Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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The New Digs

Greetings again from Panera (there’s no internet at home yet – so we stop in, get hot chocolate, and slap together a post or two for you guys whenever we have a spare moment thanks to their free WiFi). We know you’re anxiously awaiting interior shots of our new house all empty and move in ready from yesterday (can’t believe it’s really ours!). So here they are. I ran around quickly, which resulted in some less than perfect shots (our friends and family were outside in the snow waiting to start bringing things in so I made it snappy and didn’t have a chance to record a video so that’ll have to come later). But anyway, this is the blank slate that we can’t wait to start having fun with. Paneling? Check. A yellow and beige bathroom? Check. Dark wood trim? Check. Many different floor choices? Check. Brick that we’re dying to paint? Check. Off-centered windows? Check. Small box-like rooms? Check. Walls to knock down? Check. A sink in the master bedroom? Check.

In other words, we’re insanely excited to get in there and start making our new house feel like it’s really ours. Which usually doesn’t happen until the paint brushes and the hammers come out. And we have to send a huge shout out to the former owners for allowing us to be the lucky new residents of their pride and joy. They even hosted a party to welcome us to the neighborhood a few weeks back and listened with excitement as we mentioned what colors we wanted to paint things and what walls we couldn’t wait to knock down. It has been an absolute pleasure to buy their house.

But enough jibber jabber. You guys are all probably all thinking “just get to the pictures” (if you haven’t skipped this intro entirely and scrolled down already) so here they are. Oh and check out this post for a floor plan description that will probably make a lot more sense of the flow, some of our future plans, etc.

Here’s the exterior in that blanket of surprise snow courtesy of mother nature:

NewEmpty Exterior Front

And here’s the room that has us at hello. It’s actually a formal living room with a dining room behind those built-ins, but we’ll be converting the formal living room part into an entryway/dining room with a huge opening on the left wall that leads into the large eat-in kitchen. And that back room that was once the dining room will become our home office thanks to the addition of some pretty french doors.

NewEmpty Living Built Ins

Here’s a look from the other direction back at the door.

NewEmpty Living Front Door

And here’s the long eat-in kitchen we mentioned. Lots of paneling to paint! We’re also planning to paint the cabinets (not sure what color or colors yet) and add a giant island. The opening to the new dining room in the front of the house will be on the right wall in the picture below. We’re hoping to get at least a 5′ pass through so it feels really airy and inviting.

NewEmpty Kitchen

Here it is from the other direction. Another thing we loved about this house from the get go were the wide doorways that it already had. You know we’re suckers for the whole open flow thing.

NewEmpty Kitchen Eat In

Here’s another one of those nice wide doorways that leads down the hall (this was taken with my back to the master bedroom facing the front door). Burger likie.

NewEmpty Hallway Burger

Here’s the room where we’ll do all of our living (when we’re not in the kitchen, since everyone seems to end up there anyway). We realized we never used our formal living room nearly as much as our family room in the old house, so we longed for a bigger all-in-one room to gather (that could accommodate a lot of our large family and a sectional along with some other larger furnishings) instead of having two smaller sitting rooms that were half as functional.

NewEmpty Family Room 2

We love that it feels airy and spacious thanks to the generous size and the awesome sliding doors (one leads out onto a raised patio and one leads out into the sunroom).

NewEmpty Family Room

Here’s the view looking towards the kitchen with your back to that big square window in the picture that’s two images up. We’re planning to make that fireplace a double-sided one so we can enjoy it from the kitchen and from the living room- and we also want to widen that doorway to make the kitchen feel even more connected to both rooms that are on either side of it.

NewEmpty Family Room 3

Here’s the sunroom that was added on a while later. The challenge here will be making it feel more integrated with the rest of the house since it feels so modern and new when compared to the rest of the house, most of which was built half a century before.

NewEmpty Sunroom

The other side of the sunroom has an off centered window and some dark brick that we can’t wait to transform.

NewEmpty Sunroom 2

Here’s the master bedroom. It’s a really generously sized room, and the reclaimed pine floors (with super wide-planks!) are pretty special, so we can’t wait to show them some love.

NewEmpty Master

Here’s the sink in the far side of the room (with a shower and a toilet in a room to the right and a walk-in closet to the left). It’ll definitely be a challenge to make that sink feel integrated since it’s visible from the bed (romantic!) but we have lots of ideas when it comes to getting ‘er done.

