Sunday, September 18, 2011

The House on College Street

Yesterday, I fell in love.

With a house, that is. John and I went house-hunting yet again (third weekend in a row!) and we saw this amazing house on College Street - 5 bedrooms(!), 3 bathrooms, a HUGE dining room, fireplace, a two-car garage with a GINORMOUS work space...I could go on and on. All I could see was all the potential - all John could see were dollar signs. Which was true - this house did require quite a bit of work, namely the kitchen and the bathrooms, but boy, would it be an amazing house in the end. John is still not quite sure - he's a self-proclaimed "realist" - I like to think of him as a "johnny raincloud" instead.

But being the wonderful husband that he is, John did indulge me for a few moments, and we both fantasized about how we could turn this house into our dream home.

Front of the house. It's a good thing John's mom has a green thumb, because those bushes have just got to go. We would like to maybe put a really pretty flowerbed there instead.



The living room. I love those cabinets.


More "stairs with character." Look at that stained-glass window. Isn't that pretty?


And this was a little nook right next to the stairs on the 2nd floor. Still trying to figure out what I would do with that narrow space.


The dining room. Look how HUGE it is! Such a great entertaining space.


The ugliest kitchen I have ever seen in my life. Seriously - wood panelling? Green appliances? This is where the renovations would start. We were thinking about knocking down the wall where the door is and creating one huge open space between the kitchen and the dining room.


The backyard. I know it looks small, but that's a plus for me and John. We wanted something very low-maintenance since we both hate yard work (and I am not an outdoorsy person at all). 



The garage. Check out all this space! We could definitely fit at least 4 cars in here. And it serves as a ton of storage space.


 

Bedrooms 1 and 2. That's a picture of a closet that serves as a doorway between the two rooms. John and I were thinking our hypothetical future children would have a lot of fun with that. 


For some reason, all the bedrooms had their own sink. We were thinking that the house used to be a boarding school at one point. John thought they were kind of a nice feature, but I'm thinking they have to go.


For some reason, I completely forgot to take a picture of the master bedroom, but here's a picture of the master bathroom and what else? A second kitchen. We were thinking about tearing down the wall between the two and just creating one huge master bathroom.


These are the other bathrooms in the house. The pink one is the guest bathroom downstairs (one that you might use one day!) and the other one is upstairs.


Look at all this storage space! This closet was in the hallway on the 2nd floor.


And the weirdest feature of this house (even weirder than the sinks and the 2nd kitchen in the master bedroom) was a tiny closet in one of the bedrooms, just big enough to hold this mannequin.

John found it really creepy, but I kinda like it. I'm sure I could find a use for it somehow.

As of now, we're definitely keeping this house on our list. It has many of the features that we want. However, the price isn't quite right yet, especially with all the renovations that need to me made. But I still think it's a really beautiful home with lots of potential.

2 comments:

Jordi said...

Oh my god, I need that mannequin. Agreed, the sinks must go. Maybe hang onto one, just to throw people off. Put a "must wash hands" sign above it. You need this house. It is gorgeous. Screw the $$$ signs. Tell John I said so. This is incredible-I'd be bugging Ben about it too. Seriously though, how could you have a house that beautiful and tasteful and then have a kitchen LIKE THAT? Really? Even I think it's ugly, and I can stomach almost anything.

iloveorlakiely said...

I know, that mannequin is so cool! Don't know what I'd do with it yet, but I can figure that out later!

This house is very beautiful. But yeah, the kitchen would be the first thing to go!