I love to watch you go

It's official...We are starting the kitchen. Yes, this in undoubtedly my most hated area in the house and no not just because well, its ugly but because it's not functional. I mean most of the cabinet drawers don't even open or they don't have doors on them, some cabinets are missing handles while other are about to fall off.  This makes it very difficult when you are trying to make dinner for five screaming kids.
But before we could even think of hanging pretty new cabinets we had to address a serious issue, the large window in our kitchen looking out to the garage. Yes, it sounds weird that we had a large window looking out to our garage but whoever added the addition to our house (mater bedroom and garage) in the 80's never closed the large window in our kitchen thus us having a beautiful view of our garage.

BEFORE: (large window looking out to garage, taking up a lot of space that new cabinets will go)

On the same side we also had a little built in, built over another window that was cracked from the other side, that had to go as well.

 

AFTER: Both windows closed up, ready for sanding and paint 

A Room with Purpose

So there is this room in our house, first door to the left, right when you enter and for the last few months it has gone through a number of purposes. Initially, it was Masons room (babies room) then due to the fact that our room is upstairs and on the other side of the house we moved him into our Master Bedroom with us, works out for everyone since he's not the best sleeper yet. Next, it became the computer/laundry room ...well, honestly....it was just a room that I threw all the clean laundry in and the door was ALWAYS shut. My laundry missed their best friends aka hangers so I got on that and then the room felt empty.
For the last few months I have been working from home and got the idea to make this spare room into my home office. So far here is what I have done:
#1. Painted the entire room in Benjamin Moore "Moonshine"
#2. Hung curtains, three sets from Ikea called "Matilida"
#3. Bronze curtain rods at a seriously low price found at Ross
#4. Installed new ceiling fan, Lowes "Hampton Bay, Hayward" 52 inch in Bronze

#5. Purchased and put together a writing desk found on Amazon
#6. Pretty wall prints above my writing desk Found Here / And Here

So here is what we got so far:

Our Home

As we get closer to making dramatic changes to our cute but previously unloved 1950's ranch style home. I thought it would be fun to document taking our home from its rough appearance to hopefully a beautiful home with a fresh look and style that this place needs.

Just to give you the back story on this little charmer it was really by accident that we even ended up moving here but sometimes things are meant to be. My husband Brian and I had been living in Austin Texas and had just got married, we had been slowly looking around at homes in the Austin/Round Rock/Cedar Park area but nothing really stuck out to us. We both wanted an older home with character and most importantly space from our neighbors. What we had been seeing a lot of in the Austin area was houses stacked on top of each other and they all looked the same.....boring !

So to make this long story short...Brian (avid Zillow.com searcher) pulls up on his computer this blue home in Bryan Texas, keep in mind Bryan Texas is two hours away from Austin so I immediately said...ummm, NO! I even thought the house looked awful from the Zillow photos. Well my husband graduated from Texas A&M in the 90's which is in the town next to Bryan Texas and we just happened to be meeting some friends in that area who where nice enough to throw us an amazing party in honor of us just tying the knot.

Before we go to our get together my husband swings by this house that I absolutely hated in the photos online. I was totally shocked when we drove up, the house looked nothing like the photos and I fell in love with its charm, close proximity to the local elementary school (across the street), large front and back yard and the amount of potential I saw in this little beauty.

And within two hours we got on the phone and started writing an offer on this place, we didn't even look inside until inspection, talk about love at first sight and crazy risk taking. We love this house and it is ours, now time to make it look like ours.