House Tour: the Rough Draft
I was thinking the other day about some of the projects and purchases we have planned for the house in the near future, and it hit me that I should take some "before" pictures of everything, and that it would be fun to share those pictures here. I've shared some pictures of small pieces of the house on social media, but this is a better way to show the whole house and also explain what our plans are for everything.
Because I'll be honest, guys, a lot of the house is still kind of a mess. I didn't really realize it until I started taking pictures of everything, but yeah. It's kind of a mess. And you'll notice that the pictures aren't perfect or even all that good, I just snapped some with my iPhone after some minimal picking up. Some messes I left alone, some things I put away quickly before taking the pictures. Also, some of them are a little wonky because I used the panoramic feature to get more of the rooms in the pictures. They're not great, but I'm no professional - clearly! How do people take pictures in their houses? For real - and this is all just for fun.
So here's the backstory. We got the keys on September 26, the movers came September 28 and 29, and we worked like dogs for about six days getting all the boxes unpacked. It's mostly been the fine tuning since then - picking a pile of stuff sitting in a corner or a messy drawer and finding good homes for everything - and there's still lots of fine tuning to go.
The real issue, though, has been that almost every room in the house still has some shuffling of furniture and changes to be made. There was the "have the movers put things here" stage, that we're working on slowly transitioning out of as we sell some furniture, buy some furniture, and move some furniture from one room to another. It's all kind of a puzzle that will make more sense when you see everything.
Please note, before continuing, that even though the images are a little small, you can click on them and make them full screen.
The front of our house is so beautiful. We love the stone and we love the brick pavers in the driveway. It adds so much curb appeal. It's also incredibly handy having the two garages; we are used to having a big shed for lawn equipment and all of JTs tools, and we love that the single car garage on the left of the house can be used for all of that while the two-car garage to the right can be used for a little big of storage and to park the van (eventually, once we get rid of a whole lot of empty cardboard boxes and stuff for our yard sale).
One of the first things I noticed when I started looking at the entryway was all that wall space for a big gallery wall. I do LOVE a good gallery wall. I told myself when we were unpacking everything that I was going to scale back and be more minimal with the things we put on the walls...but then I realized that I was just kidding myself because if there's one thing that makes me happy, it's our lives on the walls. I love incorporating maps and paintings and family pictures and posters from places we've vacationed and lived and visited.
We snagged the dresser - being used as the entryway table/drop point for keys and purses and such - off of Facebook Marketplace, and we love the bear on the wall above it.
What will change:
You know how I said there are some messes in this house? Well this room is just one big mess. Here's the story with this room: when we moved in, we had the movers put the guest bed in here because JT's parents came to stay with us for a couple days the following week and we needed a bed for them. After they left we sold the bed - we don't have a separate guest room in this house - and are now about to start really working on making this room Charlotte's big girl room. Lots of things have just been thrown in here for the meantime, but that will change in the next few weeks. We have two twin beds that we got from my aunt and uncle when they downsized into their retirement home, (my cousins' childhood beds, which is really cool) that have been patiently waiting in the garage but will soon be moved in here. One will be Charlotte's big girl bed and one will just be an extra to hopefully be filled by a sibling someday.
This room is basically impossible to get good pictures of, because it's so long and skinny and slightly claustrophobically small, but it's a Jack and Jill bathroom sandwiched between the two kids' bedrooms. I love so much that there is a bathroom here, for one thousand reasons, but we do have a couple changes that need to be made. (In a perfect world, I'd make it a whole lot wider, but oh well.)
Laundry Room
Playroom
What a blessing this little room is. It sits to the side of the house, tucked behind the kitchen and next to the laundry room, perfectly out of sight and yet still right in the middle of everything. It could easily be used a fourth bedroom, if a door was added, but instead we are using it as a playroom/guest room.
Some of the most dramatic changes are coming to the living room, I think. When we started talking about downsizing and what that would mean for the things we owned, we knew that it was unlikely we would have two living rooms again, like we did in Berryville. That meant that we would have to choose between the leather couch (that JT had when we got married and that has been in the book room in Berryville) and the large sectional sofa that we've had in the family room in Berryville and also with us in New Mexico. Although the sectional provides more seating, we decided we would definitely rather sell it and keep the leather couch while also buying a different sofa to add more seating. (So...we would just end up with two separate sofas instead of one big one.) We have sold the sectional (the people who bought it are coming to pick it up this weekend) so all we will need to do after it's gone is move the leather couch into this room from the playroom, and then go shopping for the new couch!
