In June 2010 my then-fiance, now husband and I bought our very first home. It’s located in a city and is an old Colonial built in 1900 with three floors and a finished basement. We’re only the fourth owners.
It has beautiful original unpainted woodwork, pocket doors, two fireplaces, a stained glass window in the staircase, all the things you’d expect to find in a old home. It also has all plaster walls, nine foot ceilings, wood floors throughout, big closets and plenty of old house quirks. We absolutely love everything about it.
The house has three stories including a full walk up currently unfinished third floor we call the attic. It also has a full finished basement with a full bath and three large closets, plus the laundry room. The first floor includes a front foyer with fireplace, a side foyer, living and dining rooms with pocket doors and a newly remodeled kitchen. Up the split staircase are four bedrooms, one with a fireplace {currently my office} and a full bath.
Here are some posts about our house
- The House Before Pictures
- Buying Our House: The Story
- Our House by the Numbers
- Why I’ll Never Paint Our Wood Trim
- What My House Looks Like from the Outside
- Paint Colors in My Home
We love our home and we’ve loved making it our own. Click on the links below to see more of each room. Oh, and if you have questions, I’d love to answer them!
The Kitchen
The kitchen in our home was remodeled in 2007, three years before we moved in. It’s truly the heart of our home and we love entertaining in there. The top of the wall is Chinchilla by Martha Stewart and the bottom in base white. Here are projects about the kitchen
The Living Room
The living room is in the front of the house and has original wood trim and floors, plus original stained glass windows. Read about living room updates below.
- How to Hang Items in Plaster Walls
- How to Hang Curtains and How to Make Curtains Longer
- Coffee Table Turned Ottoman
- The Living Room Tour
Here is the living room during, in the first two years we lived in the house.
This is what the living room looks like today. See the living room tour here.
The Front Foyer
This space gets a lot of decorating and redecorating action. It has a fireplace and half of the split staircase that goes to the second floor.
- How to sew pin tuck curtains
- Sometimes you just rip up the carpet
- New grass cloth wallpaper in the foyer
- Hale Navy Accent Wall
The Dining Room
Currently the dining room is getting a makeover. We’re hanging grass cloth wall paper, hanging a chandelier and doing all kinds of other projects in there. I made some framed mirrors for the walls so far and plan to do a few more things over the next months. See all dining room projects listed below.
- Grass cloth wallpaper sneak peek
- New dining room rug
- Dining room window shades
- New dining room buffet
The Master Bedroom
Our retreat. It’s cool, relaxing but it still needs lots of personality. I work on it here and there. See all the master bedroom projects below.
- Removing plaster and lath in the closet
- New closet
- Wax paper capiz shell chandelier
- How to install a wireless light switch
- Our New Mattress: The Dream Bed
Upstairs Bathroom
The upstairs bathroom was in sad shape when we moved in and had gotten a mini makeover of sorts. Here are the upstairs bathroom projects.
- Uncovering a hex tile floor before and after
- Bathroom vanity makeover with chalk paint and a new vanity top
- Painted wood trim
- How to paint lighting while it’s still on the wall
- How to Install a Sheet Vinyl Floor
- Small Bathroom Makeover
Basement Bathroom
In our house we have a full bathroom in the finished basement. It’s currently getting a gut renovation down to the 113-year old foundation. Our plan includes new green board, a plank accent wall, new shower, new floor and more. Here are projects about the basement bathroom.
- The basement bathroom before
- Bathroom demolition and renovation surprises
- How to use self leveling concrete
- New Ikea Vanity, Lights and Silver Leaf Mirror
