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| The front of my house |
My house has a long history. Back in 2000, my father decided he wanted to buy a house in upstate NY. This house was to be an investment for me and my sister. We didn't have a lot of money so we knew it had to be a fixer-upper. When my father and his contractor friend saw this house they were sold. The property was large and was right on a really nice stream. They promised me it was a good investment.
We then spent the next five years renovating it. The house was run down and needed everything from a new roof to refinished floors and everything in-between. My father invested everything he had in the house. It truly was a labor of love.
While renovating the house I made a lot of the design decisions. But I was 22 at the time. I see now that some of those decision were not made sensibly. I am now living with my decisions, but if I could do it again things would be very different.
Today, this house is a work in progress. Jeff and I don't have a lot of money so the updates are slow. I have a list a mile long of all the things I want to do. There is a lot of updates that I would love to make, but we are making the changes slowly.
House Tour
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| The back of the little house |
When you come in my back door
(we don't use the front one) you enter my kitchen. The whole downstairs has an open floor plan, so the kitchen is open to the dining room with only the stairs separating the dining-room from the living room/office.
That's our back door. The kitchen has basic wood cabinets and a slate counter. The layout was my design and I really do love it.
I was raised with Eastern religious beliefs, so we installed Hindu god tiles in the kitchen back-splash. We hope they will bring us good fortune.
Just this summer we installed new cabinets on the opposite wall. It is such an improvement over the old setup.
Before
After
Now we need to install counters to replace the board we have there temporarily.
The dining room is my favorite room in the house. It reflects my style right now. I spent all summer painting the table and chairs, looking for the chandelier and picking out the wall color
(I love the deep honey yellow I chose).
I also got a really nice
China Cabinet. After I styled it, I'm super happy with how it looks.
From the dining room you can see into the livingroom past the hand built stairs. (again, I need to add pictures here)
I actually don't mind how the living room it came out especially after I painted two walls blue. I would like to take out the orange but I told my husband I would never tires of an orange living room when we moved in
(spoke too soon, I immediately started to imagine white and light colors here, I do still love the orange though, I just want less of it).
Before
After
The office needs work. I'm still thinking about this one, but here is my desk which I lightened up.
The downstairs bathroom is another room that is a work in progress. I recently bought the vanity and painted it. Then put up my new, hand painted shower curtain.
Upstairs is two little bedrooms and a half bath in between. I love the colors I chose for the bedroom walls. I also love my bedding. We had to put the bed at an angle because it was so tall with the headboard that there was no other way to fit it. I'm not an "angle bed" kind of person, but we have gotten used to it. We bought this bed in our old apartment. I always wanted a sleigh bed.
We also got nice matching bedside tables recently. Now I am on the lookout for some nice matching lamps, but hubby and I can not seem to agree.
I much prefer the light gold bedding to this older bedspread. The moment I got it I knew it was all wrong. It was just too loud for a bedroom. I need something quiet and calm.
I made the bedroom a little haven to our love. I have a collection of our wedding stuff styled in a frame, and lots of pictures of us together.
My sisters gave me that silver bell heart. I love it in that little corner with Jeff's walking stick.
The wall opposite my bed is a work in progress. I loved this
blue dresser in my dining room, but up here the color competes with the blue walls (and not in a good way). I'm trying to decide if I'm going to sell this dresser or move it. I'm not sure yet. I do love the round mirror I got on sale at Homegoods. That small painting on the left is painted by my aunt. I love it, it is like having a little piece of Maine right here in NY.
The guestroom is on the other side of the stairs. I have done a lot of work to this room.
Before
After
I made the headboard, painted the dresser, and moved the bedside table in from our bedroom. I love how it turned out.
I even reupholstered the chair and tucked it in the dormer nook.
The bathroom has changed a lot too.
Before
After
On this wall I added the little shelf, and styled it a little. I love that it adds some color and life to the wall.
I also
stenciled the opposite wall and framed a print that was given to me in graduate school. I love this look, but stenciling is a LOT of work.
So there you have it. This is my little cottage I share with my hubby. We moved here in August of 2010 so I'm pretty proud of what we have done in the last two years.
