New House ~ Kitchen, Nook, Family Room

Continuing on with the house tour... Our house kind of has a theme with these octagonal angles and arches. See the "arches"? See the window?

Picture 1: Taken at snack time...Austin was sporting Tinkerbell wings. Ha ha ha!! I stood in the living room, you see arch to breakfast nook and family room.

Picture 2: Also standing in living room, you see arch to kitchen and mud room and laundry. There are two arches, with a wall in the middle (shown lower in the post ;) ). Do you have Barbie and Ken traveling through your kitchen??


There was no pantry door when we bought the house. There still isn't. We did buy one, but the hinge cut-away area didn't match up with our hinges. I thought to measure the door frame, but assumed the hinges would be standard. They're not. That door went back to Home Depot, and we have not had time to order another one! Maybe this weekend?

The first door was just one they had in the store, but I think we'll have to order one w/ the hinge area cut out to match. My friend said I should get a pretty door with glass, and "Pantry" on the front. That is kind of a nice idea. Except a regular door costs less than $50 and the pretty one with glass was over $300, I think. I was always fine with the regular door at my other house, and just assumed that's what I'd get.

The pot shelf area above, I'm not sure I'm keeping those knick knacks there. In fact, it's likely they won't stay. I just put them there when unpacking, and haven't moved them! LOL


These two were taken in May. Picture 1: You can [barely] see the old faucet, dishwasher, and water-damaged cabinet above. It was like they'd steamed the cupboard every day or something, very strange.

Picture 2: Inside my pantry. Very hard to photograph--but you can sort of see how you walk in and there are shelves, then you turn to the right and the shelves continue, behind the ovens. I had a very good-sized walk-in pantry in my last house and didn't want to give it up! All the houses we looked at didn't have a pantry like that, but this one did! A little different layout--this one is more rectangular than square--but storage space is very, very similar. Yay!

You would think the pantry wouldn't get too messy, right? Well, when I was cleaning before we moved in, I had my Lysol all-purpose cleaner and got to work in here. I thought the shelves would just be dusty. Wrong! On the top shelf was a bunch of orange gunk, not a thick layer, but still a layer. It was almost like the POs had put Halloween jack-o-lanters up there and they rotted. ???? But it didn't smell bad, thankfully! It took awhile to clean up though! Then, on the underside of the bottom shelf, was more yuck, like something had splashed brown up on it. Another friend said they took their pantry door off and put their dog's water dish in there, and maybe that's what these people did. ??? Who knows, but it did kind of make me wonder, since they did have a dog(s), the door was off, and the brown splatters were there.

Picture 1: Standing in the mud room looking at the kitchen. There is an angled arch on either side of that cabinet wall, you can see one arch in picture 2. Before making our offer, I actually mapped out every cabinet and drawer in my last house, and every cabinet and drawer in this house to see how they compared. I liked my old kitchen with all its cabinets! Anyway, the cabinet and drawer amounts are very similar. But there is a little more cabinet space overall in this house, I think b/c the cupboards are taller. Does anyone else analyze like this? (Probably not, I know!)

I cleaned out every single one of the cupboards. They weren't too dirty inside. I just wiped them down and cleaned out a few crumbs. But the *out*sides of the cabinets, oh my, they were dirty! Especially by the stovetop area. Yuck, yuck, yuck! I never thought I'd be using a grout brush to scrub dried, sticky grease off finished wood cabinets, but that was what worked! Just wiping them w/ Murphy's oil soap did nothing! I also replaced the air? grease? filters under the microwave. They were nasty! Way past being able to be cleaned!! The burners had to be scrubbed; and now they have to be scrubbed again. LOL Funny how that works... The microwave wasn't horribly disgusting; I cleaned the grease off the outside, cleaned the inside, then took off the top vent piece to clean it. I found dried bits of Magic Eraser in it, so somebody at least had cleaned it at some point. ;)

I've never had pull-out drawers in my cupboards before. Nice! I've also never before had hidden hinges, under-cabinet lighting, a cupboard to store cookie sheets and pizza pans vertically, or a special pull-out trash drawer cabinet. But--I took the trash drawer mechanism out. There were two trash cans in it, one for trash, one for recycling. There were also a string cheese package, a Top Ramen package, a few stray onion peels, and a cute little Kindergarten math homework paper. The paper kind of made me sad for the POs, for a minute. I *was* thankful they hadn't left "worse" trash. I was so burned out on cleaning I just didn't feel like cleaning out someone else's trash cans or scrubbing their trash mechanism drawer thing! So I unscrewed the whole works and it's sitting in the garage! For what???

