Scarlett Pannebaker

We are officially home owners!! We closed today, on 2.13.12, and it went very well. After the closing we picked Truman up from daycare and went over there as a family. Just walking around in OUR home feels amazing and I can't wait to start making memories there! 

So let me back up a bit and really go into detail about the actual process of buying this home. I figure a time line is the easiest way to explain how quickly this happened.

Time line of events for buying our first house:

12.22.11-- met with a local credit union to get pre-approved for a mortgage. Relatively painless. Big first step!

12.27.12-- met with a highly recommended realtor to discuss what we wanted in a house. Immediately loved our guy and became really excited about the house hunt.

12.29.12-- saw 7 homes we found online that caught our interest for cute cosmetic updates. Hated floor plans, locations, the lack of dining rooms, teeny bedrooms, etc. Cosmetics are not a priority anymore and every house had at least one deal-breaker.

12.31.12-- saw 2 more homes from online listings, compromising on the 'pretties' and focusing more on floor plan and location. No real winners here, deal-breakers in each house.

1.3.12-- saw another house we found online, knowing it was 'old-ladyfied' but a fabulous location and great floor plan. Loved a million things about it, worried about a hundred things including the amount of work it would take to fix potential major issues in this 87 year old home.

1.7.12-- second showing of our fave house, brought Tony, Lois and Truman. Got a thumbs-up from them. Still nervous about 'hidden' costs to such an old home but really excited to take the plunge. Had been on the market for 50 days without an offer, and home was vacant as the owner was elderly and her children were the sellers.

1.10.12-- made our first offer on the house! Sort of 'low ball' at 40k less than listing price, but our realtor really thought they overpriced the house and we trusted him.

1.14.12-- seller countered at 15k less than their listing price. Doh!

1.14.12-- gave our final offer, at 30k less than their listing price. Still well-below what we expected to pay for our first home, but trying to account for the repairs and upkeep on an old house.

1.16.12-- seller accepted! We either got a great deal or will still be paying a LOT for repairs and updates, depending on the inspection. Mostly worried about electrical, roof, and chimney. We watch too much HGTV and know that homes can have some scary hidden issues:)

1.21.12-- inspection completed, best case scenario for us: chimney could use a bit of work if we want to do it now, but the electrical and roof are fine. Water heater is ancient and giving off carbon monoxide, but no major issues. The inspector said, 'This is a great house' and then I almost cried. :)

1.24.12--asked sellers for some closing credits and a new water heater before closing.

1.26.12--sellers accepted our amendments!

1.28.12--appraisal came back from our lender and we are getting about 20k of instant equity in our house, considering what we are paying versus what it's worth!

2.13.12--CLOSING DAY! We are home owners!

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And now, more pictures of the house. Plus my Pinterest ideas and a few projects that are on our big list of To-Dos.

Exterior of house, back yard, driveway:

So we really aren't going to do a whole lot to the outside of our house just yet. It is wooden, painted siding that the sellers must have just painted. So someday, when it chips, we might replace it with vinyl siding. And then we'd do the roof and MAYBE do all new windows. Hello, giant projects and expensiveness! But if we do manage to do all of this exterior work, I would totally go for a brand new color scheme on the house. I picture slate blue siding with white trim and a grayish roof. Side note: see our cute 'airing porch' across the top level in back? PERFECT for hanging cloth diapers to dry, and for a little table and chairs to enjoy a glass of wine on warm evenings. Oh, and Nate wants to build a back patio in the back yard and possibly fence in our property, too. So never mind---there are lots of exterior projects but none will be done anytime soon. Except maybe put in a swing set for the kiddos. This yard is HUGE compared to what we have now, so we want to live it up!

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The Family Room (aka, where I think we'll spend most of our time):

This is our huge, long room right when you enter the front door--with a working, natural fireplace and tons of windows. Really hate the powder blue carpet but that is the first thing to go anyway, because the hardwood underneath is going to look amazing when we get it refinished. And you can see all of the dark woodwork that I plan to paint white as well. I realize this is a very controversial topic because this type of wood is 'very expensive' and in great shape, but it's just so dark and old to me. I want bright white trim with a modern color on the wall---like maybe a pale blue? Love the built in bookshelves and the french door and the numerous windows. I think getting rid of the heavy window treatments will make a ton of difference in this room all by itself, then you add in wood floors, painted walls and painted trim? Dreamy.

And now for Pinteresting this room...
I bought this rug for our family room. Yes, it's a trendy chevron pattern but it was a great price and will be awesome for making the room come to life:


And this is sort of the overall color scheme I want for this room--bright throw pillows, pale blue walls, and white woodwork:


On our 'someday' list, I want to convert the fireplace to gas and make it super sleek, sort of like this one.


