Everyone has been asking for pictures, so here are some of them.
After unpacking for the last five days, I can say I’m elated at all the space in this house!
Although the rooms themselves, aren’t spacious, this house has three levels!
Which means more exercise, but that is good for the body.
With a huge basement underneath the entirety of the house, I get tons more space that I was seeking!
Efficiently moving in
When the movers came, they cleverly brought in all the furniture first, and I knew exactly where I wanted all of it to go.
After they brought in boxes, I told them where to put them, according to room.
That was easy since every box was labeled for the room it would go in to. I had organized that as the Texas house was packed up.
Unpacking for five days
After the movers left in the early afternoon, I got to work.
The kids were excited to help with their own rooms.
It was pretty easy to simply pull out our clothing from the garment boxes to hang on the racks. Done.
Meanwhile my first step was to start unpacking my kitchen so we can eat home-cooked meals, much cheaper than eating out.
After unloading enough boxes to fill a dishwasher, I run that load then move on to other rooms.
I want those dishes, utensils, pots and pans, etc to be sanitized, so this process will take longer.
Although we ate out that night, at least I was on a roll.
Then I turned my attention to easily hanging our clothes on racks, and putting other clothes into dresser drawers.
While setting up beds, I pulled out all the towels for the bathrooms.
Those were the primary goals for the first night. Done.
After the clothing and linens were conquered, I interspersed any boxes that looked easy to unpack, in between taking clean dishes out of the dishwasher, putting them away, then unpacking another load.
As each box was emptied, I flattened it and laid it on a growing pile in the garage.
A friend of mine had a friend who was about to move and wanted boxes, so she came over periodically to grab from our pile.
Shopping for food and paint
Five days later, I made my first trip to the commissary to load up our refrigerator and pantry.
That night I cooked our first meal since February, chicken cacciatore.
Everyone agreed it was so good, nice to not have to eat out anymore.
I also did a bit of shopping for creamy yellow paint and supplies, because I can’t take the awful paint colors in this house.
Some rooms have worse colors than others, but all of them are filthy. How does that happen?
Redesign plans
We really miss the house we left in Texas, that we worked so hard on.
It was difficult to commit to 4x the cost of our Texas house, after all our completed upgrades, as well as significantly better builder upgrades.
And this house, though with great bones, is so lackluster, not comfy cozy at all, so we want to do basically the same thing here as we did in Texas:
Paint all the walls
New tile floors in the bathrooms and laundry closet
New carpet or wood floors in the family room and living room
New counter tops in kitchen and bathrooms
Paint the cabinetry in the kitchen and bathrooms
New medicine cabinets in the bathrooms
New tile backsplash in kitchen and bathrooms
New pavered patio behind house
New window treatments, that I’ll sew…since that sells houses!
Meanwhile, here are a few photos of the new house, in the rooms that are unpacked.
Kids’ bathroom
Although the kids want me to recreate the Under the Sea mural in here, I told them they probably won’t like it in a year or two, since they quickly growing up.
But I would like to paint the walls blue, and do a more sophisticated beach theme for teenagers.
Basement laundry closet
This isn’t bad.
Believe me, I’ve seen far worse while house hunting.
I’d still like to sophisticate it a bit.
I’m so glad we brought our own washer and dryer from the Texas house, which is much better quality than what the previous homeowner left.
So the old ones were dragged out and placed into the garage for Habit for Humanity to pick up.
Basement bedroom
Extra bedroom to the right in the photo…which I really loved, even with its deep lavender purple walls. It has a huge picture window looking out at the rock garden (hmmm) under the deck.
It has a really nice large closet, too.
I was hoping to get it for my sewing room, alas…
Basement bathroom
On the left, the companion bathroom which has a wall color I’d like more if it were deeper.
Basement storage closet
Past the basement bathroom is a huge storage closet, which is amazing!
I want to put up wallboard, paint it out, and put shelving in various places, but not too many places because I really need a place for all the boxes.
It was so nice to quickly unpack because all the overflow boxes easily fit into this storage which I’ve never had before.
The things we use most often are nearest the doorway…
…then to the right and there is more space for things like our vacuum cleaner and things we use some of the time.
Turn to the right and there is more storage! This is where I put all the Christmas boxes and other holiday decor.
Master suite
The master suite is quite decent, though meh in appearance.
I found a new bedspread perfectly suited to enliven drab lavender grey walls.
Although I have already purchased creamy yellow paint to tackle the dreadful cave-like basement tomorrow, I’m still considering various colors for the other rooms.
Since this room isn’t too bad, I’ll start painting the most dreadful rooms, while auditioning color options in the not so bad rooms.
Thus, this room is near the bottom of the priority list, so this lovely bedding will help us endure dreary walls.
However it is a lovely size, the largest master bedroom I’ve ever had. (check header photo)
The master bathroom is large, but not laid out as well as in the Texas house. It has no linen closet.
The shades are about to fall apart.
I’d like to paint this room blue, along with the other upgrades listed above.
The etagere was left with the house, which is handy. Hopefully we can build another shelf above the toilet like we had in the Texas house.
The legs on the floor make it more difficult to clean around.
The shower isn’t as clean as it should be. It really needs a complete remodel, new tile, new glass enclosure, hopefully seamless.
Thankfully I found that little machine hanging from the shower faucet. It comes on periodically to spray the area clean which is taking out the gunk without any elbow grease.
The shower is much more decent, now.
The master suite is a great size.