Standing in corner of breakfast nook. You can see mudroom to left of pantry, and maybe it makes sense how the pantry shelf corner turns behind the ovens. Which, I've never had two ovens before! I've actually used both at the same time several times already! Very handy. Only the top oven is self-cleaning, so I make sure to cook Costco pizzas and splattery foods in that one! ;)

Slightly different angle, taken from other corner of breakfast nook. You can see the front door and both arches to the living room. We need bar stools! I miss my old ones! We left them at the other house b/c they are counter height, and this bar is higher. So I need to buy new ones.

Picture from 2008, taken by PO's visitor. It was really interesting to me to find these! The hook that held that hanging pot rack is still in the ceiling. We thought maybe they'd hung a plant there. Nope! The holes in the wall from the nails holding those hanging basket things are still in that wall (though I've patched them). You can see what steamed the top cabinet [probably] every day! The coffee pot! Maybe the dishwasher too? Funny thing is, I put our coffee maker in the same spot... But mine doesn't steam.

We just love our realtor! For our closing gift, she had her husband come and do some work for us. He said he wanted a new wheelbarrow for his "pay". LOL He fixed a broken GFI outlet in the kitchen, as well as installed some lights (will explain more). He also suggested, for my water-damaged cabinet, that we sand it lightly, then spray it with Varathane to refinish the area. I did just that, and it worked! It hardly took any time, and the cabinet looks [almost] as good as new. :D

I sooooo loved my kitchen faucet at my old house. Brian installed it last November, so I didn't live with it very long. :( The kitchen faucet in this house was old, had major hard water spots and build up... I told Brian for my birthday that I wanted a new faucet. I think it was in August, that I noticed Costco was carrying the same faucet I had in my last house online again, and I ordered it right away! I like it sooooo much!

Also, the dishwasher that came with the house was *bad*! Both racks were rusty and the nubs were worn down. There was dried up food inside that looked like petrified poo (it wasn't, but looked like it!!), along with some broken glass, and two plates. Nice, huh? The dishwasher ran, and Brian said, couldn't we just keep it, and I could paint the racks. Hmmph. I'd painted the racks that had started rusting at my old house, and they were nowhere near as bad as these. I checked into buying new racks, but they would cost $307.68 shipped. So, we bought a new dishwasher. Yes!! The one at my old house was soooo noisy. It sounded like a jet was taking off when that thing ran. We'd have to turn the TV waaaay up to hear it over the dishwasher.

I knew I wanted *quiet*, a stainless steel interior, and nylon (NON-rusting!!) racks, so I never have to paint those nubs again! We found one that met the requirements and I love it. Seriously, it is sooo nice to have it be quiet. I chose white b/c our other appliances are white. And actually I prefer white. I know, I know, most people don't. Oh well. I like the crisp, clean, classic white. ;) The appliance man at Sears said I'm in the minority; about 65% of his customers want stainless steel. Being Dutch and all, I considered keeping the two plates that were in the old, bad dishwasher. But when it came time to install the new one I was packing boxes at my old house, and forgot about the plates. Guess I didn't need them. LOL

Breakfast nook picture, taken in May. You can see how the bank replaced the lock, but only covered one lock hole! Crazy! Also notice the skewed blinds. The blinds on the left have a broken lift cord. The middle set has a cord that is almost broken, so we never raise them. The set on the right is fine (but worn). They will be replaced, hopefully sooner rather than later. I like to have the blinds up most of the day! They are real wood now. I don't care if we get real or faux wood, but I want (you guessed it) white. ;) Also, Brian discovered a screen door that goes on the outside of this patio door, on the side of our storage shed. We really should put that up...

