What We're Starting With

I probably should've started with this post, now that I think about it, but ah well. Dreams of fairy tale cottages are more entertaining than house pictures--after all, I love it because it's mine, but there's no reason that you should want to see seventy pictures of my (messy) kitchen.

Still, since this blog is about how I'll be renovating, repairing, and re(...decorating) my home, I think that a bunch of pictures of Square One are a necessary evil. And, with no further ado, I present my house!

The Outside

Before moving

First, the "official" real estate outside picture of the front yard, sans real estate sign. (By the way, that d@mn sign is still in our yard, and we aren't really allowed to touch it because it's not our property. BS!)

The more I look at this picture, the more tired I become.

You can hear the fire alarms now!

The backyard features a very tall back porch in red. Like, very tall. Ash & I joke that we need to install a fireman's pole to reach the backyard.

Yeah. This looks escape proof....

Scuzzy Flipper Seller painted the backyard fence, so it's red to match the porch, but I have to make sure it's beagle-puppy-proof in the next few months.

What it looks like now

The snow ate my steps.

My house, the igloo

With the warmer temperatures, the two feet of snow Winter Storm Pax dumped on our heads is almost gone, but my back still hurts remembering how much shoveling we did, just to find the porch and the front steps. The giant bush to the right of the door? That flattened like a pancake under the weight of the snow and ice. I'll be cutting that soon.

Look! Little car-drifts with antennae!

I've also started working on the landscaping with plants, as I mentioned in my last post. Don't these look so...spindly? (Yeah, okay, they're not impressive now, but just you wait four to five weeks!)

Such a warm, lovely nursery for my wee bitty babies...

The Inside

The Ground Floor

I love that gaming chair. So comfy...

Why? Why is this a mess still?

The house is divided into three "floors." The ground floor consists of a living room/dining room combo with a kitchen and kitchenette area in the back. (The powder room is to the left of the front door in the living room picture.)  I'm not a huge fan of the white (or the carpet), but we're making do for now. I could really, really use some organizational items, but all my best ones are either a.) in Pennsylvania waiting to make the trip down, b.) at Ash's sister's house, where I used to live, or c.) languishing at Ikea, unpurchased but oh-so-loved.

Hi, African Violet! You'll have brothers and sisters soon.

The Basement

We set up the bed since I took this. (The frame had mold...)

So that's the king of this castle, Ash, "working" on his desktop. (He built that! From scratch! Be in awe of his awesome computer powers.) There's a full bath in the basement, too, which makes this a great space for a guest "bedroom." My desk and our extra bookshelves will be in here eventually. I have plans to take some old closet doors and revamping them for a room divider. I'll post that as soon as I start working on them, but in the meantime, let's just get the rest of my stuff in the house, shall we?

GLaDOS doesn't stand a chance.

One day, this will be the Game Room Dungeon of All Game Rooms. Trust me, the world will be jealous. We're talking Portal infinity mirrors. Yep. It's happening.

The Second Floor

Ash decided he didn't like the closet doors. *sigh*

Okay, our room! It's even kinda clean. Get ready for the blurriest pictures of the whole series. (I'm not a professional photographer like my friend Erika! Hire her and send her to my place if you'd like better ones!)

That is the most beautifullest bed ever. IKEA ROCKS!

That bed was the first thing that was purchased for the house, in addition to the breakfast bar stools we got from Ikea (where else?). It took something like an hour to put it together completely, and this is with me half-comatose from a sinus infection from hell. One of the strange phenomenon of putting together Ikea furniture is that you think you put it on backward and take it apart, only to find you had it right the first time! (Check out this video from Geek & Sundry's "Flog" for similar struggles on assembling Ikea furniture!)

I swear, I wasn't taking selfies!

The bathroom is huge, divided into two sections. This one has (obviously) the sinks and the linen closet. Ash also took the doors off of this closet, though I feel like that was a little more justified. They were accordion-style and just took up too much space. What with the door from to the hall and the door to the shower/toilet (featuring a whirlpool tub!), you felt like you were in a carnival funhouse, complete with mirrors.

Overall, we're really pleased with the layout. I think Ash is overestimating some of the storage capacity of our cabinets and closets, but I could be fretting over nothing. (I've been known to do that on occasion.) We'll find out soon enough!

...Wow, I feel exhausted just posting this. I can't imagine how you'll feel reading this. Any suggestions on what should be the first to tackle? The living room? Bedroom? Kitchen? The lack of any standing storage space?

~Ashley