And we are thinking of making some storage/shelving system for the front of the room right when you walk in. I think this would be perfect!


I plan to attempt sewing some paneled curtains for all of the windows in the room, and want my mom to help me make some Roman Shades for the tiny windows above the built-in bookcases by the fireplace. Kind of like this, but not black and white, and maybe we'll just sew them for real instead of relying on Stitch Witchery:



I really want new couches, too, but that might have to wait. And I hope to recover our existing throw pillows with a new color scheme (or just buy some cheap ones, whatever is easiest).

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The Dining Room:


We have radiators as our heat source (and a brand new boiler that supplies them)! Which means we don't have any forced air duct work, and we also don't have central AC. Someday we will probably add it but not right away. We've never had central AC in Wisconsin anyway, and really we only run our little window units maybe 2 weeks a summer so we plan to do that again for a little while at least. At first I hated the look of the radiators, but now I think they are sort of charming and since they are freshly painted, we'll just leave them alone. But when they do start to chip, I want to invest in some awesome wooden covers like this:

The built-in china cabinet in the dining room will stay natural wood, as will the windows above it (where I think more Roman Shades would look fabulous). But the door frames and baseboards will be painted, I'm afraid. I want a new light fixture and plan to spruce up the walls and find a cool dining room table, similar to this:


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The Sunroom/playroom/office:

I love this sun room so much. It is going to be SUCH a pain to paint the french doors and all of the windows, but I think white woodwork in such a bright sunny spot is a must. Thinking of either a light yellow or maybe light green for the walls? I picture it to be something like this, which is a sunroom from a totally different house we were eyeing a while back. White wood, light walls, hardwood floors. Drool.



I am leaning towards putting our desk and computer/printers in there along with a lot of kids' toys, which will make this a multi-purpose room, for sure. But it's right off the dining room and would be a great place to store the numerous toys that are taking over our family room right now. I envision a lot of pictures being taken in this room because of all the light.

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The Kitchen:

So THIS is where we will spend a big majority of our money and time, because although this is a functional kitchen it's just not very 'us'. We want all new, stainless steel appliances, new counter tops (dark-ish), and white cabinets. I'm hoping we can get the flooring guys to tear out the multiple layers of ugly linoleum and find the hardwood under there somewhere to refinish. Really dislike the wall-o-cabinets as a pantry, so I'm thinking of making that area a small desk with open shelves above it.

For the cabinets, I think we will just order new doors all together and then paint the existing bases white because I don't mind the layout and the cabinets are actually in great shape. How cool will it be to have tiny glass doors for that top row of cabinets that we have now? I think it will really break up the space and make it seem more complex, instead of just having a TON of cabinets:


And this is the color scheme I love the most--wood floors, white cabinets, and gray-ish counters with aqua walls. Swoon.


Nate wants a 'real' island in there, and we definitely won't put a kitchen table in the middle of the room. But what about a fun island like this instead of a big heavy-duty one?


Expect many posts on our kitchen renovation, because we are hoping to do a lot of it ourselves and we want it done before we actually move into the house. And I personally want to be in the house by April to give us some time to settle before baby comes in May--we shall see if this order is too tall or not:)

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Upstairs-- the three bedrooms and full bath:

All three bedrooms are close to the same size, but our master has a gigantic closet. And the nursery only has two windows instead of three. The woodwork is mostly white on this upper level already, thank goodness, so we'll definitely do the walls and maybe change the doors to white, too. I really dislike the look of our bathroom and a renovation is on the 3-5 year plan for sure. Just adding a radiator cover and a nice shower curtain would do wonders for it, don't you think?

Pinteresting Baby Girl's Nursery:

My beloved rug arrived the other day and I could not be more in love. It's SO pretty in person, you guys.


And I want to paint our current Jenny Lind style crib pink, sort of like this, but not quite as bright. I'm tempted, though, to go all out on this one:)


Love the blues, aquas and pinks that I could pull from her rug into the bedding/curtains/rocker. And I just LOVE this paint color combined with the aqua accents.


Not sure if I'll do a pink crib and pink walls, though. Don't get me wrong, I am a pink freak but there's no need to go totally crazy for this little girl. Maybe aqua walls with the pink crib would be more tolerable?


