When we started renovating our house over two years ago we focused on the parts of the house that needed immediate demo — the kitchen, dining room, and downstairs bedroom/office. To make room for that, we piled all the house’s furniture into the living room. There it has sat — until last weekend! We cleared it all out and and now I’m getting excited to decorate. Here are some basics I’m starting with.
It’s hard to believe that January is almost over — especially since we are planning on moving into our little house this summer, and um, that is feeling not so far away! While there are some big, not so pretty, things that need to be done (insulation, new windows, new heating system) I can’t stop thinking about the fun part — finishes, especially in the kitchen.
We completely gutted the old kitchen and dining room and are building it from the ground up. As I wrote about earlier, the cabinets are in and they are beyond gorgeous. We have decided to stick with white appliances and are currently hunting for the perfect vintage camp/apartment sized stove. Fingers crossed we find something suitable before summer!
Now that appliances have been decided, I’ve been obsessing over lighting and back splash. Here are some spaces that have been inspiring me lately.
The dawn of a new year inevitably makes you reflect on what you’ve done with your most recent trip around the sun. It’s the most perfect measure of time, a true beginning and end. I try not to give much weight to resolutions and promises and “best of” moments as we count down the clock, but wow, this one really was a doozy. It’s hard not to take a deep breath this time and think, “holy shit, we made it.”
At the start of this year I was motivated, hopeful, working a lot, planning a lot, optimistic we would have a house that could be lived in by August. Haha, oh my god. Well, these past twelve months have given me an extreme dose of patience testing, learning to say no, learning to say, “it’s ok,” learning to yell. I haven’t been very good at these things before.
Today the weather is a beautiful crisp 60 degrees in Boston, the leaves are starting to change, and it’s been a very intense four months since the last time I have written. At that point, the kitchen had been demoed and we were thinking about painting the bathroom. Well, a lot has happened since then…
The bathroom was successfully painted a beautiful deep greeny blue – Benjamin Moore’s Newburg Green. Small projects like this always give me a little boost, especially when there is lots of project delaying bad news around the corner…
The past month has been a super stressful waiting game – we’re in the process of applying for a home equity line of credit to fund a big portion of the renovations we’d like to do this summer. Having never applied for a loan in my life, I underestimated how much time, effort, and stress is involved!
I thought — “Hey! The house has no mortgage! We can use the equity! We have no debt! Easy peasy!” Wrong!
Brooklin Heirloom 