One Year

We have been in our "new" old home for just over a year now and we are still in awe that we live in our dream home.  We still drive by and say to ourselves, "We live here!".  Since moving in last August, we have had some ups and some downs.  The highest point, we had a beautiful baby and could not be more in love.  The lowest point, we lost our beloved dog.

We made a deal that besides painting, we would wait a year to make any big changes.  Well, we have stayed true to that deal and only painted one room.  In fact, only one room is "done".  Yep, you guessed it, the baby's room.  We both love the baby's room and I plan on sharing it sometime, but other than that, no space in the house is done or even close to being done.  Heck, we even have an empty room!  Ok, ok, it actually has a ladder, so it is not completely empty.  

That being said, my goal is to document the process of turning this amazing house that we love so much into a home.  It is going to be exciting, frustrating, rewarding and a learning experience and this blog is going to help hold me accountable.  I plan on showing it all, the pretty and the ugly.  This is an old historic home, so when it comes to painting and restoring, nothing will get done quickly, but it will get done.  Here is an ultimate wish list of things that need to be done:

1. Paint the interior of the whole house
2. Remodel the kitchen
3. Light remodel of the current full bathroom
4. Remodel main floor bath
5. Put in a master bathroom
6. Manage the landscaping
7. Decorate 

We are not professionals at decorating or renovating, but we are passionate homeowners that love our home and want to make is a great space for our family.  Stay tuned!

Change of Plans

The past few months have both dragged on and gone by so quickly.  In May we received the bid for our new construction home and on that same day a historic home we have admired for a long time hit the market.  So, within 24 hours we had an appointment to see the historic home and within 48 hours we were under contract. In a matter of two days, our plans had drastically changed.  It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but we knew it was the best decision for us.  I mean, who could walk away from this...

Although we were under contract quickly, we were scheduled for a 60 day close.  Of course we were excited and wanted to be in the home right away, but sometimes you just have to go with it.  The porches on this beautiful home had me at hello and is one of the few reasons we were dying to get in!

It has now been four weeks since we closed and we are so in love with this home.  There are so many things we find on a weekly basis that make us love our "new" home even more.  They just do not build homes like this anymore.  We are looking forward to settling in and making it our own.  

Our First Lesson in Home Building

Last Monday we met with the architect.  We were excited because we had picked out a plan that we really liked and thought with minor tweaks we could make it right for us.  The main change we wanted to make was the square footage.  In fact, here is the exterior of the plan we started with:

Some of the things we love about the exterior is the symmetry and front facade.  A couple of things we do not like - the brick extensions and the pitch of the roof.  The architect told us no big deal, we can fix that.  We were on a roll so we moved on to the first floor.  Here is a pic of the plan on the first floor:

We liked the flow of the rooms, but the main selling point on this plan is that it would allow us to have a side entry garage.  The changes on this floor included:

• Removing the sunken living room
• Making the wall between the dining room straight
• Removing the curved wall in the back of the house
• Taking the bump out in the kitchen and moving it to the rear of the house
• Changing the full bath to a half bathroom
• Making the fireplace double-sided
• Extending the garage

Whew, that seems like a lot looking at it now, but we still felt like we were in a good place and on our way to making it perfect.  We moved on to the second floor and came up with the solution to possibly remove the third bathroom to add square footage to the bedrooms.  Here is the second floor in all of its glory:

So where exactly did we learn a lesson?  We learned that house plans online do not have accurate square footage.  Instead of the 3,073 that we originally thought this plan was, it ended up being over 3,600.  We were not surprised that the square footage was not correct because our realtor and the architect told us they thought it was bigger.  That being said....we did not expect 500 square feet bigger.  

With this new development, we are busy trying to figure out how to make this work.  We feel like we have a great support team.  Our realtor know his stuff when it comes to building and has worked with our architect on many plans.  Between us and them we will make it work!

 

The Home that Wasn't Meant to Be

I have a thing for historic homes - like a really big thing.  I love everything about them.  I love the history, the architecture and the feel of an old home.  I know my love affair for older homes started at a young age.  I grew up in an old farmhouse and my parents always took the opportunity to take us to tour historic homes when we were on vacation.  Some of the homes that have contributed to my love affair include Abraham Lincoln's home and the The Dana Thomas House both in Springfield, Illinois.  I cannot forget the plantation homes that my family toured when we were in Atlanta for the '96 Olympics.  My all-time favorite historic home that I have toured is George Washington's Mount Vernon followed closely by Arlington House.  It is not just old homes that I adore...it is historic architecture in general.

So...now that you know my love for old homes runs deep, imagine my excitement when I discovered an old historic home in my hometown hit the market.  This historic home is situated on an acre of land and is on one of the iconic streets in my hometown.  In the early 1800's it is where the high society lived and although it is not as highly regarded as the 1800's, it is still appreciated and recognized for what it used to be.  Behold the beauty that I discovered.

