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  • Reno Projects: House by House
    • Colonial Revival Cottage Reno (our current home)
    • Old House Reno (our last home)
    • Coastal Cottage in Maine
    • Aaron and Melissa’s 1970 Redo
    • Condo Renovation (a client’s home)
  • Details
    • Before & After
    • Holiday & Seasonal Decorating
    • Gardens
    • Details about House Parts
      • Interior Windows
      • Mantels
      • Details on Creating Tablescapes, Vignettes and Hanging Pictures
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Introducing Our New House

September 18, 2017

Today’s the day! The day I get to introduce our new house to you!! Yay!! I’ve been waiting so long for this.

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

Well, we’ve successfully moved… and by successful, I merely mean that we’ve removed all of our stuff from what was previously referred to as ‘our 100 year old house‘…

However, unlike the last renovation project we did when we moved into that 100 year old house where we had 6 months to renovate it before moving in, this time we had 2 weeks!

Truth is, 2 weeks is just enough time to make a huge mess in a reno project! Therefore, though we moved all our things out of the house we just sold, we really weren’t able to move much into our new house, because it’s all pretty much getting ripped out… So, 95% of it is packed away in storage, while we are living out of boxes and plastic bins in the middle of a renovation project with the items we absolutely need.

We’re living in limbo… It’s an unsettling feeling. But as unsettling as it is, it actually has made me feel more thankful for a home, even in it’s reno-ed state. Though we’re inconvenienced with not having a kitchen sink, I’m so thankful we still have a working bathroom, and a room we can sleep in… Compared to the disaster of the recent hurricanes and storms in the the south, it’s like what my husband said this morning, there’s a huge difference in it happening to you or you actually choosing it… we chose and caused this disaster upon ourselves.

So…

Wanna see our new house?!!! (It’s very different from ‘our 100 year old house’!)

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

Ta-Da… This is the front of the house. Yes, we live in the midwest, northwest Wisconsin to be precise… But, no we don’t have snow on the ground. (yet) LOL! This pic was from last March when the previous owner emailed me from Florida to say she was ready to sell to me.

The house is a mid-century, well built home… with some quirks and styling that I don’t care for. I’m not going to go into all it’s faults right now, I’ll slowly do that as I work through each room and try to fix the things and styles that aren’t working for us.

Here is one of the things we really like about the house:

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

It was originally built with 2 rental apartments below!

Our plan is to incorporate one of the apartments into the main house living space, opening it up for a family room and a guest suite area. But the other apartment we are maintaining as a rental, with the hopes that if my parents ever decide to get old, there will be a wonderful place for them live close to me, yet in their own space. (Mom, Dad, you listening?)

In the meantime, in the very near future, that 1 bedroom apartment is where we plan to live while the rest of the house undergoes a remodel. Then once the house renovation is completed and we can move into it, we’ll look for just the right person or couple to have for tenants.

Somehow I thought we would be able to rush in and renovate that basement apartment in the 2 weeks we had before we had to be moved out of our old house, and be able to move right in it. Rounding into our third week of when we started renovating, that’s a laughable thought I had.

We hit a few snafus once we got started.

As should be expected with any renovation there are always surprises. Some of the surprises we had in this apartment reno were things like bad plumbing, plugged sewer lines. (thanks to a flushed t-shirt that was discovered by the clog unboggler man… weird, huh?! No one could figure out how or why a t-shirt got flushed) A clogged gutter that overflowed and caused a leak in the basement corner. I’ll get into all that in the next post…

Here’s what we really LOVE about this house:

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

Our view! Out the front windows is a constant water view, and out the apartment front window is another lovely pond view.

It’s really quite lovely and although we still live in the same town, same street, just 3 blocks down, the setting is so different. I love it!

So besides an introduction to our new house, I’ll give you a quick painting tip…

I needed to prime and paint the closets in the hallway of the main level with BIN primer, to seal the old cigarette smell. (the rest of the main level is being dealt with later) Bin primer works wonders, but is super thin and runny. I didn’t want to get any on the beautiful wood floors, so I needed to tape drop cloths down.

Here’s the tip:

Tape around the trim on the floor first:

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

Then tape the drop cloth down onto the tape you just placed on the floor. That way, the taped border gives you a little grace with sizing the drop cloth to fit.

Introducing Our New House SimpleDecoratingTips.com

That way you can be sure the very edge of the floor is covered with tape and be able to make your drop cloth 1/2″ smaller around the edges and you don’t have to try to deal with the bulky drop cloth being in the way while you’re getting the tape exactly on the edge.

I hope that makes sense. I’m honestly exhausted today, so I’m not sure if I’m making much sense at all. It’s a chilly, rainy day that I’d love to be making soup and nestling up in sweats and slippers… but that’s not an option. So I’m going to go work on installing some beadboard wallpaper for the apartment kitchen backsplash like what I installed in the cottage in Maine. (you can see how I did that beadboard wallpaper here)

Next post is the before and after thus far in the apartment!!! Wow! What a transformation!!!