I sooooo enjoy all the west-facing windows we have. I love natural light coming in the windows, and this house has a lot of it! That was one thing I really liked about this house when we were looking at it. Notice our chandelier... It used to be in the formal dining room. Our realtor's husband took this one down, then put it in here. We bought a new chandelier for the dining room, and he also put that up.

Because, when we bought the house, there were just wires hanging from the ceiling in the breakfast nook! The POs took the chandlier you see in the photo below (taken in 2008 by their visitor). Hee hee...love how they have Lightning McQueen traveling through their house... Also notice how their chairs are similar to ours. Interesting. :) That is a dinner bell you see next to the patio door...

The day we moved in, one of our moving men said he helped move the POs out of this house in December or January. He said they had a big, round table the guys could hardly get out of this room... Before that small conversation, we weren't sure when the POs moved out (how long house had been vacant). There were Halloween window clings on the formal dining room window; silver Christmas garland and a strand of mini Christmas lights on the patio... Our kids liked discovering those decorations and kept plugging in the lights every time we came to the house! :)


I plan to get an oval table to put in the breakfast nook. Because this table matches our China cabinet and needs to be with it in the formal dining room. :) But our whole family won't fit at the little table that's in there; it only has 4 chairs. Caroline really is getting too big for the high chair. But she makes such a mess that I don't want her sitting on our nice chairs for all her meals!

The family room how the POs had it set up. Doesn't it look nice? I'll be the first to say how it looks much nicer than what's going on in there now!! Love, love the brick fireplace! Again, classic. Traditional. Like it! The mantle, not so much. I'm glad there is a mantle, but I'll probably paint it, oh, um....white. Ha ha *Some* day, I'd like to get a beautiful mantle built with sides, not sure what they're called.

So, the family room is our play room. It works perfectly for what we need it to be. Doesn't everybody need a cardboard box Barbie house on their hearth? Ahem... And yes, our extra dining room chairs are now TV watching and computer working chairs. What are things coming to around here?! :D We put the little TV that had been in our office/craft room at the other house, in this family room.

Another view. The computer fits perfectly here. It's a good spot for it. Someday I'd like to get a computer armoire, but that's way down on the list. We need bar stools and an oval table and kid bedroom furniture first.

New House ~ Garage, Mud Room, Laundry

Garage pictures, all taken before we made an offer, in May.

We thought there was no cover to the attic entrance, but there is, it just was up in the attic. There were also carpet remnants up there.

We wonder about the pink (and other colors!) part of the wall. It's taped off, like maybe the POs let their kids paint here?? Maybe someone tested colors here?? The pink looks like what is in Lauren and Caroline's room... Interesting, anyway. And actually, it's kind of a pretty swirl mess of colors--just wonder about it!

Picture 1: The water softener we were left with. Yikes!! We had a new water softener and RO system put in before we moved in, shortly after closing escrow. We (and the home inspector) assume the POs had a water heater leak, as the water heater is newer (would have to go peek at year, don't remember). Plus you can see the wafer board they used to repair the wall. It is just on the garage side of the walls. The sides inside the house are normal dry wall. This isn't up to fire code though. We do plan to have a handy-man friend redo it at some point.

Picture 2: When we very first looked at the house, there was a wet spot on the cement inside the garage, and this mold/mildew on the drywall. Oh my!! That kind of freaked me out. But--it's an exterior wall, so not near the inside of the house. And--the home inspector and roofer thought gutters would solve the problem of water getting in. We've had some rain, including one really big storm with strong winds, and thankfully the floor was dry afterwards! The gutters did their job. Also, our realtor came by before we moved in w/ a spray bottle of bleach water, and the mold disappeared. The wall is white now, no more mold. Whew!

These were taken in September, going into the house from the garage. We have a small mud room! Someday I want to get a bench with hooks? cubbies? shelves? to put in there. For now I just put an extra end table there, and it works ok. In our 4th bedroom at our last house, we had 3 big cabinets. We bought them from the POs of our 1st house in 1999! Ha ha! Old, but they are so functional! One is Brian's for his papers, keys, etc. Two are for my scrapbook stuff. We put Brian's in the mud room; handy for him.

This was one of the features that made me want to buy the house! It's small, but there is a space for kids to put backpacks, shoes, sweatshirts. Or in the above photos, bags of library books ready to return. I hate having that in/out clutter sitting around the house, but it doesn't bother me in its designated space! Picture from May.

