Almost 8 months in, and I'm finally getting around to sharing some of our new house photos! Admittedly, a lot of things have already changed, but nothing is really complete yet so we will stick to the before's today. There has been a lot of painting, fixing, building, and gardening over these past few months. And coming into winter, a few things have jumped to the top of the to do list (like effective heating. Ha!) But regardless of the the ever-continuing list of to-dos, I am as happy as anything here. Every window I look out of, I see green! The garden is full of birds, constantly chirping all day long. Our neighbours are the epitome of what neighbours should be. SO KIND. The dining room I will forever and always swoon over on rainy days, and with all the changes we will one day make years down the track, I can see what this house is going to be. And it will be wonderful! Ty and I had often in the past tossed around the idea of purchasing a home to renovate, and I have to say, I'm now glad that this is the house we chose because the amount of work that needs doing is just the right amount for us. I think a full blown renovation project, especially with three young children, would have been way out of our comfort zone (and abilities!) but here, there is enough to keep us happily busy over the coming years, while still living those years comfortably. I really do believe this house will be our forever home! (I'm confident of this because Ty and I are already discussing plans to knockdown and rebuild the old shed at the back of the garden where I will relocate my art studio, when the kids have moved out. Ha!)
SO here are a few, not so great quality pictures of our little home by the river, that I utterly adore!
Firstly, a floor plan, if floor plans are your thing, to help you get your bearings.
When you enter the front door, we have a little entry space that's perfect for coats and shoes and a bench seat! Im super excited to get this space to it's prettiest and most practical. That door on the left is mine and Ty's room, the only bedroom downstairs.
Our room when we first moved in... wasn't pretty. These pictures are bad enough quality to hide the crazy amounts of grime and grease and general dirtiness on the walls, from years of been hidden behind huge antique furniture. But I knew it could be such a pretty space! The view out the window is all green, and we get beautiful light in there around midday. It took about 3 days straight of scrubbing walls and ceilings and cleaning the window frame before I could comfortably sleep in there without worrying about germs. It's since been painted too, and is now one of my favourite spaces!
The timber floors are so pretty (once I pulled out the staples in the floor that were holding down a ridiculous number of cords). When our youngest is old enough to share, we are contemplating sleeping all the kids in the largest room upstairs while they're still young, and Ty and I moving up to the room that is currently Joan's. Then this space can become a play/living/craft room for a few years.
Back in the entry now, when you come through the front door, this is what you see (though hopefully cleaner and more homely haha). The door you can just see on the right is our bedroom door. The entry leads straight into the lounge room that has an open fireplace, french doors to the side courtyard, stairs leading to the second floor, and the entry to the laundry! It has a lot of jobs and is a rather narrow space for essentially a lounge + thoroughfare, so figuring out how it will make the most sense in regards to furniture and layout is the challenge. We did try having the dining room in here for a while, which I really loved, but other family members weren't crash hot on it, so we switched it back.
The open fireplace is lovely in theory, but practicality, with young children and the fire hazard/inevitable mess, its not so great. At the moment we have it boarded up because Joan kept climbing inside it and getting covered in soot! We are still deciding what we are going to do with it... put in a new wood burning fireplace with a door, or maybe install a gas fireplace? Don't know yet, we'll get around to it in a few years probably...
The stairs aren't exactly the safest. The space between the treads is wide enough for any of my kids to slide right through. So far they are all pretty sensible with the stairs, but we will have to figure out a solution to that that still looks nice but is safer.
One of my favourite things about this house is the floors! I love old timber floors, though these ones do need a bit of sanding and refinishing because there is a lot of discolouration due to sunlight/rugs. But that's not urgent so we will probably get around to it in a few years too.
Below you can see the French doors to the side courtyard, and the door that leads to the laundry, but we will come back to the laundry in a bit...
Walking through the lounge, we come into the kitchen and dining atrium! It is such a pretty space, and that along with the view outside to the gorgeous established garden, is what really sold me on the house. It still needs work though. The kitchen we will replace in a few years, because its old and not the greatest quality. It's layout could also use some tweaking to take the greatest advantage of a not very large space. The floors definitely need refinishing, and lighting and electrical needs some replacement/rearranging. But its all very liveable right now, so we feel happy doing these projects in little manageable chunks.
This wall opposite the kitchen will probably be more utilised in the future kitchen update. I'm imagining moving the fridge here so that the oven and cooktop will have more space and be a little more symmetrical all over. I can envision it, and its going to be great!
And for the best bit... our dining room! This space is heavenly, rainy or sunshiny days. I love it in here. There are a couple of things that will need work though... a few days after moving in we had one of those slap your forehead incidents, when cleaning out the garden bed on the other side a brick was dropped against the glass, and it cracked. The biggest pane of glass too. Over the last few months we have watched that hairline fracture spread right up to the top and my heart breaks a little bit everytime I look at it haha. We've been assured that for the moment it is still safe, so long as no more bricks are thrown against it, but we will be getting that glass (and maybe all of them) replaced soon, but hopefully with double glazed to help keep the heat in and the cold out!
