Move. and a house tour...

Sorry for the long hiatus. My life has been flip turned upside (name that song!) and I've been so busy I haven't had time to blog.

But remember back when I wrote this post at the beginning of the year? My word for 2013 is move.

Well, that was a very intentional word. Not only did I remark on the running aspect of move (I finished my first ever half marathon - you can read all about it here) but I also had a little secret that couldn't yet be told- move meant so much more to me. We were literally moving this year.

This has been in the works since last year and now that summer has come and gone, and Monkey is outta school, it finally happened. Moving. We didn't just move to a new place but moved out of state. Scary. I've never made a secret of the fact that Florida is not the place for me (just read about the many things I don't like about Florida here and here).

While I was excited about moving there are things I will miss. One of the things I will sorely miss is my home and neighborhood. I. absolutely. love. it. I mean, if I could transport my house (and neighborhood) to the new state- I would! But alas, tis not possible.

As anyone who's ever moved or sold a house knows, there is plenty that has to be done.  I'm not going to drone on about a bunch of moving tips or anything but I wanted to discuss the aspect of selling. Selling your house is definitely a stress maker.

And I gotta say, when you start getting ready to sell your house you realize all the things you've neglected cuz you're lazy you're just okay living with it. Cuz it's your house. So, you think- I'll get around to that sometime. If I were a stay-at-home mom I wouldn't have been that neglectful. But with both of us working full time our weekends are precious (and the lazy in me couldn't be bothered).

But when you're getting your house ready to sell... well, all those things come screaming out at ya. Cuz nobody wants to see that when buying a home. Neglect I mean. For example:

Smoke detectors you couldn't bother to replace cuz you already had 4 more in your house so you left the wires hanging out? Check.

 The curb appeal you just never got around to making cuz it required 1 full weekend of your time (and manual labor-shudder!)? Check.

Finishing those baseboards that started out that awful creamy smokers yellow and you only painted half of them in the house? Check.

Unfinished stairs project -  that you hadn't touched in 2 years? Check. yes, I lived 2 years in my house with half my stairs looking like this:

Holes that hadn't been filled, scuffs that needed painting, cabinets that needed painting, rooms that needed decorating, and the cleaning of clutter, clutter, clutter everywhere. Our lists were miles long.

So, needless to say, I've been busy. Every weekend was dedicated to painting, spackling, packing, painting, painting, painting. If I don't paint for years I'd be happy. But paint works wonders on the overall look of a house (apart from deep cleaning/decluttering). They aren't kidding when they say it's the cheapest way to make an impact.

All of this to say- I've never really shown pictures of my house. I've shown bits and pieces when doing a project but never really a full tour of it.

And now that it's "sell ready" I figure I might as well show her off. For posterity's sake. So, enough babbling. Let's take a tour shall we?

The outside of the house makes the biggest impact so we made sure most of our "upgrade money" went there. We replaced the sod (ourselves to save $) and had the house painted (contracted out). In the 8 years we've lived here we never had it painted and I don't believe the people before us had it done either so it had been well over 10 years since it'd been painted. It needed it. Here are the after pics:

Look how lush that grass is! Ugh. it's so beautiful I wanna roll around in it. But don't be fooled, Florida grasses are very hard (this is St. Augustine -very typical grass for Florida). It looks lush but it feels stiff-not soft like you'd expect. That's probably why it looks so good from far away though- the upright, stiff, wide blade of it.

I don't have a close up of the front door but it looks pretty similar to when I last redid it.

here's the living room. Our house has an open floor plan and vaulted ceilings into a loft and I love how much light that huge window always brought in (colors on the wall- Light color is Revere Pewter by BenMoore and the Dark color is Rockport Gray by BM). It was difficult painting those high walls but we got it done. Here's the befores:

And the afters:

 

From the living room we move to the breakfast nook.

Just to show you how lazy I've been- I got those shutters from my In-laws who were getting rid of them about 3 years ago. I've known what I wanted to do with them for over 2 years. I just hung them this year. Lazy.

The wall they are hanging on used to be red in color. I got tired of that very quickly but only painted it last year when we started actually getting serious about fixing the house up (in preparation for moving!). 

Here's before - you can see the red. It's also a good view of the HOFF (Honey Oak Furniture Flip) that I did on the before kitchen cabinets:

Anyhow. On to the kitchen. You've seen the most recent pics of it when I redid the cabinets last year:

If you'll notice from the other post on the kitchen reveal we've now upgraded our fridge and microwave so it's more seamless rather than those ugly smokers yellow appliances.

Then we come to the formal dining room:

Looks a little barren. But it's not much too different from before other than the wall color (BM Rockport Gray) and major decluttering. Here's the before with buttery yellow walls (unk color-was here when we moved in):

Ironically enough I think the before is nicer. Warmer. But the wall color really had to go and I couldn't keep all that stuff out so, it looks kinda cold now. It could really use a rug in there but oh wells. Working with what I got trying not to spend too much.

The downstairs powder room:

Difficult to get a good pic in here. It's tiny. I painted the cabinets black, hung a mirror on the builders mirror. Added new fixtures and that's about it. The wall color is unknown since I just color matched it from the previous owners.

Further down the hall is the laundry room. I didn't do too much special to this room. It was on the backburner and therefore just functional:

 

Downstairs is the master bedroom (which I didn't particularly like being separate from the other rooms).We painted the room a dark, moody color (which I have no idea what it was- it was an OOPS Olympic paint from Lowes):

 



But I was in loooooove with the bathroom:

Again, we painted the cabinets (which was another HOFF project). And I just laid another mirror I had on the builders mirror. New fixtures all around make it more updated.

Heading upstairs (which are finally done!) :

into the loft area:

This was another one of those quickie fixes. We cleared out  A LOT of clutter and just rearranged a little. You can even see I failed to put up the curtains I had and I just left it. EH. I call it done. Up here we replaced the carpet (realllly needed it!) and painted and that's about it. You can see I haven't painted that awful Honey Oak futon. It's just crying for a HOFF project makeover.
Wall color is BM Revere Pewter as well like most of the common areas of the house.

Down the hall we have 2 bedrooms and a full bath:

You've already seen Monkey's teen room:

 But I'm not sure if I ever showed you the guest bedroom before. It's one of my favorite rooms in the house:

 

 I actually redid this one almost as soon as we moved in, ages ago, so I didn't have to do anything to it to make it stage ready (wall color is a basic white above and a custom mixed color below that I made with leftover paint colors I didn't like). The chandelier is a decal from whatisblik.com

Then there is the full bath upstairs:

 Again, painted the honey oak cabinets. I used the same paint color I used on the baseboards throughout the house- a straight off the shelf Behr paint and primer in one white. I even left the old hardware that the previous owners had on it (beach shells and seahorses) not my taste but I was just trying to make it prettier. Not everything is perfect. This is a full bath but I didn't take a pic of the tub/shower.

And that's it. Our little Kingdom that we sold. I am more than grateful that we sold quickly so that we could move on with little problem but I still struggle with sadness that we left our first home. It was my daughter's childhood home and she will always consider this her home I think.

I am now living with my sister (OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO) who has been kind enough to take in me, my husband, and daughter along with a cat and dog until we find a house in the new state of Oklahoma (to be closer to family).

I just had to show and tell for posterity's sake so that I would have a written document of everything. Unfortunately I didn't get pics of the backyard. I am trying to push off any sadness I have for moving and leaving our home for excitement on starting on a new home with all new decorating potential (which my husband and I have made a pact to not neglect like we did with this house.)

So that's it. Except to say--moving is hard. And very sad. :(