Picking the paint scheme...

I've been looking at paint cards.  Oh who am I kidding?  I'm always looking at paint cards, but this week I have been looking and thinking about colour schemes for the new to us/old 1923 farmhouse.

For the exterior I am thinking of ones that were inspired by one of my favourite bloggers, Dorie:

Briarwood by Benjamin Moore for the body, SW iron ore for the door, whisper white for the trim and picket fence 

image via Pinterest

(The first renovation projects are going to be inside, so exterior painting wont' happen until later down the road.  We want to redo the porch to have stairs that are in the center leading up to the front door, instead of on the side where they are now. ) 

For the interior I am thinking:

Sherwin Williams White Duck for the walls...

via Pinterest

and French Beret by Benjamin Moore for the interior doors...

I am also thinking that the walls, ceilings and trim will all be painted using the White Duck.  The house is tiny and I think it would give it a more seamless look instead of chopping things up with white trim.  

We will start with the kitchen demo and rebuild and painting the living/dining room.  Once those rooms are completed we will focus on painting the bedrooms.  Then we will move in and work on the bathrooms and exterior of the house.  Travis mentioned that in eight years the house will have it's 100th birthday, so we are planning a HUGE party.  (I like planning way in advance!) and this gives us plenty of time to get her ready.  

Now we are sitting tight and waiting for that inspection report and closing.  We have roughly four weeks to go.  

On another note, we are trying to come up with a name for our new little cottage.  It's not on a pond, so I think we need to give her a name that suits her.  

Any ideas?  

Bid accepted...

We woke up this morning so that Travis could go see the house.  The owners were just wrapping up a meeting with their agent, so we chatted for a few moments before going in to look around.

They accepted our bid!  Our letter must have done the trick :)  We are such house enthusiasts and I know people pick up on that when they are around us.   Travis is already scheming about the kitchen and what cool stuff he can do to it.  I am busy picking out paint, because that is my comfort zone when I hear words like "termite inspection" and "insulation repair"...

planning on a redo of the stairs to have it open to the front of the house instead of the side.
 Also, lots of landscaping redo to do...

Old homes, right?  This will be the oldest home we have ever had, the smallest home we have ever had, and will probably be the most work we will ever do.  I'm assured by friends we will do fine, and I've even had some of y'all tell me how rewarding it will be.

By rewarding I hope you mean that I come out with my sense of humor in tact...

So that's the news.  We got the house.  Inspections are next Wednesday.

Bring it.

Precipice...

Have you ever had the experience of starting to fall asleep and then suddenly you feel as if you are falling?

Yeah.  I'm having that feeling ever since I laid eyes on the 1923 Farmhouse.  But it's a good, scary, excited, on the precipice of something incredible kind of feeling.  Because, y'all, look...

This house has been lovingly taken care of, but still has a long way to go to return to it's original vintage state.  We are so hoping to get this little house and fix it up in a style that is more in keeping with 1923.  I see a lot of penny tile, black and white, subway tile and marble.  I see brass sconces and a lovely galvanized light next to the front door.

I can see this amazing little house finished.  But I know that this house is not going to be finished quickly.  There is some serious sweat equity to be done here.  And that's the part that scares the shite out of me.

And the crazy part is, we may not even have our bid accepted!  This market is nuts and houses are getting multiple bids with prices going over the asking amount.  So I wrote the sellers a letter that I submitted with our bid.  I'm hoping that they will read it and know that we are serious about bringing this little house back to life.

I keep weighing the pros and cons about getting into this, but the bottom line is that we love projects, and there is no house we could just move into and be happy as is.  That's just us, and that's okay.  Like my husband said to me at dawn this morning, "It will be fun".  I wanted to document that, so that later on when he is scraping 90 years worth of paint off of old vintage windows I can remind him that he is having fun.

Because that is where we are sitting right now- waiting to see if we get the little farmhouse- on the precipice of fun.

Change of plans...

Over the past few weeks, since this whole let's list our house and move to who knows where thing began, we were really thinking moving to a town-home would be the perfect choice.  Then our dream was to purchase a small farmhouse in the hill country when we retire in twenty or so years...

Until we stumbled across this little gem last night:

It's a 1923 farmhouse located in the historic district near where we live now.  Oh my heavens to Betsy, the porches, the windows, the vintage goodness.  It's all there, and oddly enough it is smaller than the original town-home we were looking at.  This house comes in at 1400 square feet- and is UNDER the budget for what we were looking at spending on the town-home.

Kismet.

At least I hope so.  I am going to look at it this morning with our realtor and throw a bid in.  Fingers crossed that they will accept our bid and we can work out a smooth transition closing from this home to the next.

Because that happens, right?  ;)