The other big change that will happen in this room involves that long, empty wall behind the television. Literally nothing about that wall will stay the same. I'm going to paint over the accent wall - just back to grey like the rest of the house - and JT will build long shelves that will go the entire length and height of the wall, going around the entertainment center and television. We haven't decided the exact style we are going to use for the shelves, but we have a couple of equally exciting options that we're considering. The shelves will hold all our books and knick knacks that are still in those boxes in the corner, on the plastic folding table in the other corner, and stuffed in the hall closet out of sight. All that clutter you see in the edges of the living room pictures? That's all going away as soon as we build the shelves. Oh...and we're also going to get a much bigger television, because JT is kind of over the teeny ones we've had for the last five years. I guess that's fair.
What will change:
There's not much we need to do with the kitchen. One of the biggest changes has actually already happened, when we bought those beautiful green/blue bar stools. The previous owners had left their stools here for us with a note telling us to keep them or sell them, which was so sweet. And so helpful, because we did sell them! They were really nice, but these are much more our style, and we are crazy about them. Another huge change we already made was the addition of the drawer pulls and knobs on the cabinets.
Dining Room
I just love this part of the house. I'm sure many of you remember my pleas for social media to help me convince JT to let me paint the dining room bump out a bright, sunflower yellow, but I'm okay with the decision to leave it alone for now. I told him that if I was single I would have done it, and I meant it, but I am not single and I know that even if we had painted it to try it out and I had loved it...he would have hated it. And I don't want that. So instead, we leave it grey and I let the bright colors of the rest of the room be the accent. I love it so much.
What will change:
Backyard
Because I'll be honest, guys, a lot of the house is still kind of a mess. I didn't really realize it until I started taking pictures of everything, but yeah. It's kind of a mess. And you'll notice that the pictures aren't perfect or even all that good, I just snapped some with my iPhone after some minimal picking up. Some messes I left alone, some things I put away quickly before taking the pictures. Also, some of them are a little wonky because I used the panoramic feature to get more of the rooms in the pictures. They're not great, but I'm no professional - clearly! How do people take pictures in their houses? For real - and this is all just for fun.
So here's the backstory. We got the keys on September 26, the movers came September 28 and 29, and we worked like dogs for about six days getting all the boxes unpacked. It's mostly been the fine tuning since then - picking a pile of stuff sitting in a corner or a messy drawer and finding good homes for everything - and there's still lots of fine tuning to go.
The real issue, though, has been that almost every room in the house still has some shuffling of furniture and changes to be made. There was the "have the movers put things here" stage, that we're working on slowly transitioning out of as we sell some furniture, buy some furniture, and move some furniture from one room to another. It's all kind of a puzzle that will make more sense when you see everything.
Please note, before continuing, that even though the images are a little small, you can click on them and make them full screen.
Front of House
The front of our house is so beautiful. We love the stone and we love the brick pavers in the driveway. It adds so much curb appeal. It's also incredibly handy having the two garages; we are used to having a big shed for lawn equipment and all of JTs tools, and we love that the single car garage on the left of the house can be used for all of that while the two-car garage to the right can be used for a little big of storage and to park the van (eventually, once we get rid of a whole lot of empty cardboard boxes and stuff for our yard sale).
Entryway
One of the first things I noticed when I started looking at the entryway was all that wall space for a big gallery wall. I do LOVE a good gallery wall. I told myself when we were unpacking everything that I was going to scale back and be more minimal with the things we put on the walls...but then I realized that I was just kidding myself because if there's one thing that makes me happy, it's our lives on the walls. I love incorporating maps and paintings and family pictures and posters from places we've vacationed and lived and visited.
We snagged the dresser - being used as the entryway table/drop point for keys and purses and such - off of Facebook Marketplace, and we love the bear on the wall above it.
What will change:
- There are two pictures that still need to be hung on the gallery wall. One (a painting from Lake Tahoe) can be seen propped up on the entryway table and will go on the far left of the gallery, and the other (a long and skinny sign with our last name that my sister made for us when we were married) will go in the middle of the gallery, above the large chalk drawing. We've just had some issues hanging these two particular pieces, and they've sat longer than we intended. :)
Children's Rooms
The two kid's bedrooms are up at the front of the house, off of the entryway. You can see the doorway the leads to the rooms in the photos above, to the right of the front door. That doorway leads to a little square nook that gives access to both bedroom doors.
When I was trying to find a good place for the little white bookcase days after we'd moved in, I realized that this little nook might be the perfect spot for now. I like having the books and chair here in this spot, although I confess it hasn't been used for reading yet. I think we need to be a little more intentional about using it.
