Friday, October 18, 2013

A house tour: BEFORE

Welcome to our humble abode! We've already made plenty of changes since moving in (especially in the kitchen...that place was a hot mess straight out of the late 80s), but this is the way things looked upon our arrival, documented now for all posterity.

Let's start with the specs, shall we? Our place is a "condo", though I prefer to call it a townhouse because the homes are side by side (no one lives above or below us). Also, condo just sounds creepy. Like an old person's vacation home. But...I digress. There are only ten houses in our complex, which is great because it's nice and cozy. When we started the home search process, Ryan was really apprehensive about the idea of buying a condo because in the Midwest, where land is abundant and cows roam freely (just kidding...the cows are confined), no one buys condos. They just don't. Because who would want to own property connected to someone else's property? But in LA, where a backyard is a $400,000 lawn-mower wide strip of grass with two trees on it, condos are everywhere. And they're relatively normal.

In the end, it really came down to space inside the house or outside the house and we just weren't willing to sacrifice space for privacy. Our place is a three bedroom, two and a half bath. The garage is below the house and the living space is split between the main floor and second floor, which I love. Two-story houses seem to a be rarity in California (for regular folks, at least), so I'm really happy to have that. Nothing says "home" to me like being able to yell at my husband that I can't hear him because I'm upstairs.

We've been channeling all of our energy into the main floor living space right now and though it's very near finished, of course I can't give it away until every detail is done. Hello, perfectionism. But I promise, an "AFTER" home tour and lots of kitchen DIYs are coming your way soon.

For now, please enjoy these poor quality cell phone photos. Because "before" photos should always be as unflattering as possible, right?

Hello! I'll be your tour guide. 

The garage. I have to practically run into the dryer to park, but dang it we have a dryer of
OUR OWN so I'm not complaining. 



Up the stairs from the garage we go. 

Gazing down upon the front door from the living room. Stairs from the garage are to the right of the door. 

Annnd gazing up from the front door. 

The living room, scattered with kitchen cabinet doors. 

Our balcony. 

It needs a good ol' power washing, right? 

Our living room wet bar. Because really, how does anyone live without one?

The dining room. Those mirrors (cringe). 

Kitchen, circa 1990. 



Main floor bathroom. 

"Coat" closet, where we hold the human sacrifices (just kidding, those candles were left here
...and everyone knows the human sacrifices take place upstairs). 

Upstairs, to the bedrooms. 



The hallway light fixtures are straight out of a medieval dungeon. 

Guest bath. 

Our office space. 

Master bedroom (love, love, love the ceiling). 

Hate, hate, hate those closet doors. 

Master bath. I wanted Jack and Jill toilets but, alas, Ryan shot that idea down. 

And last, our spare bedroom! 

5 comments:

  1. Looks awesome!!! Can't wait to see what you do with it all!!

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  2. Your very own wet bar.. yup, it's official, you're adults now! Love it!

    xx
    Here&Now

    Enter to win my Stella&Dot giftcard giveaway!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Cannot wait to see the finished product!

    ReplyDelete

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