We also have a weird lighting situation, where the only way to turn on the only light in the space (which is on the wall up high above the kitchen bench) is to get a broom to flick the switch, because for some reason, the switch was placed right next to the light?!?! Strange, but a funny point of conversation when the guests come over and it's starting to get dark at dinner time. Out comes the broom!
We will replace the floors in here sometime too. The tiles are ugly and freezing cold in the winter. Don't know what we will end up replacing it with, but if we choose another tile we will definitely do underfloor heating. Tile is probably the best choice for the amount of sun this space gets.
Now back to the laundry! When you enter the laundry and look to the right, this is what you see. This is the oldest part of the house, and as far as we can tell, was not included in their renovations nearly 20 years ago. It houses a reasonable sized laundry space, a seperate toilet and a shower room... which is great for the summer days when we just get back from the beach and need to wash off! But the condition of the room is pretty bad. We've already replaced the windows with ones that can actually close, but that's as far as we've got. This will be our first big reno on the list. The whole space will be taken back to the studs, but the layout itself won't change; we like the positioning of the toilet and shower. I can see this space is going to be so clean and fresh and nice when its all done!
Standing at the other end of the laundry, you can see the door from the lounge (on the left) and an exterior door that goes out to the side courtyard.
Toilet on the left, shower on the right!
Heading upstairs, this is your view looking back down to the lounge room. The landing area is really nice and bright, thanks to the skylights! We just need to figure out how to get up onto the roof to clean them haha. All that this space needs is a paint (which we are halfway finished), new carpet, because this one is in pretty gross condition, and a bit of artwork.
Off the landing their are four doors. The one on the left below, next to the light, leads to the good size linen cupboard. The one on the right leads to the "master" bedroom, which Nancy and George are currently using (and our other kids will too in the future).
On the other side of the hall , the door at the end of the landing leads to the bedroom that Joan's currently using, which Ty and I will probably take over in a few years for a while. The door on the right leads to the only full bathroom.
Nancy and George's room is the largest, and the only one with clothes storage. Below, the door on the left is where you come in, and the door on the right leads to the good size walk in wardrobe, where all the kids clothes are stored.
There is also attic access through that smaller door on the side, which houses storage space, hot water cylinders, and many spider webs!
The windows in the room face full north, and get beautiful warm light all through the day! One of the first things I did was rip off the heavy old curtains that didn't open properly. It made such a difference to the light and space in the room! So the kids currently sleep curtain-less, but we're planning to get new blinds for throughout the house in the coming weeks.
This is the walk in wardrobe. Ty's and mine clothes were also stored here at the start of the year, before I found an old wardrobe at a local garage sale (for $5!) that I cleaned and painted.
Back out in the hallway, and to the bathroom! This space also could use some love, but since neither Ty or I are "fancy bathroom" people and spend no longer than necessary in there each day, fixing up this space is definitely near the end of our to-do list. But I still know what I would like it to look like when that happens! The layout at the moment is really quite good, the only issue being that no matter which way the door swings it would either block access through the hallway outside, block the bath (its current position) which is annoying when the kids are bathing and I want to keep the door open, or block the sink, which means to brush teeth the door would alway have to be closed. So when we eventually redo the bathroom, if I want to fix that problem I'll have to either
a. redo the layout, or
b. install a pocket door instead.
Both of which are a bit of work. But we'll deal with that when we get to it!
The bath, shower, toilet, and sink are all old and need replacing. Although I confess, I am a shower curtain convert! They are sooo much easier to clean than glass shower doors, and when they get grimy beyond saving, they are easily and inexpensively replaced.
I think the only thing we will keep from the original bathroom is the storage vanity. It's a great size, has plenty of storage, and would look lovely either refinished or painted.
Now for our last room... Joan's room! This room is also quite a good size, but possible layouts are still limited because of the attic access door (which I'd prefer wasn't there at all), and the bump out built-in that's covering the slope of the stair ceiling below.
This is the one room we still currently haven't touched, not even painted! But these are the changes I'm most excited about...
Replacing the curtains. The windows are actually quite big, and have the prettiest views of the river and surrounding trees, but the curtains don't show that to the best advantage.
Painting is also going to make a huge difference to brighten up the space.
Replacing the carpet (like the other rooms) because they are pretty old.
Turning that bump out into a cute cushioned reading nook!
It will be such a cute room, and I'm actually quite looking forward to sleeping in it in the future haha!
So thats it! That's the inside of our house in its very original condition. If you made it to the end of this post, congratulations! It was a long one haha! Sometime in the future I will share the outside spaces, and our studio, which is sooo exciting and such a dream come true!
I'll also share the after's of all the spaces, whenever they happen. Our master bedroom is the closest to being finished, so you'll probably see that space next!
xx