Monday, May 13, 2013

Moving Up Monday

Have you ever watched TLC's show, "Moving Up"?  Each episode of this home renovation reality show shows a family moving out of their home and then a new family that has purchased the house moving in and renovating it to their desired home.  Then, the old family sees the change to their old home and provides feedback.


Well, I'm proud to officially announce that I am living a real-life "Moving Up"!  

My Farmer and I purchased our first farm this year which included an acreage.  We thought for a long time, do we just stay in our current home and rent out the new farm's acreage as is, or do we renovate the new farm's acreage so we can live in it, or do we just knock down everything and farm it over?  Well, we decided late this winter that we should do the second option and renovate the new farm's acreage so we can raise our growing family in it!

If you would of asked me six years ago when My Farmer first moved into our current home if we would still be living in it now I would have probably laughed.  When we first got married I thought we'd live in our current place for a couple years and then move to another place.  But as time has gone on, I have truly fallen in love with our current place and am proud to call it home.  So this decision became pretty emotional for me because our current home is My Farmer's grandpa's place, our first (and only so far) place that we have lived since getting married over five years ago and LP's first home.  There are so many memories in this home and it is a very livable home.

So why did we decide to move?  Well, to start off the new house has more space and more bedrooms.  Our current home is a two bedroom ranch and the new place is a 1 1/2 story farm house with three bedrooms.  A second reason, the new house has a better foundation and in general is just built better, so if we would want to add on someday, the possibility is better at the new place than our current home.

So we are currently renovating, with the help of a general contractor, and plan on moving into the new house at the end of the summer.  The old owners of our home (who are a landlord of our family's) are excited to see what we do with the place and want to see the house when we are finished.  And we have some friends of ours, who are getting married this summer, who are going to move into our current home once we have moved out.  So see how we're living a real-life "Moving Up"?

Through out the rest of the spring and summer I'm planning on posting a "Moving Up Monday" once or twice a month with updates on the house.  This week there is work being done in the bathroom and mudroom, as well as our new windows should be coming in and work is going to be started in installing central air/heat.  So for now, I'm going to share some "before" photos with all of you.  When looking through the photos if you see anything or have any ideas please share!  My Farmer and I are doing a lot of "while we're at it" and "just as well" projects besides some major renovations, so any ideas are welcome.

View of South Side of House from Road
(we are planning on painting the house "Farm House White")
View of North Side of House (and part of the garage)
We are planning on adding a deck to this side of the house,
as it will be the main point of entrance and near the kitchen
View of Kitchen
Kitchen looking into Dining and Living Rooms
Living Room looking to Den (which we are thinking Play/Toy Room)
and the open door to the right goes out into a small enclosed front porch
(the front porch is so small it is hard to get a photo of to really show anything)
Living Room looking into Dining Space and Kitchen
Farthest right door leads into hallway with Bathroom, Linen Closet and Office
Left Door leads upstairs
Bathroom from hallway
Bathroom from inside doorway
Downstairs Office that will have back wall (that I'm standing by)
knocked down and added with...
Laundry Hallway that can be accessed by back door
to create a larger Office/Laundry/Mud Room
View from top of stair well looking at second floor
This unfinished closet at the top of the stairwell
is going to be a second floor half bath
Bedroom 1 (which will be MP's room)
Bedroom 2 (which will be LP's room)
Bedroom 3 (which will be My Farmer's and my room)
This room also has two closets, one on each side
(I guess you could say his and hers closets)
So there's a little first look at the place.  Any advice for us as we go through our first major home renovation?  Also, any ideas for 1/2 story closets that are all slanted?

5 comments:

  1. Looks to be an exciting time~Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a great canvas to start from! And it is SUCH a farm house...my husband's house he grew up in is an old farmhouse, with the slanted ceilings in the bedrooms and the same wooden doors and trim that yours have. Looks like home to me!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the comments ladies. It is an exciting time and we're looking forward to calling it home!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, great blog I read your post it is very informative and useful thanks for posting and sharing with us and your writing style is very good Jim Handyman Cleaning Services Fairfax, VA. handyman services also provide home kitchen renovation services in Fairfax, VA and surrounding areas.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great. This article is very deep and complete. In part, I wondered if I was reading a journal that had been thoroughly researched. Thanks for posting this. USA WordleThanks, admin for writing a cool article. I'm waiting for your next article. Thank you

    ReplyDelete