These were taken in Sept., looking from the kitchen, through/into the mud room, to the laundry room. You can see above how the laundry room was kind of a dusty blue. I wanted a fresh spring, apple green. This color is Sherwin Williams' Gleeful. It looked soooo bright right after Brian painted it! We were kind of scared it wouldn't work! But once the washer and dryer were moved in, the green toned down. I think b/c it wasn't reflecting off itself so much. You can see the lights in the soffit. That is totally, completely not my style! Those are going to have to go at some point. What I want to do is have someone put a light in the ceiling, get rid of the entire soffit, and put cabinets above the washer and dryer.

I want to "paint" the cabinets white using Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations. Not sure when it will happen, but that's my plan; to have a fresh light green and white room! We bought materials to make a shelf and hanging rack to put on the wall to the side of the toilet. But, haven't gotten to actually putting it up, hence the hangers hanging on the towel bar! I also want to put a mirror above the sink. I have to add, I've never had a laundry sink before, and it has been so handy! It's nice not to have to dump "yuckier" messy water down the kitchen sink or toilet! That's what I used to do... Also nice for leaving a bucket of clothes soaking in OxyClean, instead of having it sit on my kitchen counter.

The laundry room is also our half bath. It gets a ton of use! The kids--especially the youngest 3--use this bathroom all the time! I think that's just fine w/ Julia, as it's like she gets the main one almost to herself. ;) Picture below taken in May of icky, disgusting toilet!! The grout looks pretty gross too. :P I took off all 3 of the old toilet seats myself, from all the bathrooms! And put on two new ones. Brian did one. But he ended up tightening the two I installed, as I guess I wasn't strong enough to get them tight.

I used a pumice stone to scrub the rings, and cleaned them all, thoroughly. The laundry room was the first room I cleaned the night we closed escrow. Wiped out cupboards; Cleaned cabinets w/ Murphey's Oil Soap; scrubbed the sink with Comet; let EdFred "sit" on the faucet and in the sink to get rid of hard water build up and gunk; let vinegar sit on the disgusting grout; cleaned every light switch and outlet plate. I did all the floors right before we moved in. The POs had left a chart up inside one of the cabinet doors--how to treat various stains. Interesting.

Storage cabinets...plan to paint them white.

All the toilet paper holders and towel bars were *gone* when we looked at the house. There were some normal size screw holes left in the walls... And some huge monster holes, like the bars had been ripped right out! I patched all the holes. We replaced all the towel bars and toilet paper holders. The good thing is I got to pick just what I wanted. :) The cat box just fits in the corner. I bought the new hamper before we moved in. The shelf and hanging rack will go above it, on this wall.

I'll also put up a curtain at some point. Considering white... Envisioning sewing one from perfect fabric I have yet to find...charcoal, dusty teal, white and lime green... Hmmm...

New House ~ Back Yard

It was tricky taking pictures of the back yard. Our back yard is broken up into areas, sort of, and I couldn't get a straight shot of the yard to the house, b/c trees are there. This picture was taken at the very back of our property. I was up against their fence, and these pine trees in the foreground are ours. There are pine trees bordering all three sides of the back yard. You can see some of the house. Yes, picture's crooked. LOL


Coming in closer to the house, I was still standing in the less-landscaped area. It is landscaped, just has been neglected and gone wild!! There is no lawn, but strategically-placed trees in amoeba-shaped areas. Around those areas is a path winding through the entire property. It's neat. But--we are going to have to do a lot of work to make it beautiful again. It's a good bike-riding path, kind of just a neat path meandering around. You can see the pile of branches and palm fronds (cut from our neighbor's trees, left on our side of the fence...). Julia and a couple friends built a teepee with them and it fell in. :D It's on a little putting green. One-hole golf, anyone?


Coming in closer yet, to the left. You can see our little storage shed. The POs removed the wrought iron fence that was between those stucco posts, and took it with them, the neighbor on that side told Brian. That is our side property line; the white fence is the neighbor's. You can see the back of the garage, w/ its door. The dilapidated dog house. :P

Turning to the right a bit, you see the breakfast nook bay window, and the patio.