NewEmpty Master Bath

Here’s the hall bath that’s back near the other three bedrooms. We love that it’s so similar to the original full bath in our old house (and the tile is luckily in much better shape).

NewEmpty Hall Bath

Here’s Clara’s new nursery (it’s almost exactly the same size as her old one):

NewEmpty Clara Room

And here’s the middle bedroom that we’re calling the playroom (it’ll become another kids bedroom when our clan grows someday):

NewEmpty Playroom

Here’s the guest bedroom that we can’t wait to offer up to family and friends stopping through. Of course we need a bed first…

NewEmpty Guest Room

And here’s they funny little yellow-beige bathroom suite (that room used to be the master before they added the new one along with that spacious living room behind the kitchen, so it has its own bathroom).

NewEmpty Guest Bath

Can’t wait to redo this baby.

NewEmpty Guest Shower

And here’s the little laundry room that we want to pack with storage and function to create a mini mudroom as well.

NewEmpty Laundry

We love the lines of the back of the house (and hope to upgrade the exterior up front someday to match…).

NewEmpty Exterior Back

Doesn’t the snow make our backyard look so charming? We’re in love.

NewEmpty Backyard

So there it is. It was totally love at first sight for us. And we’re still so thankful for our buyers agent who convinced us to go look at the house (we snubbed our nose at it because it had a carport, and later learned that the owners were offering a full credit to pay for the conversion from carport to garage so it wouldn’t cost us a dime). Seriously, it makes us crazy to think that we might have missed out on this beauty because we were anti carport. But the (real estate) world works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, we hope you guys enjoy the first of many pics of our new place. Please bear with us when it comes to questions (since we don’t have internet access, and want to spend more time at the new house than Panera, we might not be able to answer a ton of new house q’s). You have our word that we’ll share more details about what will go where and what projects we want to take on as things unfold. We’re all about the whole real-time blog-as-we-go thing. Especially since we have so many new projects to tackle! Thankfully we have nothing but time (at least 4.5 years, since that’s how long the last house took us) to settle in and share every detail with you guys. You know we’re chronic over-sharers, so don’t worry about us sparing any detail. Stay tuned for diary-like updates as we tackle transformations both big and small. Until then, come on in and make yourself comfy in our new home! So glad to have you guys along for the ride.

Psst- You can check out our new BabyCenter post all about Clara’s new room here.

Comments

  8. Rosemary says

    Congrats! It’s an awesome home and I know you’ll wave your magic wand and show us some great RENOS! yay so looking forward to future blogs.

    Enjoy and hope you guys get time to relax!

    Reply

  10. Jennifer says

    YAY! I’m so excited for you! Thank you for continuing to share eventhough you are crazy busy.

    Super excited to see the change process (although it’s lovely to start with)

    Reply

  11. Kay says

    The yellow bathroom is totally charming! I hope you don’t gut it completely! The sink is adorable and it looks like maybe you have penny tiles on the floor?

    Reply

  13. Katy says

    OH MY GOSH!!!! I CAN’T WAIT to see what you guys are gonna do with this AWESOME SPACE!!! ugh, I’m gonna be hooked for years. Count on me stopping by everyday as always and living my flip dreams vicariously through you.

    …And order a cream tomato soup and asian sesame salad for me while you’re at Panera. I hate cubicle life. seriously.

    Reply

  14. Jamie B says

    Oh, my goodness, it’s BEAUTIFUL. I don’t know why but I was expecting something much cheesier inside but I can see why you love it, there are so many things I love too! That sunroom! The tile in the main bathroom! (Please please please don’t rip that out. As gorgeous as your bathroom renovation was, I loved that tile in your old house, although I understood it wasn’t in good condition.) And it’s so big! Congratulations again. :)

    Reply

  16. Monika says

    lol@ Burger in the picture in the hallway, he looks intrigued.

    That kitchen is beastly, it’s going to make for some great before and after shots. Can’t wait to see what you do with it!

    Congrats!

    :)

    Reply

  18. TiffanyT. says

    I’m already trying to picture what you might do with the place..dreaming really is half the fun! I know you guys are gonna turn that place out!What whaaat.

    Reply

  20. Lindsay says

    LOVE the wide, sunny hallway leading from the bedroom to the front door. Can’t wait to see what you guys do with the place!

