Our First Home: Before Tour

We bought a house! After what seemed like a million showings and open houses we found the perfect house for us. It’s a one story 3 bedroom, 1 bath rambler, with a basement ‘full of potential’ in South Minneapolis. It’s biggest drawback at the moment is it’s down right UGLY. Literally all but one room is covered in 90s wallpaper. I think I counted a total of 13 different wallpaper patterns! But Joel and I see potential and really love the neighborhood. We’ve had about a week to work on the house and it already looks a lot different then these before photos, but still has aways to go before we move in mid-August.

LIVING ROOM
Yay! The only room without wallpaper! Our plan in here is to paint the ceiling, walls and trim. I know HUGE job, especially the trim work, but I really think painting the trim will completely change this place for the better. Also, I paint the fireplace brass parts in a matte black and paint the brick of the fireplace white. Joel’s not completely convinced on painting the brick, so we’ll see about that one after we move into the place. We are also going to refinish all the hardwood floors in the house. There are other smaller projects I’d like to do in here once we are moved in, like replace the tile under the fireplace and entryway.

KITCHEN
This is the worst room in my opinion. I mean there are 3 different wallpapers going on and there is even a border on the CEILING! Seriously the lady who lived here before was really, really into wallpaper, and likely had some decisions anxiety picking her favorite patterns, and said screw it, I’ll just use them all everywheeeeree! We want to replace the floor, maybe tile or hardwood, not sure yet. Paint the cabinets, change out the lighting situation, replace the counter tops and add a backsplash. Down the road we will also need to replace the appliances, especially that ancient fridge.

MASTER & GUEST BEDROOM
The top one is the master bedroom and bottom will be our guest bedroom meets my office area. Again, we are going to remove the wallpaper, paint trim, remove the carpets to reveal the hardwood floors which will all be refinished. The bedrooms are the only spaces I feel I have a solid design idea, but that’s for another post!

BATHROOM
I feel like the photos of the bathroom some how make it look better than it really is in person, because in person this room is a total mess. We are tossing around ideas of what we want to do in here, but those will be bigger scale plans and probably won’t happen until after we move in. My bathroom pin board is swelling with drop dead gorgeous bathrooms I’m pretty sure we can’t afford, but a girl can dream about lovely marbles, double sinks and brass fixtures right?!

DINING ROOM
This is technically our third bedroom, but was used as a dining room by the previous own and we want to keep it that way. Wallpaper must go, paint that trim and refinish those floors and we’ll be in business. I really like the chandelier, so just clean it up a bit and it will look great again, but maybe new faux candle things…do they even make something like that?

PORCH
This will probably end up my favorite room in, or technically outside, of our house. It’s a spacious 3 season porch, but it’s rather ugly at the moment. We will be taking down the drop ceiling, then probably figure out what we can do next to make this place more open and inviting. I want to paint it a soft white and make this our go-to entertaining spot when we have friends over. Dreaming of comfy lounge furniture and a dining spot.

BASEMENT
Brace yourself ladies and gents, cause our basement is pretty rough. The carpets are disgusting and that paneling has to go. Our vision for this space is an additional living room meets rec room, another bedroom and a 3/4 bathroom. The space is all there for our vision, I think, it’s just the budget is lacking at the moment so we will gut it and then be patient until next year. I might work on sprucing up the laundry area to be a little friendlier, which pretty much means clean up the cobwebs, add a outdoor runner and possibly paint the walls…we’ll see.

So that’s it folks! The grand before tour of our new home. I can’t wait to start showing some after photos in a month or two! If you want some sneaky snaps of the spaces as it progresses follow me on instagram! Thanks for reading and staying tuned in during this busy time for me. I really wanted to post more regularly, but planning a wedding and purchasing a fixer upper house is as time consuming as you’d probably guess, so thanks for hanging in here! Can’t wait to have real space for an office and YouTube videos again!