It has been one year since we moved into this house. We decided to move in at about 7pm on the Friday of Labor Day weekend last year (hours after the first sink got installed). I remember unloading our suitcases from the car just as rain started to fall and moments later it started to downpour, which made the evening even more memorable. The house was far from finished at that point. The stove was parked in the family room. Paper covered most of the floor. All of the bathrooms except one were still missing faucets and we didn’t have a single mirror installed. We had a kitchen sink and a microwave, but no other appliances. The house still needed tons of work, but we were over the moon to finally be in!
The house has come far since then and with every season that passes, this place feels more like home! I haven’t shared very many spaces because most of the rooms feel unfinished to me. The family room needs curtains, the kitchen needs more styling, and we’re missing a trim piece under one of the dishwashers. The butler’s pantry is missing the curtain that I’m planning to put under the sink, not to mention the window wall needs a coat of paint after a bit of drywall repair. Every space needs something, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that home is always somewhat of a work in progress and I want to show you all the hard work we put into this place! So without further ado, enjoy this fall tour of our family room and kitchen along with a few before pics!
In the family room, we replaced the carpet with hardwood, added a fireplace and a window, smoothed out the orange peel drywall, and repainted. Although I love a good bay window, we removed the one in this room because it looked very busy on the exterior next to our octagonal dining nook. On the far right, you can see that we also added some built-ins to store toys and blankets, but this change also helped to hide an awkward structural bulkhead. All of the windows were replaced and even though it’s a subtle change, adding window panes make the space feel more traditional.
Quite a bit changed in the kitchen. In addition to replacing all of the finishes, smoothing the walls, and repainting, we added a steel beam to the ceiling that allowed us to remove a small coat closet between the entry and the kitchen that was encroaching upon the kitchen. This change did not add much to the kitchen in the way of square footage, but it did make the layout more functional. Because of this change, we were able to make the island significantly larger. We removed the bulkheads above the cabinets, added two extra windows on the sink wall, created an opening to the right of the stove (leading to our new butler’s pantry), and shifted the doorway leading to the office which allowed us to create twin china cabinets flanking the opening. Phew!
The fridge and microwave were moved out of the kitchen and into the butler’s pantry. But our favorite update by far is that we now have TWO dishwashers! Would highly recommend it. In a family of five (soon to be six), we produce a lot of dirty dishes especially if we host company. In our last house, it seemed like the dishwasher was always running and somehow the sink was always simultaneously full. With two dishwashers, one dishwasher is almost always running, but the sink rarely has dirty dishes in it. It’s the little things in the end.
These two spaces are where we spend most of our time and we are so happy with how they turned out! Now it’s time to add some pumpkins to the counter and put the kitchen to work making all of the festive fall treats!!