You can see the two entrances to the patio and the two magnolia trees.

This is in the back, less-landscaped area. We think there are two lemon trees, but one might be a lime?? We've gotten fruit from both, and today I noticed two of the fruits are green. ??? It would be nice if one is a lime, time will tell! You can see the brown, dead pine branches on the ground. That neighbor said the PO cut them down and left them all before they left. All the white fences on our two sides are vinyl! Happy about less upkeep than wood.

Also in the less-landscaped area. You see the pea-gravel area. The POs had a playset here. We saw it on Google Earth pics from 2004 (I think that's the year). Plus the start of our burn pile. We've been putting our dead branches and the hedge bushes here for little fires. Sunday Brian built a fire, and he and the kids roasted hotdogs for dinner, then marshmallows later. Fun! Austin especially loves making a fire with Brian!

This picture was taken in May when we looked at the house before making an offer. "Weeping" birch trees... Dead pine branches. Now none of the needles are green!

Picture taken in 2008, from one of the POs visitors.

Picture I took, last month.

Another 2008 picture. Looks like their kids liked riding bikes on the patio just like ours do!

Another angle. You can see the patio entrance to the back yard. And the gate to the back yard, with the missing panel! It's actually handy having the panel gone, easier to get to that side of the patio. Ha ha. I don't know if we'll replace it. Yet we like the gate too. :)

Picture taken in May... These were the only gutters on the whole house. Who knows what happened to the rest?! They are cheap, plastic/vinyl gutters (per roofers), and are now replaced w/ gutters that match the others we got. The bank had all the original locks removed. You can see how they just put a deadbolt on this door. So the knob hole was just a hole! One day we were looking at the house, and Austin stuck a lizard through the hole!!

You can see the lawn area and part of the less-landscaped area. We love the patio. It was one of the things I really liked the first time we looked at the house. I like the benches and planter boxes. There are some pretty roses, gladiolias, geraniums, alstromeria, and other plants in them.

1st pic is from May. Lattice needs to be replaced. We have totally not decided, not even thought too much about, whether we should replace it with more lattice, beams, slats, etc. The original owners had a hot tub outside this sliding door. I saw it on the 2004 listing our realtor shared. We are the third owners. Another pic, showing the putting green better.

2008 pic. POs used the putting green for their Little Tykes toys. ;) Actually not a bad idea. My friend suggested us putting a pool there...it's flat, out of the way, not on dirt or grass...

Picture taken in Sept. The back pine trees are our property line. The magnolia branches in the foreground are just outside the patio. Is this making sense?! LOL You can kind of see the winding path. The poor little picket fence has half-fallen over. :( Got to fix up the flower beds!

Picture from May. Pea gravel, playset area. We think there maybe was a sandbox? in that wood square frame. There was plastic under it. Brian removed it, and that is our fire ring for now. Some day we'll get a nice one. But this works, surrounded by rocks... Brian also has done a *ton* of work cutting the weeds down with the weed eater. It looks a *lot* better now! I'd go out there, and think, "Ok, I'll pull 20 weeds." Well, 20 turned to 30...then 50... LOL And you couldn't even tell! There were soooo many weeds!

Also from May. The dilapidated dog house is *away* from the house. It never was attached. Just resting on cement blocks, with river rocks underneath. Brian moved it to the dirt/gravel area and ripped the roof off. We might save the frame to use for a chicken house, not sure. We might plant fruit trees in this dirt area, also not sure. That big bush across from the dog house has a ton of dead branches, here. I trimmed them all off, and the big kids hauled them to the burn pile, one day before school started. I did a lot of work cleaning up several (not all!) the flower beds. We've weeded, but with no new plants growing, the weeds come back. Boo!

View of side yard, back from PO's visitor in 2008. The birches were smaller! The bush in the middle was smaller! Brian and I did a ton of pruning on that bush--it grown huge! Wild! There were lilies? agapanthus? plants hidden underneath it, still growing too. Crazy. You can also see their playset here, behind weeping birch trees. And the pine trees on the three property lines.

See how big the middle bush got? This was before we trimmed it!

A pretty sky in September. I was standing on the patio, at the entrance to the back yard. :)

Next post I'll show you inside the house. :)