Truman's room:
My boy will keep his bold striped rug, the fabric pennants mom and I made, his new bed with truck bedding, and most of his artwork. Except I want to make something similar to these two Pinterest ideas for him, too:





Our Master:
I bought a new duvet cover for us from West Elm that I am loving. This is it:


So I want to go with the ever-popular gray and yellow theme in our bedroom. I think I'll do a pale yellow paint on the walls, or maybe just stick to gray? But then I want to spice it up with yellow and printed throw pillows on the bed (something else to sew!!):


So overall, kind of like this but not exactly.


Bathroom:
Yeah, really don't love our bathroom right now. Would LOVE to make it more like this one someday:


Wainscotting or beadboard, aqua, and yellow. Love. But our current bath is functional now so whatever. And the half bath on the main level is just 'fine' too. Gotta love 'someday' projects!

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Other details of our new home:





Love our old door knobs, the solid doors, the great original crown molding and baseboards and door casings, the built-in bookshelves, and the hidden hardwood floors I found by pulling up the carpet. This house is going to be totally transformed just by doing our 'big three' projects before we move in: the floors, painting walls/wood trim, and the kitchen renovation. I really hope we can pull off the balancing act of decorating an old home to fit a modern family. And mostly, I can't wait to start making our own memories in a home that surely has stories to tell from past decades. It's going to be a lot of work but we are so excited to finally become home owners!

Now if only I can remain calm and collected while caring for my toddler, working part time, being pregnant, packing, moving, painting, decorating, SPENDING MONEY.....so much to do, so little time. Let's all hope it goes smoothly and we can move in before baby comes and our lives change even more. :)

I like reading back on my post from 2013 when I was 'itching for some house projects' because just a few months later, we updated the fireplace (check), finished our back hallway (check), and then a year later we finally finished the basement (big fat drawn-out check). So does this mean that whatever I discuss on this newest To Do list will magically happen within the next year? NICE.

But first: our house was built in 1925. We are just the third owners and we have done a lot of cosmetic work to this place, living here for a full three years now. Actually we did a majority of the work from the time in February 2012 when we bought this house, until April 2012 when we moved in. But either way, we've definitely made it our own and it feels very much like us. I have shown many before and after pictures on this blog before, but here is 'the big room' in all it's glory from the relator pictures.



And here is that room this morning. Just a few changes, right?


And we won't even talk about the changes in the kitchen.


From the first day we laid eyes on our beloved house, before we even placed an offer on what would be our 'forever home' (probably), I disliked a few things: 1. The disgusting blue wool carpeting in every square inch of the house, 2. The radiators, 3. The tile in our full bathroom. Actually there was a lot more that I didn't love but we'll stick to these three for now for the sake of a succinct post.

We pulled up the carpeting (and by 'we' I mean Tony and Nate, I was super pregnant with CC and got out of a lot of manual labor because of my Cecelia bump) and had the original floors refinished. Best money we've spent on the house, for sure. But the other two bad boys on my list? It's time.

To be fair, I don't actually hate our radiators themselves. In fact, radiant heat is pretty amazing and I kind of love not having forced air ducts in our house (no central AC though, not my favorite but also not worth the $$$$ to add it currently). The radiators have grown on me but initially I thought they were very very ugly. Now I like them, we use them to store items on top (i.e. hand sanitizer, towel warmer in the bathroom, etc) but I just despise the color they are painted currently. Originally I was looking into making radiator covers for everything in the house and now I just want to paint the things and be done with it. I painted the one in Porter's nursery and it turned out really well to completely TRASH a paint brush and make the radiator match the wall color.



Things I notice about the above picture: TINY baby Porter (ouch, my ovaries), my gigantic breastfeeding-prime boobs (miss you!), and then the radiator color with nice topper thing for storing my owl family.

Anyway, the rest of the radiators in our house are in rough shape. Pretty sure the previous owner painted them at least a dozen times over the year or something because they are caked with paint and parts are chipping off, and parts are just really freaking dirty.

The cream-isn color radiator in the background doesn't look too awful when these dudes are in the foreground, right? Everything in our house was cream or a yellowish when we moved in--all walls, all ceilings, and all radiators. They really liked cream and yellow.


If you look past these three characters you can see my number one nemesis radiator: and the corner where the sanitizer rests is basically black or rusty or something awful. This will be my first Operation Paint the Freaking Radiators project.


That is one thing I truly despise about our radiators: they trap dust in those nooks and crannies like none other. Nate bought a specific long-handled duster thingy that helps but still really bugs the heck out of me with how dirty they become. I looked into more 'low profile' or European radiators online and they are alright, but apparently our original cast iron ones are super expensive which makes me want to keep them. BUT! I am putting 'Paint all radiators' on my list of things to do. Because it really won't take much time and it will significantly improve my happiness level, I'm sure. I want to just match each of the radiators to the wall color for now. Except for the one in our full bathroom. More in a bit because...