I fell in love.  Unfortunately, Dean did not.  This home is screaming for someone to come inside and restore it to its former glory.  Restoring it and updating this home will take a lot of time, money and effort.  We looked at the home with my parents who love historic homes just as much as I do and even they were not optimistic about the prospect of this house.  Here are some inside shots that should scare me, but do not.  Instead, I see them and get excited about what this could be.

After talking to our realtor as well as sitting down with Dean and revisiting our reasons for moving to my hometown we came to the conclusion that it just was not meant to be.  We both feel this is more in line with our tastes, but not our goals.  We are looking for a comfortable new home that we can personalize and not have to spend the weekend doing home improvement projects.  So for now I will have to give up my dream of owning a historic home, but I will get the opportunity to build a custom home that is all ours.  We will be able to write our own history in this new home...and fill it with some antique touches to appeal to the love I feel feel for historic homes.  Good luck to whoever buys this beauty - I am looking forward to seeing what you do with her!

Building vs. Buying

Build a new home or buy a preexisting home is a question we kept asking ourselves this past year.  We knew our target area as well as what we were looking for.  We started looking at the homes that were on the market last year and even went to a couple of open houses to test the waters.  We saw some beautiful homes, but not quite what were were looking for.  We even looked at preexisting homes last month and saw one in an established neighborhood that we thought we would eventually buy in, but ultimately decided it was not for us.

Fortunately for us, we had an ace up our sleeve.  We had reserved a lot last fall in a new development with the intent of building.    The only bad part of our plan is that the lot would not be ready until March.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature has had other plans and the phase that our lot is in will not be ready until April.  That being said, we love the lot and feel it is worth the wait.  Our lot is highlighted in blue.

We like how the lot is situated and that is on a cul-de-sac.  The other great bonus about this development is that we have friends that recently built with the builder we are going with and are very happy with the end results.

We are excited that we have the ability to get in there and really personalize our house from start to finish and build it to our specifications.  We know that we have a budget and will not get everything we want.  Our realtor said a great statement when we were looking at houses last month...you can have a $10 million budget but still want $11 million worth of things.  It doesn't matter what your budget is, you will always want to go over.  The good thing is that we will be able to determine what we are willing to give up and possibly finagle ways to get more than what we could have gotten with an existing home.

Here are just a few of the reasons we ultimately decided building was the answer for us:

• Everything will be new
• We can adjust the floor plan to fit our vision, needs and wants
• We can get a side entry garage - this is something we both feel strongly about
• We get to pick all of the finishes out
• We will have the ability to do a little bit of the work ourselves (I stress little, but we are both excited that we can participate)
• We will be getting a larger lot 
• It will be ours and only ours     

Our next step is meeting with our realtor and architect to get this process rolling.  I am excited to see what the final product on paper will look like since we have a floor plan picked out that we both like but needs tweaking.  Let the fun begin!!

Moving on Up

Technically this post should be titled "Moving on In...into my Parent's House", but that just doesn't sound as good as moving on up.  My husband and I actually moved into my parent's house December 14th, two days before we closed on the sale of our first home.   All joking aside, it is a good thing and we are so appreciative that my parents are letting us and our adorable dog, Ozzie, crash at their house until our next living situation is finalized.  I plan on using this blog to document all the fun that encompasses figuring out all of the ups and downs associated with building/buying our next home.  While we figure out the details, I would like to give you a little background as to where we are coming from...

The picture above is of our first house.  We purchased it seven years ago and it feels like yesterday.  It is a beautiful historic home built in the late 1800's in St. Louis's Fox Park neighborhood.  I loved this house the minute I stepped into it.  I admit I cried the day we moved out and the day we closed.  It is such a beautiful home inside and out.  What made our first home even better was the neighborhood.  I miss our neighbors and the involvement our neighborhood association had in making Fox Park a great place to live in.

I know that it was the right time to move on, but in the meantime, here are some of my favorite things about this house that I will always miss!

The ceilings - they were so tall:

Our master bedroom with its little nook:

Our big for the city backyard:

This house taught us so much about home ownership.  It gave us a great idea of what we would love to have in our next house.  It taught me that it is okay to pick a bad paint color because you can always fix it.  Yep...we had burnt orange in our bathroom.  Fortunately, it only lasted a couple of hours!  It taught us that there will always be another project to do around the house.  It taught us to buy quality pieces of furniture that we really love and to not just settle.  Most of all, it taught me that we can create a space that we love, are proud of and are comfortable in.  This house and Fox Park will always be special.  I am looking forward to finding something special about the next one!