I lost a lot of the pictures I'd taken just after moving in when my phone broke last month. Most of them were the ''not so pretty'' projects like: septic tank lids, tree trim/removal, etc... yes, I took pictures of our septic tank being pumped and also of the new lids going on. I've never been exposed to a septic system so I was very intrigued. Until the day our lids were replaced, I took a look into our tanks every single day because I was so worried about what was going on down there. So far, so good.
We spent the first month or so after closing taking care of some pretty important things that needed to be done: as I said, septic tank lids because the existing lids were cracked. We also had a tree company come clear the back half of the yard and clean our view up a bit. We had 3 small storage sheds removed to make room for my husbands mini barn storage shed. We had chain link fence put up across the back tree line and got new gates on both sides of the house. There were other small things that kept coming up upon move in... my husband (who happens to be in HVAC) had to repair the AC twice. Our garage door fell of the tracks so we ordered a new one. We then had to replace the pipe from our house to our septic because in week 3 of living at our new casa, everything was backing up into the house. That was no bueno. We found the original clay pipe from 1949 along with about 5ft of toilet paper followed by 10ft of roots. Yack! There are a lot of really cool surprises that come with living in an old house. Clay pipe is not one of them.
After the first month, things finally stopped breaking and we decided we needed new living room furniture. We tried to make our current living room furniture work but I just wasn't happening. Another cool thing about an old house is sometimes dealing with awkward layouts. So, needless to say, I have a custom sectional being delivered in the very near future. We had 8 weeks until our sectional was going to be delivered so we decided to go ahead and get the living room situated the way we wanted it. When I say situated, I mean we completely demo'ed it. We had very heavy texture in the living room which my husband and I both hated. After some back and forth about our options, we just decided to tear it out and start over.
One of the things that I really love about our house was that it really doesn't fit any specific building style. It was built in 1949 and seems to have been custom built. The exterior is limestone rock that is currently painted cream. As y'all know, I love older homes, particularly early 1920's... and although the exterior of our home leans a little more towards a ranch style house in that it's long and narrow with a masonry exterior, I think it actually lands somewhere in between. So, I'm taking this opportunity to give our home the look of a cottage style house and using a lot of Craftsman influence.
I always air on the side of caution with our remodels when it comes to trends. As we all know, shiplap and the ''farmhouse style'' is very much in style right now. I would think twice about putting shiplap on all of my walls if our house was not built in 1949.. Actually, I half expected to find some type of wood walls behind the sheet rock we tore out... so we decided to go ahead and put in up in lieu of sheet rock. The wood we used is technically not shiplap. It's tongue and groove pine beadboard.
Although I fought my husband on tearing out the sheet rock, it was really a blessing in disguise. We found that all of the joists and the band under both windows were rotten and needed to be replaced so we took that opportunity to go ahead and replace the windows, as well. We also relocated and added a few electrical outlets. When in Rome, right??
So the ceilings were popcorn. We considered covering them with the same wood panels that we used on the walls but after calculating the additional expense, we changed our minds really fast, ha! Of course, you know that I LOVED our coffered style ceiling that we installed in the Kensington house (you can read all about that here). It was my pride and joy of our kitchen and dining area. AND bonus, sheet rock is much for affordable than pine bead board panels. So, of course, that's how we're taking care of that popcorn situation in the living room and I'm sooo excited! It's going to be amazing!
That pretty much catches you up to date on our progress at the new house. This week, I'm working on trim and molding...fingers crossed that I'll be able to finish in time. Our sectional- the reason for the whole darn project- is being delivered this Saturday and we're also supposed to get our new garage door sometime this week. Yay!
You can check out a few of the interior pictures of our new 1949 home here
Check out our coffered style ceiling here
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