THE BATHROOM is my most prominent dream for The List right now.

This was one of those projects that we originally wanted to do right away, and we *did* do a few things to this room to update it. We changed out the light fixtures, painted the walls, painted the woodwork (from the yellow to white), got a new sink and console, new medicine cabinet, and new shelves above the laundry chute. So what remains? The speckled yellow tile. I've always hated it but chose to ignore it, buying a shower curtain that sort of helped pull it all together somehow. But no. I hate it so hard. And that yellow radiator, too.



This is very 70s and I'm sure the owners before us replaced whatever was the original tile at that time. Oh, how I wish we could somehow pull up the floor tile to see what the 1925 original would be, but I'm pretty sure we can't take one layer of tile off to restore the first layer. But the tile on the walls? (pay no attention to Cecelia drinking bath water, okay?)


At first I was adamant that we tear it all out and redo the entire room with new tile. But as soon as I mention this, Nate and his dad claim that we'd then need to replace the actual walls and we should add insulation and (really intense) stuff like that. So then I got a quote for having the tile re-glazed and it was something like 2k and wow, that's a lot of money for some ugly bathroom tiles.

Then Nate saw an episode of This Old House that showed a DIY version for painting tiles. I can't find the episode now but here is some talk about it. Basically you have to use a special kind of epoxy-based paint after some hard core cleaning. This sounds both horrible and awesome to me as I really just want plain white tile in there. I'm certain life would be much better with white tiles and I would happily toss all of the extra speckled stuff we have stored in the basement, too.

I suppose we will have to leave the floors although they are also not my favorite. The radiator would maybe need to be sand blasted to get all of the chipped paint off and perhaps it would look alright without paint? I'm not sure but I would also be fine painting it white, assuming the tile behind it is also white.

My vision: white tile, freshly painted walls and ceiling, new shower curtain, and brand new towels because ours are from our wedding and are despicable. Wish me luck getting Nate to help me with this one!

Other things on the list:

-Landscaping. Because it's finally Spring, Nate will likely want to spend every second of our 'house project' energy outside. In fact, he has decided we need to tear out the patio under our tree and replace it with a larger, more sturdy type patio. Tony and Truman took out a few of the pavers today to see what was under neath and the answer? Nothing. Nothing to anchor it down or level it out, so I'm sure Nate will want to redo the thing even more. How cute are T and T?



-The buffet: we love our built-in buffet and will totally keep it unpainted, don't worry. But it needs to be stripped on the top and refinished. We might like to either lighten it up to match the floors or else go really dark to match our wooden furniture. Also could use new hardware and not sure what we'd do to refinish the windows above. I love those skinny little windows that swing in to open up. Could never replace those with anything modern.

Again, look behind the subjects in the foreground to see the buffet. Spring chickens added across the top for seasonal effect.


-Retouch all woodwork. Apparently in three years, painted woodwork gets very chipped with small children. Sigh.

-The Big Dogs (aka If We Win the Lottery or Someday When We Both Work Full Time)(aka Probably Not Going to Happen). This topic encompasses all of the exterior work that we discuss ad nauseum, but we likely won't complete in this lifetime. But maybe! Because I also tied the basement remodel into the 'would be nice, but probably not happening' category time I posted about this! And that did happen so maybe the rest of our big dreams can, too.

It would be amazing to have another bedroom and a master bathroom in this house. We are fine sharing one full bathroom right now and it's no issue for Truman and Cecelia to share a bedroom. But as the kids get older? Not sure all of this sharing is going to run as smoothly as it does when they are small. If we could build an addition onto this house for those two rooms we would absolutely be set here 'forever.' It would be feasible to either finish off our attic into a master suite by pushing out the roofline in back, or more likely build an addition in our backyard going straight up. Nate has dreamed of tearing down our garage (it's going to need some repair someday for sure) and creating an attached garage onto the sunroom. Then above that new addition would be the master bed and bathroom on the second floor. Sounds freaking expensive, right?

Also expensive? A new roof, new windows, and new siding. Or at the very least, we will need to repaint our wooden siding and I truly cannot imagine painting it the same color. So then I like to dream about all that could change: dark gray roof, white windows and trim, and then shades of gray for our siding and the cedar shakes. I mean, those projects would surely cost more than our entire house but it's fun to think about!

That is pretty much The List for now. Mostly I just want to paint the radiators, update the bathroom tile, and then Nate can do whatever he wants outside with landscaping.

Better get to work!