Home Tour 2023

We are so thankful to be living in our new home.  Selling our old house, buying this one, and moving all went smoothly, but I'm so happy to be looking at it in the rearview mirror of life now!  We are feeling settled and just have a few things left to unpack and put away.  Let's take a look at our new home tour...not perfect but a work in progress! 

As we go through the pictures, I'll talk about features we love, as well as some things we might change.  Starting in the front yard, we will be removing the stones from around the trees.  I have read that this is not good for the roots of the trees, and I think it will look better without them.

We love the stone accents on the front of the house.  In addition, the house has brick on all four sides.  That means no siding to replace or paint in the future.  The shrubs look a little worse for wear due to the freezes we have had in the past few years, but we will wait awhile to replace them.  For now, I added some color along the front of the flower beds.  We will keep the landscape rocks around the front flowerbeds since it is nice accent to the stone on the front of the house.

The thing I like most about the front door is the frosted glass.  We have always had glass front doors, which means people can see right in and Albie goes crazy watching any action in front of the house.  He has really calmed down with his barking with this front door!

When you come in the front door, there is a study with glass doors.  The entry table is nice with my battery powered light.  No outlet here!

We love the wood-look tile even better than what we had in the other house.  The grout lines are practically invisible, making a very smooth surface.  The tile is throughout the house, except for the bedrooms and game room.

I love the study!  Initially, I thought Michael and I would share this office space.  Then we discovered that his desk/workspace would fit in the game room.  The chairs in here are such a comfy space to lounge.  We do not have built in bookshelves in this house, so I pulled some bookshelves from the game room into the study.  

Here is the view as you come in the front door.  We call this the bowling alley...ha, ha!

Off of the main hallway, we have the guest room and Grace's room.  One interesting thing about this house is that the previous owners left all of their tv's hanging on the walls.  This means that the guest room and Grace's room have tv's already installed.  What a nice bonus for us!

Due to the size of the rooms, Grace took the queen bed that used to be in the guest room, and the guest room got a king size bed.  I hung some paintings that were from Michael's parent's house in the guest room.

Grace's room.  We plan to have shutters made for the windows that are currently blinds in the house.  It is about half complete.  The shutters really help keep the light and heat out.

Also off of the main hallway, we have our laundry room and a mudroom with entry to the garage.  The laundry room is so big, and I love having our extra refrigerator here instead of in the garage.  I also love that it is not right next to our bedroom, so that I can run the washer/dryer in the evening without the noise bothering us.

The dining room.  Right now this is a holding area for all the college stuff that will move back in August!  I strategically took a picture not showing the piles of stuff.

And I don't know what is going on with the lighting in these pictures.  I used the big camera thinking they would turn out better, but I think my phone camera would have done a better job.  Oh well?!

Getting close to the living room

A view of the living room.  Lots of things are different here than our other house.  First of all, there is no two story ceiling which will help so much with heating and cooling this space.  On the other hand, we will really miss our big fireplace and hearth, as well as the built in entertainment center.  And this space does not have floor plugs for any lamps.  But other than those little things, we are loving this space!  Our furniture fit really well!

Directly off the main living room, there is a game room with glass doors.  This has been officially named the man cave or Tiger Lair.  It is a work in progress!  Here we have our sectional from the game room at the other house, as well as Michael's desk (not shown in picture.)  We have hung some maps and architectural drawings, and Michael plans to also hang swords etc. on the walls.  He is planning to make a liquor cabinet and who knows what else. 

Even though this room is the man cave, it is so dark and cool that it will be used for lots of movie watching for all of us!

Here's the view looking out from the game room.

Even though this house is only about 10 years old, the previous owners already remodeled the kitchen. I love the contrast of the wood island with the white cabinets.  The granite has a matte texture that I had never seen before.  

The sliding drawer microwave and the drawer dishwasher were really different for us.  Still getting used to them!

I love having the sink in the island!  I had this at a previous house and like watching tv etc while doing the dishes.  Love the farmhouse sink and bronze faucets too!

This stove/oven is sooooo nice.  The burners get unbelievably hot, and it has a griddle too.  It has a small oven and a large oven.  This is the first time I've had a gas-powered oven (have always had gas-powered stove), and I swear my baked goods are turning out better!

Jack has his own wing off the main hallway.  He says he loves how quiet it is back there.

He is probably taking the desk with him to school, which will free up some space in the room.

Here's our room.  I love that we have room for a sitting area.  You might have noticed that our grey bedding is in the guest room right now.  That's because I love using this 20+ year old quilt during the summer.  It is so lightweight and soft!

Another view in our room.  Yes, this tv was left for us.  

This house has a huge patio, which definitely sold us on the house.  Here is the outdoor kitchen, which we really haven't used yet!

Initially, we were planning to keep the gravel and put a fire pit out there.  But it just looks too brown when we look out from the house.  So we are hoping to remove the gravel and put grass/sod in.  I also plan to put lots of landscaping in the back beds...you can bet there will be lots of flowers.

And yes, there is a giant tv on the patio that the previous owners left...yea!

So that's a wrap on our home tour.  I'm so grateful we found a one-story house that perfectly meets our needs right now!  Thanks for stopping by!

Previous Home Tours

2009 Living Room and Dining Room

2011

2015

2018 Part 1 and Part 2