The first bedroom is being used as the nursery, and it's where Charlotte is sleeping for right now (she's still in the crib, although that will change soon). The extra twin bed in here was my childhood bed, and it's a total pain in the butt to move. So it's here, just hanging out in its forever home until this room isn't a nursery anymore and we will take the crib out and let it be a big kid's room.
What will change:
- We will hang a real blackout curtain on the window, instead of that ghetto Orbital blanket we've tacked up :) The house has plantation shutters on every window in the house which is AWESOME, but they do let little cracks of light in. And we noticed that Charlotte was being woken up from her naps way too early when the sun would change and hit her right in the eyes through one of the cracks. Hence the blanket. So yeah, we will get something that looks a little nicer at some point, but for now the blanket makes it darker than night.
- We need to fix the baby mobile - it was damaged in the move - and hang it up over the crib.
You know how I said there are some messes in this house? Well this room is just one big mess. Here's the story with this room: when we moved in, we had the movers put the guest bed in here because JT's parents came to stay with us for a couple days the following week and we needed a bed for them. After they left we sold the bed - we don't have a separate guest room in this house - and are now about to start really working on making this room Charlotte's big girl room. Lots of things have just been thrown in here for the meantime, but that will change in the next few weeks. We have two twin beds that we got from my aunt and uncle when they downsized into their retirement home, (my cousins' childhood beds, which is really cool) that have been patiently waiting in the garage but will soon be moved in here. One will be Charlotte's big girl bed and one will just be an extra to hopefully be filled by a sibling someday.
What will change:
- The walls will be painted.
- I will clear out some of the excess stuff (some to yard sale, some to other "homes" in the house) that's been stored in there since we moved in.
- We will bring the twin beds in from the garage.
- We will sand, prime, and paint the beds.
- We will hang things on the walls.
- We may have to hang a blackout curtain in here too, but we will see. This room gets a little less natural light shining in.
- We will move all of Charlotte's stuff and clothes in from the nursery closet where it is now, and organize it all in the dresser and closet.
This room is basically impossible to get good pictures of, because it's so long and skinny and slightly claustrophobically small, but it's a Jack and Jill bathroom sandwiched between the two kids' bedrooms. I love so much that there is a bathroom here, for one thousand reasons, but we do have a couple changes that need to be made. (In a perfect world, I'd make it a whole lot wider, but oh well.)
What will change:
- One of the absolute dumbest things in the whole world is that this bathroom - the Jack and Jill bathroom between two KIDS' rooms, has a shower. A standup, no bathtub included, SHOWER. I have whined about this so much, I think everyone I know is aware of how much this annoys me. The whole luxury of having a bathroom just for your kids is that the hairbows and toothpaste and bath toys and towels and the nonsense that goes on in a kid's bathroom can be hidden and the main bathroom can be kept nice and clean and ready for guests. And they put the bathtub in the guest bathroom and the SHOWER in the kids' bathroom. See...this annoys me. But anyway, it's actually pretty cheap to replace the shower with a tub insert, so that's on the list.
- With a new tub comes a new shower curtain, new bath mats, etc. I'm just waiting to do it all at once, at some point.
Laundry Room
There's nothing terribly special about this laundry room, except that it's lovely and mostly done already. It's right between the playroom and the entryway to the house, feet from the kitchen and living room which is nice because of the garage entrance that we use the most. It also has the perfect spot for Captain's food and water, which makes me exceedingly happy considering the mess he makes when he drinks his water. Having a space separate from the kitchen for him is the very best thing. Maybe one day if we're bored we will get fancy with this room, but for now the to-do list is very short and almost not worth mentioning considering it would take about ten minutes to complete.
What will change:
- There's a separate little hook we have for Captain's leash, and we need to hang it.
- The hanging bar - for drying clothes - is currently in the middle of the shelving unit but it needs to be moved to the left side since it's above our washing machine right now.
- That top shelf needs to be utilized and organized.
- We need to move the little cleaning supply hanging rack to the garage.
Playroom
What a blessing this little room is. It sits to the side of the house, tucked behind the kitchen and next to the laundry room, perfectly out of sight and yet still right in the middle of everything. It could easily be used a fourth bedroom, if a door was added, but instead we are using it as a playroom/guest room.
We have always loved having a separate bedroom as a guest room and we've been fortunate enough to always have that since we've been married, even in the rental house in Albuquerque. But when we began house hunting here in Phoenix and discussed what was most important to us, we decided that we wanted to downsize as much as we could and if that meant sacrificing a guest room then so be it. Ultimately, we knew that a playroom would be used every day of our lives, while a guest room would only be used for a week or two of the year at most, when family visits us. Because of that, we decided to make this room a playroom, but to also make it work as a guest room when family does visit. That being said, much is going to change in this room over the next few months as we make some key purchases and change the layout to maximize the space for both purposes.
