Knock, Knock....

To go along with our new black front door, we need a door knocker.  The door used to have one, and the previous owners decided to take it with them (along with the vanities in the bathrooms and 90% of the outlet covers - so odd).  Anyways, I turned to my standby - Etsy :)

The first one that came up on my search was this :

I guess it serves as a reminder that if the house is a rock'n don't come a knock'n?  I'm very weirded out by this. 

But in all seriousness -

Option A : Vintage Brass with an area to engrave our last name $25+s/h
This is the most traditional option -

Option B : Vintage Brass Lion (awwww) $28 + s/h
He's cute and he reminds me of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Option 3 : Solid Brass Pinapple $15 + s/h
This reminds me of college, I went to school in Rhode Island and there were pineapples on 80% of the doors of the older homes in Newport and Providence since pineapples are a symbol of hospitality.  According to the legend, it began with New England sea captains, who would spear pineapples on a fence post outside their homes after returning from the Caribbean islands, to let friends know of his safe return from sea. The pineapple was an invitation for them to visit, share his food and drink, and listen to tales of his voyage.

Option 4 : Vintage Brass Whale $68 + s/h (most $$ but he's so cute and comes from Maine)
I'm not sure how I feel about whatever is coming out of his belly; but I kind of love him.....a lot.  Although we are not near the water, so it might be odd to have a whale on our door?

Please tell me which is your favorite, because as it stands right now we might end up with 4 door knockers on our door, which is probably overkill.

Our house is getting GRILLZ....

It's been a while since I posted about our house, things are progressing, but I have a problem where I never fully finish something and therefore never take pictures.  Examples to include: Island that is still missing hardware, striped stair railing that needs new paint, kitchen that still needs paint on 1 wall, half done molding in the bedroom, half built wreath on the living room floor....
I could go on, I get so excited about new projects and then the old ones just seem 'eh'.  This weekend is dedicated to finishing SOME of the projects...and cleaning.  I have an overwhelming urge to purge.

Anyways, I know Christmas hasn't even rolled around yet, but I'm already planning out our spring to-do list.  I've been LOVING glossy black front doors recently, and really want for my own. 
This is the current state of the exterior.

This is what my glossy black front door might look like :
(Plus, we have to buy a cute new knocker since the previous owners TOOK it, and left two holes in the front door - awesome right?)

Okay, clearly I cannot add another color to the exterior scheme, plus EW! baby blue trim needs to GO! (what were they thinking?) and we might as well match the shutters to the door since evergreen and yellow combo isn't really my thing either.

Much better already right?

And maybe a little detail would help the situation.  The windows are actually good quality windows, that tilt in for washing (bonus) so we don't want to replace them, but they are boring, and I want to add grillz.

No, not those kind :)

See, more character right?

And while we are at it.....

Lets help out that lawn situation a bit (boy job).

And ideally, there will be some hydrangea bushes in my future.

What do you think? 

Minimal investment for increased curb apeal?  Or do you like the evergreen/baby blue combo?

*Please excuse my photoshop skills, I really do know how to use the program, but I made these in all of 5 minutes while waiting for something at work :)



A House Tour....

Do you want a little house tour?
I thought you did -
*Please excuse the terrible picture quality, I was too lazy to adjust them :)

Lets start from the outside and work our way in -

If you come in the front door, the kitchen is to your left, the living room (which they used as a dining room) to your right.

I didn't like the feeling of walking directly into the dining room so we are currently using this as the tv room (the tv is against the wall on the left of the image).

It's also got a second connection to the kitchen.  The fridge is right behind that light switch - so convenient for snacks.

The other side of the tv-room/dining room has the access to the mud room and downstairs bathroom.

There is a huge window in the mudroom-

and stone floors :

This leads into the downstairs bath (1/2)

The previous owners took the mirrors/vanity cabinets -

If we come back through the tv-room we move into the kitchen.

And through the kitchen you can see the family room and doors to the backyard:

Lets step outside for a second -
We have a tall fence and shed :) Although you can't see it all, the backyard is a decent size (for our area) and behind the fence there is a swamp pond.  The lawn needs a lot of work - that is a boy job.

Okay, lets go back inside.

And head upstairs -

At the top of the stairs, to the left is the master bedroom, to the right is the upstairs bath and bedroom #2/office and straight ahead is what we are calling bedroom #3/guestroom.
The Master: (to get these three pictures I stood in the door and rotated from left to right)

Our bed will be located between the windows on this wall.

Next up, the bath -

It's SMALL.

Again, they took the vanity - 

And there are random fish tiles in the shower -

Right beside the bathroom is the 2nd bedroom and what I'm going to be using as my office -

The floors need work in here -

On the way to the final bedroom there are built-in storage cabinets on either side of the hall.  Although right now they don't really shut (also need work).

And thats it!
Well, half of the basement is finished - but it's boring down there (and filled with stuff)....we'll save that for another day.

My Obsession with Navy Continues....

I'm kind of dying to paint our house Navy Blue.
Those of you who saw our wedding probably aren't surprised given my obsession with the color Navy.
Don't tell the boy yet - I'm not sure he'll be on board, but generally things this serious need to be carefully approached so he thinks it was his idea :)
 

What color is your house?  What color would you paint it if you had a choice?

 image sources

We Bought A House!

As some of you already know....we signed on our first home this weekend!  The process was way more intense than I ever imagined.  It went something like this:

Our agents got a new listing on Monday evening - they sent us the link Tuesday morning.  The house wasn't going to start showing until Thursday, with an open house scheduled for Sunday.  Our realtors scheduled us for a showing Thursday evening - we were the first ones to view the home, other than other brokers.  We made them an offer before we left that night, knowing that it would move fast, and gave them until 10am the next morning to accept our offer.

Neither of us slept that night.  We couldn't imagine that we wouldn't get it - we were the first offer, we offered asking price with no contingencies and 20% down, which should be an extremely strong offer.
Fast forward to 10 AM, neither of us were getting anything done at work - we are not good at waiting.  10:00 comes and goes, 11:00 comes and goes and still nothing.....at 1:00 we got a call from our realtors that the sellers wanted to wait until 6PM Saturday to review all offers.  At this point we knew they had at least one other offer - we were disappointed, annoyed and frustrated. 

We do not play the waiting game well.  No sleep again Friday night -
Saturday morning we went and looked at other homes bracing ourselves for the potential loss of the home we had put an offer on.  LONGEST DAY EVER.
At 7pm we got a call from our realtor...and he said CONGRATULATIONS! 
OMG! We got it?! 
There were two additional offers, both well over asking, but both had contingencies that the sellers didn't want to deal with - they have their eye on another house and want to move as fast as possible, so they chose us!  (Which they should have done in the beginning, but they are forgiven, for now).


Providing everything goes as planned, we will officially be homeowners on March 27th!  We took the obligatory stroll through Home Depot today to relish in our future home-owner status.


I know you guys are dying for pics, so I will oblige - but just know, that we know, that it needs work.  We wanted something we could put a little sweat equity into and this provides ample opportunity :)


Without further ado - our 1920's Dutch Colonial

Phase 1 of our Sweat Equity Involves:
a) A New Color and Roof
b) An Expanded Dormer
c) A Farmer's Porch
d) Patio (this will probably be Phase 0, so we can enjoy it this summer)

My husband and realtors needed a visual, so I modeled this up to give them an idea of what I was talking about:

Can you see it yet?


A few photos of the inside:

And the best part?  Fully fenced backyard, which means I'm window shopping for a PUPPY!