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| Our Little Yellow Victorian House |
We get the keys today!
As if having a baby wasn't enough we thought we would throw in buying a house and moving into it when I am 8 1/2 months pregnant!
We wanted a fairly small home with three bedrooms and a garage with space for gardening. This house more than fit the bill with just under 1,500 square feet, three bedrooms, two baths and an over sized two-car garage. Plus a large patch of ground in full sun that will become my vegetable garden.
I always imagined I'd live in a house like my parent's house; a ranch from the 50's-80's. And that's what we were looking at with the realtor. At one point I mentioned to her how we really like living in Victorian houses because of all the light. The last two places we have rented have been units in old turn of the century houses. Victorians tend to be huge houses which is why they get cut up into apartments so I'd never really considered owning one. When she suggested we look at this one floor Victorian cottage, I was smitten. I love the tall ceilings, huge windows, wood floors and all the old details like transom windows, glass door knobs and wood trim. Plus this house was move in ready. The previous owners have taken really good care of it.
Now I'll give you a quick little tour. These photos are from our walk through with the Realtor. So they show how the previous owners were living in it. Once we are moved in it will look much less put together. We tend to favor modern light colored wood and furnishing which don't really go with the turn of the century vibe of the house. It will take some time for us to mesh our styles.
The pictures were mostly taken with my iphone, so they aren't up to my normal quality. I'll take a second round once we're move in.
There are lots of brightly color walls, which I feel a Victorian era house can handle. The kitchen is green and a coppery orange. This is perfect considering this blog is a similar color scheme and many of my food photos are taken in the kitchen.
There is a huge island in the middle with some fancy imported stone that is not granite. I almost think the island is too big and there isn't enough room around it. The real test will come the first time I make dinner. If it is too big, we have decided to make a dining room table out of the stone.
The side door enters into the laundry room and that passes through to the kitchen. We do not get the fancy red washing machines, but we do get the owner's old normal white ones that are living in the garage currently. No more schlepping clothes from the second floor to the basement for washing! That will be key once the cloth diapers get into rotation. We will need a clothes line outside too. In the mean time I have several folding clothes racks.
Off the laundry, in what was at one point a one-car garage, is the guest bedroom. It's the only carpeted room in the house. The of the rest of the house has wood or tile. We've already gotten a guest bed for all the baby visitors in the near future.
The front door enters into the dining room. The walls are chartreuse. At first that was scary but now it has grown on me. I am enchanted with the stain glass transom above the door that has the house number in it.
The dining room is big enough we could easily sit eight to twelve people. We can now get a dining room table! Well once our finances settle and we get over the shock of paying a mortgage every month.
The bay window is in the dining room. It faces south. I am guessing that this will be our cat's favorite spot.
Pass through the French doors off the dining room and there's the living room. It has two west facing windows. I know some folks don't like ceiling fans, but I don't care about looks; they are wonderful in the summer.
On the north side of the house are the two original bedrooms and bathrooms. They are both fairly small. Here's the nursery. The family that owned the house has a little boy. I love the blue walls for a boy or a girl. Our baby will be right at home when he/she arrives.
I'm pretty thrilled about this room. The hall bath comes with a claw foot tub! I can't wait to have a bathtub again. I also love the slate blue walls and how the underside of the tub matches.
I must not have taken any photos of the master bedroom. Here's the photo from the realty website. It is also small, but it's plenty of room for a queen bed. We get all the curtains with the house. I should have ask for the matching bed spread too!
And this is the master bath. It is part of an addition (the other part is the laundry room) so it doesn't have the 10 foot ceilings like the rest of the house. I don't care, I'm just excited to have two bathrooms. This will be the first time in my life I have lived in a place with a bathroom to people ratio of 1:1.
Here's how you know it is an old house: rock foundation with a brick floor basement. Not really living space, but it will be a nice for storage.
I saved the best for last. This is the east side of the house. Jeff's excited that there are two windows in the rear of the garage and room for a work bench and tools. I'm excited that there's a big chunk of turf just waiting to be turned into a vegetable plot. Probably not this year, but I hope this fall to prepare the beds so we can be ready to plant next spring.
I have not given up on my dream of building a tiny house. I think there is room on the edge of the lot to build one. Perhaps we can rent it to college students or do one on a trailer and travel with it.
We've got lots on our docket. If you don't see any new blog posts for a while, you'll know why. The baby is due June 6th and from now until the birth we plan on using our time to get as comfortable in our new house as possible. The next time I blog we'll most likely be parents and home owners!
This post was part of the Simple Lives Thursday Blog Hop. Check it out for more information on consuming less and producing more.
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