Well, we’re less than two weeks into home ownership and our house is already chaos. We’ve been ripping walls out, adding walls in, scraping down popcorn ceilings, rewiring, tossing appliances and cabinets to the curb and undoing several of the “aesthetic” choices our home’s previous owners made.
I wanted to share a few of our house’s “before” photos (the few I was able to take before Ryan just went straight for the walls with a hammer) so you can see what we’re working with.
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Hello, homeownership! WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!
So, safe to say, our house looks absolutely nothing like the following photos anymore.
We’re super excited to have a garage to work, park, and store our outdoor gear in. We plan to (eventually) replace the cabinets in here and fix some of the stuff that’s not up to code (like the janky water heater that’s missing its fire barrier), but outside of the crucial stuff (water heater) this space isn’t our priority right now.
The first space we’re overhauling is the kitchen, because outside of our living room, it’s my most-used space.
We were originally into the idea of keeping and refinishing the existing cabinets, but… no. Once we got into the space, we realized they’re in awful condition. They’re flaking and splintering, and some of them have water damage, loose joints, and chunks of crumbling wood glue. A previous owner put in tacky mis-matched shelf liners and some pretty sketchy metal brackets… and it’s better off if we just rip them out. They also aren’t the best match for the awkward space. There are a lot of inaccessible blind corners, and we know we can design something way more functional.
We’ll also be getting all new appliances (these were not maintained well, are in rough shape, and don’t really fit the small space), and are closing up that awful pass-through to double our storage/ counter space (we need a pantry!) and make the kitchen way more user-friendly.
As much as I love an open-concept kitchen, this layout doesn’t lend itself to one given that the pass-through wall is load-bearing, and it’s the natural position for a TV in the living room on the other side.
Which, speaking of the living room…
We will be redoing most of this. We’ve discussed opening the “ceiling” (more on that later) up to the beams underneath to open it up a bit more, but we’re not entirely sure what our plan of action is for this room quite yet, short of removing the ugly tiles around the fireplace.
You can kind of see in this recently-listed property what this space looked like when it was originally built.
We’ll be redoing all the floors (we currently have like SIX different flooring styles throughout this entire house) and getting rid of the awful gray everything.
Our windows are in terrible condition, and we’ll have to get them replaced. We also want a new front door since this one is dented and in rough shape.
Because our townhome is, well, a townhome, our living room and dining room is one room.
Hey, at least it’s a partial open concept?
I really wish I’d gotten more photos of this space, but it was the first one Ryan ripped into.
We plan to open up the space beneath the stairs to the right and do a built-in bar. Right now, it’s a pretty gross carpeted closet only accessible from the garage — you can see it in the photo of our garage posted above.
We also have an original ’80s half-bathroom downstairs that we’ll redo as well.
Upstairs, we have “three” bedrooms and two full bathrooms.
This townhouse originally featured two bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, but at some point, a previous owner created a “third bedroom” by closing off the space above the living room.
We do like the idea of having a lofted office (our “loftice”), so we’ll be keeping the loft. However, we plan to rip open the wall and replace it with a cable railing (that we’ll match along the entire upper hallway and staircase) to visually open it up a bit more.
The “third bedroom” is a bit weird as a bedroom due to its slanted ceilings, but it’ll make a decent office. We plan to put in some built-ins for our books, add a day bed/ pull-out bed for guests, put in some comfy seating (can’t have a bookshelf without a place to read!) and add a desk/ workspace.
Across the hall from the “third bedroom” is the proper second bedroom.
We’ll likely make a few cosmetic changes to this room (paint, floors, light fixtures, etc.), and might put in some built-ins. We plan on furnishing it and using it as a second bedroom for guests or (ideally) a foreign exchange student.
One of the upstairs bathrooms is accessible from the hall and right next door to these two bedrooms.
Unsurprisingly, this whole bathroom needs to be redone as well. We think it was originally accessed from the second bedroom and the door was at a later point relocated to the hallway, so its got a bit of an awkward layout.
The master bedroom/ bathroom also needs some work. We plan to (you guessed it) redo the entire bathroom and put built-ins in the closet, among other things.
We’re also excited to eventually get around to designing our yard. Our entire front yard is pretty much driveway, but we’re excited to have plenty of space for Ochi everywhere else.
We have a backyard, a corner yard and a side yard.
The back yard has just enough space for us to set up our grill and pizza oven.
Our corner yard is partially paved and fenced in, and we’ll likely get rid of the concrete and fencing.
Our side yard includes our front door, which is a bit weird — but it does give us more space.
We’re excited to build out this space with new landscaping, a patio, a hot tub, some garden beds, maybe a small greenhouse. It’s last on our to-do list, but eventually we hope it will look nice!
Anyway, just a few “before” photos of our new home. We can’t wait to renovate it and truly make it our home — both functional and cozy.
Follow along!
