Our House's Story

My chosen profession is both a blessing and a curse.  On the one hand, I get invited into gorgeous homes and am surrounded by the world's most stunning fabrics and furnishings all day long.  On the other hand, I will never ever be able to move into a house and be completely 100% satisfied with my surroundings.   We began our house hunt after our April 2014 engagement and, I felt it was imperative that we find a house we could "fix up" so that I could better relate to my clients and their remodeling experiences.

It turns out my definition of a "fixer upper" was quite different from Mark's.  I think he expected to do some painting, and some minor touching up and be done with the whole ordeal - ah young love, how little he knew about his chosen bride!  After some initial pleading (on my part), we decided on a house that needed a lot, I repeat, A LOT of work. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

We purchased the house in June of 2014 and embarked on our first remodel with our trusted contractor (and friend) Bryan Beavers.  This was my first time to be the client in the relationship, and we were lucky enough to have one of our best friends guiding us through the process.  Given the chance, I know we'd do it all over again, and loop Bryan in for our crazy ride!

Planning a wedding + remodeling a house + moving in with a man + full time job designing other peoples houses = one stressed out gal.  If anything, this experience gifted me with an understanding of the stress my clients are under when we invade their homes.  Of course, it was all worth it in the end. We pulled off the whole project in 3 months, and moved in the week before our engagement party.  Did I mention we had my family staying with us that weekend as well? Yes, we are crazy people.

I love nothing more than a good before-and-after, so I'd like to start off a series of posts showing you all the transformation our house underwent.   Today we'll start with the before pics... prepare yourself for a real doozy!

The Exterior before

The house from the exterior was certainly nothing to write home about, but it is in a great neighborhood, and we saw potential! Actually we were desperate... we had been looking for months, and had not found "the one".  One fortuitous evening, we visited a listing down the street with our realtor, and walked out feeling completely dejected - once more, it was just wrong, wrong wrong.  It was at that moment that the owner of our house walked onto the front lawn and put his for-sale sign in the yard.  We asked if we could take a look, and he invited us in.  He and his wife were having friends over for dinner, and we immediately saw how this could transform into a wonderful home for entertaining (our main goal of course).  We submitted our offer the next morning, and the rest is history.

Closing Day!

I have to give Mark props for going with me on this one... it was a bit of a daunting task.  Also, please forgive my cell-phone pics, this was long before I ever thought about sharing these photos with anyone!

Entry

Entry (note the accordion pocket door)

Dining Room (standing in entry)

Living Room

Living Room  (lots of parquet floor)

Living Room Looking into Dining

Living room looking into (very blue) kitchen

Kitchen (you can see the dining room's yellow walls through that door)

Kitchen looking through to living and dining

Kitchen

Kitchen (why the 3/4 height shutters? I don't get it)

Utility Room (leads to garage)

Powder Bath (adjacent to laundry room)

Hilarious golfer-man wallpaper (Mark eats-sleeps-breathes golf... it was a sign!)

(yikes)

Hall bath (standing in entry)

Hall Bath

Hall bath 

 Hall Bath

Hall bath's crowning glory... a blue throne!

Front bedroom

Front bedroom

Hallway

Middle Bedroom

Middle Bedroom

Middle Bedroom

Hallway

Master

Master

Master

Master (yes, I believe that is kitty pee)

Master closet (read: my closet)

Master bath

Master bath

Master bath

So there you have it - the official "before" tour of our little house.  Can you tell by the wallpaper samples that I was a bit prematurely excited to decorate my own home?  I promise I'll start posting some "afters" soon with details on the design process!

Xx
Ivy