What will change:
- The leather couch will be moved to the family room (more on that in a moment).
- We will buy a sleeper sofa - don't worry, friends who hope to visit us someday, we're doing our research and will get a comfortable one - that will be a comfy couch to sit on as well as the guest bed when we have guests.
- End tables and lamps will be put next to the new sofa
- The large map, the large chalkboard, and the activity board will be hung on the walls
- We will either install a curtain to be pulled across the open doorway or buy a large room divider for guests' privacy. Either one will be folded up and off to the side the majority of the time, but easily pulled out for when guests stay with us.
Living Room
Some of the most dramatic changes are coming to the living room, I think. When we started talking about downsizing and what that would mean for the things we owned, we knew that it was unlikely we would have two living rooms again, like we did in Berryville. That meant that we would have to choose between the leather couch (that JT had when we got married and that has been in the book room in Berryville) and the large sectional sofa that we've had in the family room in Berryville and also with us in New Mexico. Although the sectional provides more seating, we decided we would definitely rather sell it and keep the leather couch while also buying a different sofa to add more seating. (So...we would just end up with two separate sofas instead of one big one.) We have sold the sectional (the people who bought it are coming to pick it up this weekend) so all we will need to do after it's gone is move the leather couch into this room from the playroom, and then go shopping for the new couch!
The other big change that will happen in this room involves that long, empty wall behind the television. Literally nothing about that wall will stay the same. I'm going to paint over the accent wall - just back to grey like the rest of the house - and JT will build long shelves that will go the entire length and height of the wall, going around the entertainment center and television. We haven't decided the exact style we are going to use for the shelves, but we have a couple of equally exciting options that we're considering. The shelves will hold all our books and knick knacks that are still in those boxes in the corner, on the plastic folding table in the other corner, and stuffed in the hall closet out of sight. All that clutter you see in the edges of the living room pictures? That's all going away as soon as we build the shelves. Oh...and we're also going to get a much bigger television, because JT is kind of over the teeny ones we've had for the last five years. I guess that's fair.
What will change:
- The green accent wall will be primed and painted grey to match the rest of the walls.
- We will build shelves to cover the entire wall, with space left for the television and entertainment center.
- We will get a bigger television.
- The large sectional will be sold, the leather couch will be brought in, and we will get a new sofa for additional seating.
- The map chair will probably be moved to the master bedroom.
- All books, small picture frames, and knick knacks will be styled on the shelves.
Kitchen
There's not much we need to do with the kitchen. One of the biggest changes has actually already happened, when we bought those beautiful green/blue bar stools. The previous owners had left their stools here for us with a note telling us to keep them or sell them, which was so sweet. And so helpful, because we did sell them! They were really nice, but these are much more our style, and we are crazy about them. Another huge change we already made was the addition of the drawer pulls and knobs on the cabinets.
The only three things we are going to change in the kitchen will happen eventually, and are certainly not an emergency.
What will change:
- The pantry is a complete mess. I should change that soon.
- We are going to build a small shelf that runs along the entire top of the cabinets (but will stay hidden behind the molding) so the bottles all sit up higher, rather than being mostly hidden behind the molding.
- We will install a tile back splash.
Dining Room
I just love this part of the house. I'm sure many of you remember my pleas for social media to help me convince JT to let me paint the dining room bump out a bright, sunflower yellow, but I'm okay with the decision to leave it alone for now. I told him that if I was single I would have done it, and I meant it, but I am not single and I know that even if we had painted it to try it out and I had loved it...he would have hated it. And I don't want that. So instead, we leave it grey and I let the bright colors of the rest of the room be the accent. I love it so much.
What will change:
- I'm going to prime and paint that green accent wall in here as well, since it doesn't really match our stuff and it doesn't serve much purpose.
- I need to pot those cacti - they're in the dishes but not actually planted at the moment because I'm waiting to have little dishes to put underneath them - and maybe add a tall green plant in a corner.
Master Bedroom
The fact that I'm even showing you all these pictures shows how much I value a good rough draft. It also shows how much I appreciate transparency because...um...these pictures are pretty transparent.
