We close on our current house in late May, so we’ll be moving in a little more than a month.
The new house feels SO different from our current house to me.
When we bought our current house, it felt like almost entirely cosmetic updates that were needed – removing the sculpted shag carpet, repainting the yellow walls, etc.
If you walked through the new house, you mostly wouldn’t think, “This house needs a LOT of updating.”
But it needed some changes for it to work for our family because there are definitely some odd things about the house.
Here’s what we’re doing before we move in.
Inspiration photo from Plank and Pillow
The 7 Projects We’re Doing on the New House Before We Move In
- Refinishing the deck. One of the biggest selling points for us was the big deck off the kitchen. We love to entertain and having a big outdoor space with room for two tables, a sectional, chairs, and more was a HUGE deal to us. We’ve never had a house with a great outdoor entertaining space and we’re over-the-moon excited about it. The deck is probably 20+ years old and painted a heavy dark brown, so we’re having it refinished and restained.
- Splitting bedrooms. Aside from our bedroom, there are only two other bedrooms in the house (I personally think this is one reason we were able to get the house in such a crazy market. I think people took one look at the listing for a house of this size and price with only three bedrooms and didn’t even take a second look). But the two bedrooms are both very large and (fairly) easily able to be split in two. One of the bedrooms will be split in half and Ella will have one of those rooms and Ani and Star will share the other bedroom. The other bedroom will be split in half and Tally will have the bigger side and the smaller side will become Bart’s office. All of this requires some walls to be erected, a window to be added, a closet to be added, and a few doors added, plus new wiring so the lighting systems are separate for each room and there are enough outlets.
- Dividing our bedroom. Our bedroom is MASSIVE (I’m inclined to think part of it was an addition at some point) and way bigger than we need, so we’re dividing it into two parts – one part will remain our bedroom and the other part will be closed off and open into the living room and will be my office. We’re planning on doing glass walls (since there will be no windows in the room – it’s a fully interior room – and I’m SO excited).
- Convert the small, empty room off our bedroom into a walk-in closet. Aside from our bedroom being positively enormous, it also has a random, small room off the bathroom, which we’ll be converting into a walk-in closet. The bedroom currently has two sets of normal closets, which will both be taken out to make the room bigger.
- Retexturing and painting the entire interior. The texture on the walls and ceilings is pretty extreme and also different in basically every room (the ceiling in our bedroom basically looks like alligator skin – it’s . . . not something I want to look at every night when I’m going to sleep). We’re having it all redone so it’s consistent and also isn’t the first thing you notice in every room. After that, it’ll all be painted.
- Replacing the baseboards and casing throughout the house. Because of the addition, the trim isn’t consistent throughout the house and much of it isn’t our style at all.
- Tearing out the bank of cabinets in the family room. This house has a TON of built-in cabinets and while it’s hard for me to take out any storage, these ones take up so much space that we’d rather have as a part of the room.
I know all too well how everything takes longer than you hope it will, especially when it comes to house projects, so I am prepared for some of these things not to be fully finished before we move in, but I’m crossing my fingers we can get at least a lot of it done before we take up residence.
It’s also been super helpful to be working with Rye Interiors so I’m not making 10,000 decisions about paint colors and trim styles and stain shades. I cannot WAIT to see it all come together!
Now, I should probably spend some of my time thinking about packing. But. . .I’d just rather not.
Lori says
Dying to see pictures of the new house!!! I know you can’t (privacy) but just so you know I’m diiiiyyiinnnngggggg.
Xx Lori
Sandra says
This is exciting! Thank you for sharing. I want to learn to take a second look too and realizing that bedrooms can be split into two to fit my needs when looking for a house in the future! And also to not be afraid to make these changes that feel big and require construction.
Molly says
The inspiration photo you shared is JAW-DROPPINGLY beautiful!! I can’t wait to see your home once you share more! Your projects sound great:) xo