Friday, April 3, 2009

Phriday Photo Phun - Phew!

This? A thing of beauty.




Four little letters atop our For Sale sign that make my heart beat faster........

Now, folks've been clamoring for house pictures of the NEW digs. Well, I don't feel comfortable posting pictures on my blog just yet, as closing hasn't happened and the current owners are still living there and have all their belongings in there and such. So, a few "won't invade the privacy of the current owners" shots are all I can give you here now. Consider this a preview, and then if everything goes well, I should be able to post loads of photos on or about May 30th (hopefully sooner)...


This is the upstairs bathroom. Kiddo thinks the flower-n-butterfly wallpaper is "just so, so beautiful" and thinks the pattern of the sink counter is fantabulous:





Didn't get a close enough look at the countertop? Check it out in its full glory:





Now, I know I said the biggest cosmetic EEEK on the house is the wallpaper. And it *is* the wallpaper, too - mainly because every. Last. Square. Inch! of the house is wallpapered. Well, except for the family room and laundry room - those are wood paneling. (Hubby really despises wood paneling, by the way. With a passion.) But the wallpaper (which looks like this in the living room, for an example:)





isn't the only thing that will need updating.


Oh, no. There is also some wall-to-wall carpet that will need removing. It is predominately a plush, plush mauve (living room, dining room, stairs and upstairs hallway) but downstairs, in the fourth bedroom (that will be our home office), lurks this:





I'm not sure the cropping enables you to fully appreciate the depth and color variations of the shag. This shag is longer than my hair (and better highlighted, too). Egads. I have a sneaking feeling that until we get that carpet out, I will feel compelled to don a leisure suit every time I want to sit at my computer. Yes, that'll be me, blogging while looking like a Studio 54 wannabe (or is that Studio 57, Kara?). I'm tempted to trade in the overhead light for one of these bad boys:





Bam chicka wocka chicka bam chicka wow wow! (Someone please cue Adam Lambert singing Play That Funky Music here for me, will ya please? Or just have him come on over and serenade me once we've moved into the Time Warp Castle..... I know I'm digressing, but boy do I just love, love, LOVE Adam. Totally my favorite Idol contestant this season. Maybe ever.)


Anyhow, things are going as well as they can be (*knocking wood*) thus far with the house selling and buying processes. Hopefully mortgage loan commitment letters will be secured soon and attorneys will diligently work on all their shizzle to get us closer to closing. Woo! We've been through the house at length twice this week, and even have met the current owners, who are a lovely couple and who, despite having lived here in our distinctively accented corner of western NY for the better part of the past half decade, still both strongly speak in the unmistakable tones of New Englanders (Massachusetts, to be exact, as it turns out). I was waiting for them to tell me about pahking the cahs and mowing the yahd... While I myself try not to speak in the dulcet inflections of my native New Jersey (hey babe, I'll cawl you and we'll go to the mawl, okay?), I suppose it could be considered preferable to the local accent... (Oh, those flat "a" sounds especially make me cringe when I hear them flying willy-nilly out of my mouth. And to hear Kiddo talking in the local accent also makes me shudder.... I swear to you now, however, that Kiddo will refer to "soda" as "pop" only over my cold, dead, soda-drinking body, and I don't care what everyone else around here calls it!) I certainly never picked up the New England accent during our time living there, beyond grabbing hold of their fondness for the word wicked and bringing that back to NY with me, but I have heard myself mention the pond out behind our house and having it rhyme a little too closely with hand...


But I digress again. What I wanted to say before going off on that phonological/anthropological tangent is that we really, really love the house, despite the gentle ribbing of the plush shag and acres of wallpaper and Pepto-Bismol pink tile shower in the master bath. (Oh, didn't I show you that? Check it out:)





Yes, this house is going to need a lot of work to bring it from the Brady Bunch era up to the late Aughties, but it has many pluses, too:


