New House Tour!

Helllloooooo, friends!

Have you missed me?  Because I have missed you!

It has been an entire year since I last posted, and I am so excited to be back.  It’s been a bit of a whirlwind year, although I never could have imagined how crazy the entire world would be at this very moment…

One of the biggest things that has happened for us over the past year is that we bought a new house! We made the decision to start looking for a new house over the summer of 2018.  We decided that we wanted to move just outside the city limits of Memphis into an area that had a much better public school system.  So, the search was on.  

We looked from about September 2018 – April 2019.  Our oldest was 3 years old at the time we started looking, so we knew we had plenty of time to be picky and wait for exactly what we wanted.  We actually were outbid on the first house we made an offer on in March 2019, and I am so glad that we were because just one month later, we found the house that is now ours.  It is so much better than the first house we bid on, and we absolutely love, love, love living here.

Now, the house needs quite a bit of updating, but that’s part of the fun, right?!  Fortunately, it was built well and truly has great bones, so it’s just a matter of making it fit our style.

Are you ready for the house tour?  

Disclaimer: Some of these photos were taken shortly after we moved in with an iPhone, and some of them were taken last week with a Sony A6000.

Exterior

Here she is!  

This is a great shot that my husband took this spring right before Easter.  It was the first time we had seen the dogwood and azaleas in bloom (although they were on the tail end of blooming here), since we had moved over the summer.

The shade in this photo hides a lot of the work that needs to be done on the exterior.  

Here’s an earlier photo from right after we moved in.  

You can see from this picture that a large part of the face of the house is discolored, which needs to be fixed.  Also, many of the window frames are rotting, and the whole house needs a good power wash (which is not an easy task considering how large it is).

The one change that I immediately made to the exterior was the front door color.  The red was just too dark.  Hopefully, we can address the rest of the exterior soon.

Great Room

When you walk in the front door, you enter into a small entryway that opens up to the great room.  

This is what you see.

And here are photos from each of the other corners of the room.

We did some painting in this room shortly after we moved in because it was quite dark.  The only “before” photo I have is just a snippet of the room from before we moved in when the house was empty.

It gives you an idea of what it looked like, though.

In this room, I would like to update the fireplace and mantle, replace the counter/sink/faucets in the bar area (although the bar has already had a bit of a face lift since we moved in), replace the ceiling fans, and eventually get rid of the carpet.  We also want to get (or build) new, and matching, end tables for in here.

Entryway

In the entryway, I want to replace the tile and the light fixture.  (We actually have a new light fixture already, but we don’t have the equipment to install it into 14′ ceilings.  Hopefully, we will get that taken care of soon, as well.)

I also want to remove the carpet from the stairs and update the banister.

Dining Room

When you walk through the great room, the dining room opens up on the right just before you reach the kitchen.

The only thing we have done in this room is replace the light fixture.  My only other plan for this room at the moment is to fix the spots on the wall that the previous owners “attempted” to patch.  You can seen them clearly in the first photo.  We also have a friend who is potentially going to make us a new dining room table, which I am super excited about.  And eventually, I’d like to replace the flooring, but that’s way down my list right now.

Kitchen

Beyond the dining room is the kitchen. 

This is possibly my favorite room of the whole house.  I love how big and spacious it is.  It also gets amazing natural light and looks out over most of our backyard. 

We have already made a number of changes to this space.  So far, we have painted the backsplash, as well as the cabinets, and replaced both the cooktop and the double ovens.  At some point, we want to replace the fridge with a counter depth option, and possibly replace the hardware.

Here is the eat in side, looking over the peninsula.  (We replaced the light fixture in this area, as well.)

We also have a great little desk area in here.

This is a more recent photo, which gives you a peep at the new cabinet color.  My daughter is obsessed with arts and crafts.  So, I would love to turn this into an art center for her at some point.

*You can see photos of the updated kitchen here.

