Pins and Needles

Ok, so you're all dying to know what's up with that beautiful house, right? Well I am too. If you have talked to me personally in the past few days you've probably heard bits and pieces about the plan of action but just for the sake of laying it all out, here is the deal:

Me want. Mucho.

I didn't think I wanted this house at first. Of course, I thought it was gorgeous on the outside but honestly, the inside needs work. The kind of work that I think needs to be tended to before we move my furniture in. We're talking about some god awful, gray, office-style carpeting covering the hardwood floors on the first floor and stairs. And don't even get me started on the wood paneling in two of the (four!) bedrooms that is screaming to be removed. Plus, it desperatley needs paint on the GLARING WHITE WALLS in every room. Painting was something I would have done anyway in whatever house we got but oh, the floors. It was really hard for me to get past the grayish, gray-like, grayness of that carpeting and I needed a little help at first to imagine it far far away from there.

Some of the great things about the house? Finished. Attic. Can you say playroom? I can hardly get over the idea of living in a three-story house. There is also some beautiful original woodwork in the dining room in the form of a built-in china cabinet, pocket doors and rails along the walls that could be used for displaying photographs and such. And you guys saw the front porch in the photo so I don't have to rave about it here. There's a balcony off the back too and a backyard that is screaming for a hot tub. The main bathroom has some horrid linoleum but that can be changed and the kithen has been updated- the one thing I was NOT going to be concerned about while house hunting. Funny how things work out.

So that's what the actual looks like for the most part. I'd post a bunch of pictures but my photographer- ahem, Jason- was so excited that he forgot to take many interior pictures. I have tons of photos of the houses we DIDN'T fall for but what good is that, right? I'm finding myself getting more and more excited at the idea of a mini-renovation project. It will be messy and inconvenient for a while but I'm starting to see images in my mind of the finished project and it makes me excited.

It looks like this week we are putting our house up for sale. We are hoping to make an offer on this house contingent on the sale of our Bartlett house and pending an inspection. These two things are keeping me from fully bursting forth and doing the Snoopy dance all around the neighborhood. First, I don't know if our house will be able to sell in just a couple of weeks or not. Second, the house I want was built in 1903 so an inspection could turn up any number of ghosts. I don't want to get my heart completely set and then find out the entire house needs new plumbing, electrical wiring, or that the roof is falling off.

That being said, I'm still excited. Just cautiously so. I'd be lying if I said I didn't already have tentative paint colors picked out for all the rooms and spots for all our furniture.