House Tour May 2013 - One Year Later

Steve and I have been hibernating through the winter and are finally getting back on track with the house projects. It's amazing what a little sunshine can do for your motivation. Here's a tour of the house with current state of things. We have a long to do list for the summer so it will be good to have this tour as a baseline. It's amazing to look back a year ago when we had just purchased this house. We had big ideas and its fun to see that most of them came to life.

Living Room

We have done a lot of work in this room to make it our style. We have added beach accents with light blue and white accessories, white Ikea couches (which we love), and an accent chair with a hand made side table. Steve made his first table and it came out awesome. I still have to figure out how I'm going to finish it but here's a preview of how it looks in the room. I'm looking forward to some of his other projects that he's planning on tackling.  The list includes end tables, coffee table and console table for the living room and some planters for the deck. 

Our summer cottage mantel accessories.

Mantel and built-ins.

The mantel, built-ins with the wood stove.

The whole living room.

This picture shows the TV console that we purchased, our cute baskets for DVDs and the framed pictures that Steve put up.

The sitting area with console table.  Steve is planning to make a replacement for this table.

The accent chair with the cute table that Steve built.  I'm still trying to decide between stain and paint.

We found a pair of lamps at Marshalls and just had to have them.  You'll see the pair together in the living room once Steve makes the two end tables.

Kitchen

The kitchen is still one of our favorite rooms. We haven't done much in here since the large renovation we completed last year.

The only thing we changed in the kitchen was to add the Ikea bookshelf on the back wall.  I am still always looking for different stools.

No change here.  We're still figuring out what we want for window treatments.

A nice view of the living and dining room from the kitchen.

Our mail center between the dining room and kitchen.  I will most likely refinish this bookcase this summer.

Dining Room

Steve hung photos in here to give a bit more character and we added a wine corner... Always good for parties!

Steve hung the black and white photos (that he took) and we added the white chairs.

The wine station!  This has already gotten a lot of use.

Guest Room and Bathroom

We haven't done anything in the guest room except add the furniture and blinds, but we haven't had any complaints yet! :)  We've even heard from some of our guests that they, "like the pink tile".  Thanks for being nice but this is certainly the next big project on the list.  We're hoping for a fall start.  We'll certainly keep you posted on that!

We're working on the plans for the new bathroom.  I'm thinking we need a beautiful claw foot tub.

Basement 

We've spent some time better defining the spaces in the basement.  One side of the basement is our laundry room, storage and workshop.  Steve made some storage shelves which has helped us organize the space.  For Christmas, my Dad and I created a peg board for all of Steve's tools and it still looks good.

This was the first thing that Steve made with his new wood working skills.  I'm loving his new hobby!

Love the organization!

The other side of the basement has been deemed "Mantown."  The green couches have been moved downstairs along with some of our older furniture.  The newest edition was the new TV to replace the old tube TV. 

The "Office"

This space has ended up collecting odds and ends.  The plan for this room will be to include a desk area with filing cabinets, my sewing machine (so I can learn to sew) and a sitting area with pull out couch for additional guest sleeping.

Exterior/Garden

We are just starting to work in the yard/garden.  The main objectives are to improve the grass and better define the gardens.  We ripped out the random growth against the fence in the backyard and have planted new grass.  We also took some slate patio tiles and created a small patio at the bottom of the deck stairs.

We're so excited to get out on the deck this summer.  Stay tuned for our new patio furniture.

I'm still surprised to see what flowers come up in the spring.  This is mostly for documentation so I can remember for next year.

The patio that we created in an hour.  Our hopes are for something a bit better later but for now this will do and was free.

This used to be all overgrown plants/weeds.  We realized last summer that we have more garden space than we can handle.  This is an attempt to transform this garden into part of the lawn.  Steve planted grass and it will hopefully come in soon.

This part of the lawn looks pretty good!

Steve planted grass here too.