You can keep up with all the posts on our new house here:

Re-Thinking the Living Room Furniture Plan
Creating a Built-In Faux Fireplace
Antique Inspired Kitchen Island
Wall Mounted Pot Rack
Front Entry Portiere
Repurposing Vintage Screen Door
Simple DIY Curtain
Tiling the 2nd bath floor
Before and After Living Room Renovation
Before and After Front Entry Renovation SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Incorporating Vintage & New Light Fixtures SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Fireplace Renovation SimpleDecoratingTips.com
How to Install an Interior Storm Window SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com How to tips Window Well Installation
Vintage Window Awning Redo SimpleDecoratingTips.com
hall closet into library simpledecoratingtips.com
front porch addition mostly done SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Hang a Group of Pictures with even spacing SimpleDecoratingTips.com
how to install a vintage ceiling light fixture simpledecoratingtips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating the Basement Apartment
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Cedar Closet Lining
SimpleDecoratingTips.com From a Tub to a Shower
SimpleDecoratingTips.com How I Made Curtains without a Sewing Machine
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating a Whole House is a Lot
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Door & Window Decisions
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Adding a Front Porch
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Basement Apartment Bathroom Renovation Done
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Surface Mounted Suspended Ceiling
SimpleDecoratingTips.com we had to cut down 13 trees
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Repurposing Cabinets
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Progress Report on our Whole House Renovation
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating Update Post
Dining Room Progress SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Main Floor Completion Celebration Giveaway SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com How to Change a Door Lock
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Luxury Vinyl Planks
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Basement Apartment Progress

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please feel free to follow and share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, Bloglovin, YouTube and now Instagram!  I appreciate you reading along.

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Our Whole House Renovation: Mid-Century into Colonial Revival Cottage Style

SimpleDecoratingTips.com How I Made Curtains without a Sewing Machine
SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Tiling the 2nd bath floor
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating the Basement Apartment
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating Update Post
Re-Thinking the Living Room Furniture Plan
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Adding a Front Porch
Fireplace Renovation SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Main Floor Completion Celebration Giveaway SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Luxury Vinyl Planks
Incorporating Vintage & New Light Fixtures SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Cedar Closet Lining
How to Install an Interior Storm Window SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Progress Report on our Whole House Renovation
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Basement Apartment Progress
Front Entry Portiere
how to install a vintage ceiling light fixture simpledecoratingtips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com we had to cut down 13 trees
front porch addition mostly done SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Renovating a Whole House is a Lot
SimpleDecoratingTips.com How to Change a Door Lock
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Repurposing Cabinets
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Basement Apartment Bathroom Renovation Done
Before and After Front Entry Renovation SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Creating a Built-In Faux Fireplace
SimpleDecoratingTips.com From a Tub to a Shower
Hang a Group of Pictures with even spacing SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Dining Room Progress SimpleDecoratingTips.com
SimpleDecoratingTips.com How to tips Window Well Installation
Wall Mounted Pot Rack
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Surface Mounted Suspended Ceiling
Antique Inspired Kitchen Island
hall closet into library simpledecoratingtips.com
Vintage Window Awning Redo SimpleDecoratingTips.com
Simple DIY Curtain
SimpleDecoratingTips.com Door & Window Decisions
Before and After Living Room Renovation
Repurposing Vintage Screen Door

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Disclosure Policy: According to FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that some of the content of this blog may be a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

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Sharing is great! Please feel free to share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook and Pinterest and Flipboard and Houzz and YouTube the more the merrier! I appreciate you stopping by. But please remember that all photos, images, text and content are owned by SimpleDecoratingTips.com. So anything you share, please be sure it always links back to my original post it came from. Please do not remove watermarks, crop or edit anything without written permission from me first.

Disclosure Policy: According to the FTC guidelines, I want you to be aware that this blog is a source of income and may occasionally incorporate endorsements or testimonials and shopping links. It is important to me to disclose this to you. The content of this blog is a source of income and therefore may be used to promote products, services, or other businesses. I will only choose to promote products/services/businesses that I feel will be beneficial to my readers. Products provided to me by my advertising partners for my review are given to me free of charge with no cost to myself. This does not ensure a positive review of the product in any way. While I hope to generate a small profit for my time and effort to create this blog, I hold myself to the highest standard of integrity. I appreciate my readers, and always make it my goal to deliver quality, honest material on this blog through each post. Thanks for reading along, Liz

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  • Blog
  • Reno Projects: House by House
    • Colonial Revival Cottage Reno (our current home)
    • Old House Reno (our last home)
    • Coastal Cottage in Maine
    • Aaron and Melissa’s 1970 Redo
    • Condo Renovation (a client’s home)
  • Details
    • Before & After
    • Holiday & Seasonal Decorating
    • Gardens
    • Details about House Parts
      • Interior Windows
      • Mantels
      • Details on Creating Tablescapes, Vignettes and Hanging Pictures
      • Lighting and Lamps
      • Closets and Storage
      • Furniture, Antiques & Accessories
    • Chalkboard Art and Hand Lettering Projects
    • Travel to Inspiring Places
  • DIY, Tutorials & Tips
  • My Favorite Shopping Links
  • e-Decorating Consultation
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