    Reply

  21. annabelvita says

    You guys are too good to us! I can’t believe you got two meaty posts up the day after you moved. Massive round of applause over here.
    House looks awesome. Those built ins had me at hello for sure. The kitchen island makes much more sense to me now I’ve seen pictures. The hall bathroom is a beaut.
    The sink in your bedroom is about a million times better than it was in my head. It seems very Dutch to me.

    Reply

  22. Vivian says

    felicidades. what a beautiful new slate to begin with. the picture with burger had me at hello. I actually gasped. well done!

    Reply

  23. nancie says

    love love LOVE the new house…
    i was so sad with the ‘old’ house pictures…i can’t believe you didn’t cry. i almost did – and i’m just a stalker!!
    i KNOW you’ll be so happy in this new house. i can’t wait to see what y’all will tackle first!!

    Reply

  24. Krista says

    So exciting! I just moved to a new huge and open loft-style apartment three days ago, and my husband and I have had so much fun rearranging things and painting. I’m excited to see what you guys end up doing with this place. :)

    Reply

  28. NIk says

    Everything is beautiful. The yellow-beige bathroom totally reminds me of the common bathrooms in my college dorm. I am excited to see what you guys do with everything.

    Reply

  29. Amy says

    What is the flooring type count at the new Casa?

    PS I love it already, this one is gonna be an absolute beauty after a little love!

    Reply

  30. Meredith says

    YAY! I’m SO EXCITED to be with this transformation from day 1. (Although I loved catching up on the old house, too…) Side note: LOVE Panera’s hot chocolate. I may need to have some of that this weekend, yummmmm. :)

    Reply

  31. Steph @ BirdHouse Family says

    I’m so glad to finally see photos of your new house! Many of the rooms look to be in better shape than those in your previous house in its original state. I think that’s great because you can focus on the worst rooms but still take your time with the renos without rushing to make the house livable. Enjoy your new house and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

    Reply

  32. Ashlee says

    I cannot wait to see what you do with the hall bathroom. My laundry room has the exact same tile & black/white tiled wall features…Been trying to figure out how to fix it up. I am positive you will be an amazing source of inspiration!

    Reply

  37. Elizabeth says

    Love it! Have fun! :) I’ll be reading, and hopefully doing some mini-projects of my own inspired by you, since I have so many of the same situations you have (paneling, yellow tile, etc.) I’ll be reading! :)

    Reply

  38. Chantel says

    Congratulations to all four Petersiks! The new digs look fabulous! I will certainly miss your first home together, but I can already see the potential and all the possible projects you guys will undertake in this place. Good luch with everything!

    Reply

  44. Stephanie Phillips says

    Yay! Okay, now that I can see the house, I’ll chill with the constant blog-stalking and let you get some R&R in. It is BEAUTIFUL, though! I’m stoked to see how this all goes!

    Reply

  45. Heather M says

    BEAUTIFUL!! I’m so excited to see what you guys have planned. So much potential, and it has GREAT bones! That sunroom is amazing with the high ceilings and windows. I’m sure you’ll do a great job at unifying it with the rest of the house. And the kitchen…it’s going to be a knockout (literally, hehe).
    I’m curious to know, after unpacking and painting, what’s going to be your first big project?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Hey Heather,

      Depends on our mood I guess! We have so many things swirling around our heads. Who knows what we’ll do first (once we’re done unpacking of course…).

      xo,
      s

  46. emily/thesearethedays says

    These pictures just made me so happy for your family. Looking through and reading what you all hope to accomplish in your new home is fantastic, and I’m so glad you’re letting us come along for the ride!

    Reply

  47. Kim Early says

    Very happy for all four of you. Was waiting to hear and see it. I love your enthusiam and I hope that when you start the work, you start a a fire in me so I can continue to tackle our 30 year old home! Thanks again.

    Reply

  48. Micha says

    Welcome home!

    I looooove the built-ins in your soon-to-be diningroom but what’s really killing me is the fireplace in the kitchen! How stinkin’ cool is that!

    Reply

  49. Stacey says

    Congratulations!!! I’m so excited for you all – it’s SO fun to get into a new house and make it home!!! Looking forward to watching you work some Petersik magic!!! Enjoy!!!

    Reply

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