoping to make some good money selling it on marketplace! The mirror, I’m torn on, It’s very good quality and not too ugly. So, I feel like we should keep it and just replace the vanity. But the lights weird me out a bit. They are very fluorescent.
And finally there is the third full bath in the last bedroom. This one has some very unfortunate wall texture that will likely cause us to have to re-drywall the space. Also, check out this glass block shower with led lighting strips!! There is definitely no lack of creativity in this home….
And now heading outside…. The back yard feels very quiet and secluded. It’s fenced and has this impressive deck. The landscaping needs some help, but let’s be real, this is nothing compared to our current home….
Alright that’s it for now! I’ll be back soon to share some of the story on how we came to buy it and then some design plans.