Brick

Just before we took possession of our house I made Ryan take this photo. He wasn't very happy about it, but since we knew the house was empty, he reluctantly agreed...

When we bought our house it had two bedrooms and one bathroom. Our house now has three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, but I will do another post on that soon.



Another view of our house when we bought it.



This is a picture of our house now, or actually in the spring.  Ryan dug up the monkey grass around the trees which we think gives it a nice clean look. There is also a new roof, a new driveway, new gutters and a new wood fence on the right hand side. You can also see the carport we added in the back. This must be an old picture because our gate had not been installed. I will try to get another picture with our gate because I love it!

I show you all these pics to discuss our brick. We have painted the exterior brick of all of the houses we have renovated, so I do realize how painting brick can transform a house, but I just can't bring myself to paint ours.


We love the brick on our house! It is a dark brick with a good bit of variation and flush mortar joints. Unfortunately many of the houses we buy do not have such a good looking brick. We feel that you should always paint brick if it is a weird color and/or if it has a funny texture. You'll be amazed how it change the entire feel of a home.


Maybe someday we'll change our mind and paint the house, but until then I would just like to have our front porch repainted or stained. Can you tell how bad the paint is peeling?? The first time we looked at this house I pointed out how bad the porch needed to be painted. Ryan said and I quote, "That is such an easy fix." 

Well here we are almost five years later and have done a ton of work to our house - except paint the front porch. I complain about it from time to time and beg Ryan to fix it. I even started to complain, saying you do all this work on other people's houses but you won't fix our front porch. So I was promised after he sold the first house he renovated that he would have the porch painted. Well.... I am still waiting.

Our Kitchen

Not much visually is going on over at St. Andrews so I wanted to show you a little more of the work we have done on our house.

Here is what our kitchen looked like the day we took possession. Please excuse my purse and the cleaning materials left by the former owners. You can also see the food processor below that they left on the counter... I still have it but I've never used it. I feel bad about throwing it out b/c it works but I feel weird about using it b/c its not really mine... such a dilemma.

Back to the real discussion here - our kitchen and the changes we made. There were green laminate countertops, green linoleum flooring and white appliances with an especially old stove. Not a terrible kitchen, but certainly not great either.
I never actually used that stove because someone was convinced it was leaking gas even though the mlgw guy that came out to check said it wasn't. So that was replaced immediately while the rest of it wasn't changed until about two years later.

Here is a picture of the kitchen in its current state. A big change was the relocation of the back door that used to be in the kitchen, which you can see in the first picture. When we did the addition we pushed out that wall. Now there's a cased opening that leads to a hall that contains the laundry closet, a half bath and the back door. The washer and dryer used to be in that closet in the kitchen. We kept the closet but now use it as a big pantry with lots of storage.

With a tight budget in mind, we kept the cabinets the same. They are in a really good layout and have been hand painted with a glazed finish on them. We installed this rust color tile that is throughout the kitchen and the hall leading to the back door. 

We now have all GE stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.  If we could have replaced the cabinets we probably would have gone a whole different direction with the color scheme but we think it actually turned out pretty well.

This picture is taken at an angle from the den. I couldn't get the lighting just right, but oh well. 


You can see the pot rack which was here when we bought the house. People always comment on it and ask me where I got it but unfortunately I don't know. We also kept the paint color the same. When we bought the house the living room, sunroom and kitchen were all painted this color. It is Farrell Calhoun Poppyseed  and I actually really like it. Now the kitchen, back hall and den are this color. 

You can kind of see in this picture how open our kitchen is to our den. Its not fully open but enough that I don't feel isolated when I am in the kitchen.  I also wanted to show the cabinets along this wall. Once again these were here when we moved in and I love them. They offer so much storage, get the microwave out of the way and allow for a little personalization with pictures and such.

I really enjoy this kitchen and that's good since I am the one that spends the most time in there. Two years ago for Christmas my parents got me an under the counter TV that is mounted under the cabinet next to the frig. It is perfect b/c I can work at the island and watch NCIS or Law & Order and try to forget that I am actually cooking.

The only thing I would change is the bar stools, which are hand me downs that we are glad to have. The other bar stools I always pick out are too expensive so we still have these. I would also like built in shelving in the closet/pantry..... maybe some day.

I think our kitchen is a great example of how you can work with the elements of an existing kitchen, and with very little money, make some nice changes. New appliances, builder grade granite, and cheap tile have created a big visual difference. Not a dream kitchen, but there's always our next house for that...