Birthday Surprises!
It’s my birthday today so I splurged and bought myself something extra special… a house! No, not that one. But it’ll get there!
This journey comes with a lovely back story. When my 2 and 4 year old daughters were even littler, a sweet woman named Mary, hosted an in-home childcare for ours and 2 other children. She inherited the home from her beloved grandmother who was the second owner of the home. The quintessential 1920’s Wash Park bungalow has been in her family for 80 years so when she and her husband decided retire to the Nebraska countryside, they decided not to sell to what would likely be a developer eager for the killer location.
Instead, she approached us to see if we would be interested in taking over the enormous responsibility of maintaining her childhood memories and spectacular garden. We optimistically agreed to such an easy deal without the tremendous uphill battle of competing in this market and 5 months later, we officially own it! My favorite part about this journey is that our children know this home better than we do which is undeniably sweet. It’s simultaneously terrifying as they already know the best hiding corners and doggie door escape tricks. Thankfully, we get to enjoy the benefit of leftover baby-proofing.
When Mary moved into the home in the early 1990’s, she remodeled the typical 2 bed, 1 bath main floor bungalow style to add a master suite on the main level. With that, she built a wonderful foundation for the best daylight I’ve ever seen. Complete with vaulted ceilings and skylights throughout, there is little to be done in the way of improving natural lighting.
The predictable designer in me is a remodel addict and there are plenty of DIY projects to take on to make up for 30 years of stagnated design. The only problem is that I’m not a DIY-er. Enter YouTube.
Wanna see?
My style mission - Santa Barbara Casual/Spanish Revival, reverting right back to childhood nostalgia.
Current inspiration:
I have 3 weeks to get these projects done before move in -
Refinish white oak floors
Scrape popcorn ceilings/remove wallpaper
Paint EVERYTHING (trim, ceilings, the whole shabang!)
I can’t imagine this will be problem while managing a busy design business, constantly sick kids and an impossible timeline. Any tips for a first time-er?