  • It is less than 10 minutes from Hubby's office.
  • It is in one of the best school districts in the area.
  • It has a lovely, flat yard with mature trees (they actually provide SHADE!) and the yard is significantly bigger than our yard now.
  • It has four bedrooms, enabling us to have an actual office and not a guest room-slash-office.
  • In fact, it is almost 600 square feet bigger than our current home. Also, it has a bigger garage and a longer driveway for Kiddo's chalk art/bike or scooter riding/rollerskating pursuits.
  • Kiddo's bedroom will be much larger, enabling her to have more of her things (table and chairs, easel) in her room.
  • Hardwoods! Almost all the house has hardwoods, and they're in pretty good shape from what we can see of them.
  • It has a family room with a wood-burning fireplace. (Kiddo is especially excited about that, as now roasting marshmallows won't only be a treat for when we're visiting Grandma and Grandpa in NJ, and Santa can enter our home the traditional way instead of through the door off the deck.)
  • It has a master bath (albeit with pink tile and wallpaper). That's one bathroom more than we have now.
  • There's a utility sink in the laundry room. I had no idea how much I'd want a utility sink until I didn't have one in this house!
  • It has a most delightful "Florida room" aka a sunroom or a three-season porch. (Even better, my mom told us we can have my grandparents' rattan furniture set from their sunroom, which is presently languishing in storage in their attic. Totally psyched about that!)
  • It has a garbage disposal. We always meant to put one in here, after living with one in the townhouse we were in before building our house, but somehow we never got around to it.
  • The house is about ten minutes away from the best shopping mall in the area.
  • According to the current owners, the neighbors on either side have high-school aged daughters who babysit. Woo!
  • The yard that appears to have actual soil, instead of clay masquerading as soil. Deeelightful!
So, while I may whinge and moan in upcoming weeks/months/years about the horrid datedness of it all (we will be redoing as we live there, since we can't really swing the dough to hire an Extreme Home Makeover crew to whip through everything and won't have a window of time to do much of anything before we need to move in), I am really, really, reaaaaaallllllllly happy!


Want to check out more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun? Pop on over to Candid Carrie's blog!

18 comments:

BloggessJ said...

Congrats on selling the old place and buying the new place! Now come's the "fun" part....the move!

kristin said...

I can't believe you didn't mention that it is also 5.7 miles from MY house! ;-)

Creative Junkie said...

Yay! You're on the east side! And close to The View ... I'm so jealous!

That right there is worth a little shag carpeting, regardless of how scary it looks.

And a little pink tile as well.

I see lunch at Simply Crepes in our future.

Smoochiefrog said...

That is some serious work you'll have to do. That carpeting alone scares the crap out of me. :)

Oh and as much as I love Adam, NOTHING and I mean NOTHING beats Cookie!

Ash said...

Squeeeellllll! I'm so excited for you!!!

Two questions though:

1) did you write in the contract that you get to keep the brown crocheted toilet paper cover? PLEASE tell me yes!

2) how in the world did you live without a disposal?

LMAlphonse said...

Congrats!!!

When we moved in to our house, there was an awful lot of wallpaper. It was the "Laura Ashley threw up here" style of decor, though the stairwell was more Laura Ingalls than Laura Ashley.

I think I have baby pictures where I'm standing in orange shag carpet like that. It went past my ankles!

Elisabeth said...

Yay! Congrats on selling the house! What a relief!

I have to say, the wall paper is fantastic! We had matching wall paper in our kitchen that needed to be removed. Luckily enough, my mother in law LOVES to remove wallpaper....so she got that job!

Ronnica said...

Definitely looks like you have work cut out for you in the months (years?) ahead...but all the pluses make it worth it!

Glenda, saved by grace said...

I heard that lots of people are painting OVER their wall paper. There's some prep work to do but its alot easier than removing it. I LOVE the PINK in the bathroom. I bet you can make it gorgeous! Congratulations!

musingwoman said...

Congratulations on selling your house! Hope you move goes smoothly.

(found you through Graze If You Want To *waves hello*)

MediMonsters said...

Congrats on your new house. Have fun bringing it into the current decade!! LOL

Anonymous said...

I am SOOOO excited for you guys!

And yet at the same time, I am DYING laughing over the faux-marble vanity, the wallpaper insanity, the muppet shag, and the pepto-tile.

If anyone's up to it, YOU are! Congrats!

Carma Sez said...

the "decorating" is certainly a sight to see; but the pluses on your list make it all worth while.

Congrats on your new digs.

carma

Givinya De Elba said...

I've been blogging, but not catching up on my friends' blogs! I missed your previous post (but I knew something was up!!)

Congratulations!

Checked out all the pics, how exciting!

Femina said...

Congratulations! I think the fluffy toilet seat cover is the crowning touch on that bathroom. :)

nikkicrumpet said...

Well that is so exciting! YAY you. I hope it all goes smoothly...including the move. And I know it's not a t-shirt with "crumpet strumpet" but I did make you an official one for your blog back when we did the last wheel. I emailed it too you. Didn't you get it? Or was it just too dopey to post lol Which is ok too...I'm not gonna feel bad if you didn't want to post it. NO pressure!

Sarah said...

Oh I hope you like renovating! Sounds like you have a little work ahead of you, but that's the fun of moving isn't it! Just popped in from SITS! Have a wonderful week.

Makeup Theory said...

Congrats on your new home. Yeah, it's crazy dated, but in time you'll make it your own. Or you may come to adore the Pepto Bismol shower tiles. Or not.