Our bedroom is kind of unique because A) it's huge, and B) it has that extra bump out room to make it even bigger. When we first looked at the house we had no idea what we would use it for - the previous owners had it as an office - but when we thought about it a little longer we realized that it would be the perfect spot for my treadmill and JT's rowing machine. The house we had previously been under contract with in Chandler hadn't had any extra space or room for our workout equipment, and we'd been planning on selling them. But it was so exciting when we realized we didn't have to anymore because of this extra room! And then, during a separate epiphany, it occurred to me that we didn't really have a spot for my beautiful antique desk in this house...but that it would probably fit in this extra space in our bedroom as well.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Suddenly, everything that we didn't have a spot for just got stuck in this space. The mattresses for Charlotte's big girl bedroom. All office stuff and supplies. My old scrapbooking stuff from circa 2003. A random pair of JT's cowboy boots that have never made it to the closet for some reason. The dollhouse from my grandparents. The enormous painting that we need to sell but haven't been able to. Everything. Just...everything.
Not to mention the stacked pictures and paintings that will get hung in here some day. And the enormous pile of winter clothes that we don't need anymore but don't know what to do with. And whatever all that stuff is on top of the blanket chest. It's all just an enormous mess. But the good news is that after spending some time staring and researching and measuring, we have a plan. Most of it will happen this weekend, which is also really exciting.
What will change:
Do you see where I'm going with this? Suddenly, everything that we didn't have a spot for just got stuck in this space. The mattresses for Charlotte's big girl bedroom. All office stuff and supplies. My old scrapbooking stuff from circa 2003. A random pair of JT's cowboy boots that have never made it to the closet for some reason. The dollhouse from my grandparents. The enormous painting that we need to sell but haven't been able to. Everything. Just...everything.
Not to mention the stacked pictures and paintings that will get hung in here some day. And the enormous pile of winter clothes that we don't need anymore but don't know what to do with. And whatever all that stuff is on top of the blanket chest. It's all just an enormous mess. But the good news is that after spending some time staring and researching and measuring, we have a plan. Most of it will happen this weekend, which is also really exciting.
What will change:
- All those pictures and paintings - they're all from vacations JT and I have been on together and wedding mementos and such - will be hung.
- The brown nightstand and dresser will both be sold. We have the whole bedroom set that used to be ours but we've slowly been trading pieces out and now it's time to sell the whole thing. The brown dresser will be replaced with a white one exactly like the other one, and both nightstands will be replaced with matching whites ones that we found on Craigslist. You can see them in some of the pictures.
- The twin mattresses will be moved into Charlotte's big girl room.
- The treadmill, rowing machine, and dollhouse will all be moved slightly into a different configuration (after much measuring, trust me) that will allow the entire left wall open.
- The desk will stay on the left wall, and a long table will also be added as a work space for me (work space for what? Find out soon!).
- All the winter clothes and piles of STUFF that has gathered will be cleared out, organized or donated/sold, and never come back to piles on the floor again.
Backyard
Oh how we love this backyard. I probably don't need to explain why, considering we live in Phoenix, Arizona, and we have almost a quarter-acre of GRASS. Beautiful, glorious grass that keeps my dog happy and my kid happy and therefore ME happy. Grass that JT can cut with happiness and that is fun to play on and that looks beautiful when we look out the window. Oh, beautiful, glorious grass that we didn't have to pay someone to install.
A lot of the kinds of things that we would have wanted to add - the playground, the built-in fire pit, the patio, etc. - were already installed by the previous homeowners, which is such a blessing. We love them all and have used them all. There are minor tweaks and purchases, though, that we have in our future.
What will change:
- We need to buy a lawn mower. The riding mower was bought by the couple who bought our house, since it seemed a little ridiculous to move it to Arizona. But we do need a little push mower and have been putting it off because the grass doesn't really grow that fast even though it's watered several times a week. Go figure.
- I want to add some twinkle lights that connect from the covered patio at the back door to the fence line and over the fire pit. I wanted some in Virginia so badly but never made it happen. I'm gonna make it happen now.
- Until now, we've only had two lounge chairs for outdoor furniture, but it's been kind of a pain when we've had people over and we're all sitting two or three to a lounge chair. So we sold the lounge chairs and will get an outdoor sectional set of some kind for the patio.
- Long term plans: I'd love a long picnic table or just a simple table with bench seats outside, and I think when kids are older it would be fun to have a basketball hoop put in on the little concrete slab. But neither of those are needed any time soon.
And that's it! That's our house. With the exception of two bathrooms that were boring and hard to photograph, one master closet that is basically just a closet, and one hall closet that is such a disaster right now no one needs to see the inside of it, that's our whole house. We love it to pieces, we are excited for the changes we have planned, and we are immensely thankful for the opportunity the Lord has given us to live here. I can't even put it into words, but I try to about once a week when I'm completely overwhelmed with thanksgiving and humility that this is actually our house. I still can't believe it most days.
Stay tuned for lots more updates on a room-by-room basis, when we get things done.
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