Laundry Room

The laundry room is just off of the kitchen.  We are actually in the process of giving this space a little refresh right now.  So, I’m not going to give anything away here.  😉  You can look for a post all about it sometime this summer.

*Click here to see the updated laundry room.

Hall Bathroom

This is the hall bathroom on the main floor.  We have already done a little refresh (Phase 1, so to speak) in this bathroom, so that’s another post that you can be on the lookout for sometime soon. 

We have 4 full bathrooms in this house, but this is the only one I’m including photos of right now.  They are all pretty much the same, in that they each need to be updated basically from top to bottom…

*Check out how it looks now

Kid’s Bedrooms

The kid’s bedrooms are upstairs.  There are two bedrooms on the second floor, that are joined by a Jack and Jill bath.  

The main things I would like to do in this space are get rid of the carpet (or, at the very least, replace it) and replace the ceiling fan.  We will also eventually be looking at turning this room into a “big boy room” for my son.  We’ve still got some time before that happens, though.  (I hope….)

This room is much the same.  The carpet has got to go, and I want to replace the ceiling fan.  And eventually, I’ll be able to get a nice bedspread for my daughter’s bed.  At the moment, though, she sleeps like a bit of a wild woman, and I’m not comfortable taking the railings off just yet.  I didn’t even make the bed for this photo because this is what it looks like 90% of the time…

It may not be too long before this room has a makeover, as my daughter is starting to get to the age where she has opinions about this kind of stuff.  You can see she is already “helping” to decorate with her drawings and color pages. 😉 

Basement 

The basement was a HUGE selling point for me with this house.  Basements are incredibly hard to come by here in Memphis, which has always felt strange to this midwest girl.  So, I was beyond thrilled to find that this house had an amazing walk out basement. 

One of the top things on our list when looking for a house was a nice playroom for the kids.  We didn’t have the space in our previous house for a playroom, but we desperately wanted one.  

And boy did this house deliver.  There is a large open room in the basement, which is now the kids domain.

I would love to do a complete overhaul down here – get rid of the textured walls, replace the drop-tile ceiling, replace the floor, and either remove or redo the built-ins.  Plus, all of the windows down here need to be replaced.  

This is going to be a huge project, even if broken down into “smaller” chunks.  So, truthfully, it will probably be quite awhile before any work is done down here.

There is also a bedroom and full bathroom down here, which we are using as a guest room.

We also have two other bedrooms that I didn’t photograph.  One is the master bedroom and the other one we are using as a music room/office.  They are both very much like the large playroom in the basement – very yellow. 😆  Yellow walls, yellow trim, beige carpet, etc.  Lots of paint required in those rooms.  

Outdoor spaces

Finally, we have some amazing outdoor spaces at this house.  I didn’t photograph the backyard, which needs a lot of work.  It’s an amazing space with a lot of fantastic landscaping already in place, but the gardens are completely overgrown and the lawn needs a lot of help.

In addition to a great yard, we also have a large deck in the back and a small little private courtyard area in front.

This is the deck, which is right outside the great room.

We want to have the deck resurfaced at some point, and we have tossed around the idea of possibly covering part of it, as well.  I’d also like to get some nice furniture for out here and really make it a comfortable place to hang out. 

As I mentioned before, our basement is a walk out, which opens up right beneath the deck.  So, we also have a large patio space underneath here.

Finally, there is a small little courtyard area right outside our dining room in the front of the house.

It’s kind of an odd space, as it is completely hidden from view when in front of the house.  You can see the dining room window in the last photo, and the wing wall comes off of our garage.

There used to be a tree right in the center of this space, as you can see.  I want to fill in that space and put a large fountain there, as well as get some pretty, decorative furniture and lots of pots and flowers for out here.  I want to make it a bit of an oasis that we can enjoy ourselves, as it’s fairly visible from within the house.

And there you have it.  Our new house.

We are loving it here, and I have oh, so many projects in mind.  I can’t wait to share it all as I work my way through the list!

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