Did you see my Facebook Live session last week? If you didn’t, you missed out on seeing my new house for the first time!

I only did a REALLY quick walk through, though, so today I wanted to share some pictures and some of my plans for this little farmhouse. But first, the deets:

This little lady was built in 1905 by homesteaders that settled the surrounding valley with three other families. Sadly, the other two families’ homes burned down some time ago, so mine is the only one like it in the area. My house was last renovated in the 1990s, so while it is dated (complete with baby blue laminate counter-tops in the kitchen), it is definitely livable and not something I have to put a whole lot of expense into from the beginning. Thank goodness.

That’s not to say I don’t have a million ideas about updates I want to make once I get the money saved up, though! My plan is to live here for a few months and get a feel for exactly what I want before I make any changes (although there are a few projects I will be very hard pressed to not start immediately)!

Anyway, enough of my chitter-chatter: let’s start the tour! 

Here is the street view of my house!

Currently she is painted baby blue with cranberry trim, but I’m thinking of painting her white with a grayish-blue door. Not sure what color to do the trim yet, but I’m thinking a mid-dark gray. I also think I’d like to add shutters to the sides of the windows.

As for the yard, I have NO idea what to do yet, other than the east side (on the right of the above picture), get’s full sun, so there will probably be fruits and veggies growing over there in the near(ish) future.

One of the biggest projects that I need to take care of first is the porch. As you can see, there are huge cracks in it because it is slowly caving in. I’ll be tearing out all the concrete out and putting in a wood porch, which both saves me money and, to be honest, is truer to a farmhouse than concrete.

In the background of the second image, you can see a big structure (that kind of looks like it’s about to fall down, to be honest). I’ll get to that later in the tour, though.

First, let’s go in the front door (which I’ll be replacing with something that looks less dated than the current door and has windows to allow more light in):

The first thing you see when you walk in my house is this enormous fireplace, with the entry to the kitchen immediately to the right, and the entrance to the downstairs bathroom to the right of that.

Currently, the laundry room is through those back glass doors in an non-insulated, closed in porch. Where the laundry hookups are currently placed in that back porch is actually just on the other side of that back wall of the downstairs bathroom. So here’s one of my bigger projects I have in mind:

Flip the washer and dryer to the other side of the wall so they are now in the bathroom on that back wall. The tub will be moving upstairs, which I’ll explain later. I’d then bring the vanity and toilet to the front of the room (where the cabinets are) and put a pocket door between the new powder room and the new laundry room.

Since there are no bedrooms downstairs, it doesn’t make sense to have the bathtub in there, and moving that would allow me to have my laundry room inside the house.

Backing up just a slight bit before we go into the kitchen, here is the front room that you see when you first enter the house.

And now the kitchen!

Currently, there is a huge cabinet/beam that blocks off the sight-line into the kitchen. I know there is a load-bearing pillar somewhere in that huge cabinet area, which was put in when the house was renovated in the 90s. I’d like to figure out a way to slim that area down as much as possible to open up the kitchen more. We shall see!

I also want to remove the drop down ceiling in the kitchen and add a shorter row of cabinets along the tops of the existing cabinets to open up the room further and provide more storage. Of course, there are also the small cosmetic updates I want to do, like painting the cabinets a lighter color so it doesn’t feel so dark and cave-like in the kitchen, and a back-splash, and replace the counter-tops (I already hate that blue laminate because it shows EVERY little crumb!)

Now, when you go through those glass doors in the kitchen eating area, you come out onto this enclosed porch. Currently it is a non-insulated area… and kind of nasty. I’d like to finish out this room (insulating, adding flooring, etc.) and use it as both a more casual family room, and a back entry way.

Referring back to that structure outside, if you turn around from where you’re standing in the first picture, you see another door that goes out to the yard, with that structure in view. That structure is actually a garage the last owners started building in the 90s, but never finished. I’d love to eventually get a driveway put in over there and finish out the garage with an apartment above it. This way I have somewhere to park that is not on the side of a dirt road, AND I can be bringing in some income by renting out the apartment.

I envision this back entry way you see in the second image to be the main point I come into the house from after parking in the garage, with a pathway between them.

Now, going all the way back out to the front room, we’ll now go upstairs. The stairs are immediately to the right of the downstairs bathroom. One of the first projects I’m planning on doing in this house is actually stripping the paint off of the stairs and staining them to match the rest of the floors.

And then maybe adding board and batten to the walls going up the stairs. Because it would be pretty and why not?

Once you’re upstairs, you come to this hallway. There is a door immediately behind me and to the left that is the upstairs bathroom. The doorway on the left that you see (with the watering can) is my bedroom. My brother is living with me, and is currently staying in the room through the doorway on the right.

Straight ahead are the stairs that go up to my attic craft room. We’ll get there after I show you my room.

The wonderful thing about my room is there are SOOOO many windows! The bad thing about my room is there are SOOO many windows, which I don’t actually feel is a bad thing, despite making it slightly tricky to decorate and place furniture.

I’m thinking of putting a wall of curtains behind my bed so that it doesn’t look so strange that my bed is covering up a window. The room is so light and that window is on the dark side of the house, so I won’t really miss that light coming in.

Standing at the foot of my bed and then turned around, you then see this strange little alcove in the room. Right now I’m using it as my office, but I’ll eventually be making some changes.

The door all the way to the left is the door into the hallway, while the door in that little alcove goes to the bathroom.

Now, remember the bathtub from downstairs? What I want to eventually do is essentially extend the bathroom all the way to the right, to the outside wall of the house. There is currently only a shower in this bathroom, so I’d put the tub where my desk currently is, and make the current single vanity a double vanity, making is a true master bathroom.

Now, going back down that hallway outside my room and up the stairs, you come to this little craft room in the converted attic space. I currently have ZERO shelving in this room, so all of my stuff is just piled along the walls right now. So first thing up here would be to put in shelving in the eaves for all of my stuff…. and to paint, because while green is my favorite color, I’m REALLY selective about using green in decor and I really DON’T like this particular shade.

And that’s the inside! I’ll show you my backyard quickly to wrap up the little tour:

One of the things I love the very most about this house is the yard. There might be a really run-down looking garage right now, but I see SO much potential. The house is built right back into a bluff, so it is very secluded and very wooded. There are also springs that come out of the bluff, one of which is actually the water supply for my house (woo hoo for no water bill!).

It’s really quite magical and in the Spring, I hope to really focus on starting to bring this yard back to life.

And there you have it! A very thorough tour of my house and an idea for what ideas I have for it in the future! What do you think? For kicks and giggles, here’s a hilarious photo of my puppy being a nut while taking photos: