Our First Home ~ Saying Goodbye

I know it has been forever since I've been here...but shortly after my last post, Hubby agreed to list the Tiny house with a realtor (his sister). She got it on MLS and within 10 days we had an offer just under our asking price.  YEA!  Then started the long process of home inspection, bank appraisal, buyer's loan approval, and underwriting.  But everything was finalized on March 2nd and we said goodbye to our first home.  We've owned this house for 21 years and have many wonderful memories and did countless home improvement projects.   Here's a few pictures of the house in it's minimally staged state.

 

 

 

I'm not sure that I've ever shared photos of the basement.  When we purchased the home in 1992, it had a typical cement, unfinished basement. We did most of the major work to finish the space about 18 years ago, but the bathroom had only made it to the drywall stage and the wet bar area had only been plumbed.  So those areas are newly finished and unfortunately, I never really got to enjoy them. :(

The flooring here in the lower level is a wood-look vinyl plank. We had had berber carpeting down while we lived there, but it needed to be replaced, so we thought this was an excellent choice and budget-friendly. (I'll share the installation process in a future post).

 

 

 

 

The doorway in the hallway leads to the work/storage room.

 



Opposite the storage room is the bathroom.  We didn't get the glass shower doors installed, but Hubby did an awesome job on the tile!

 

And at the end of the hall is the small laundry and utility room.

 

Well, that's the Tiny home tour. Its a little sad to say goodbye, but we live just down the street, so we do pass it everyday. lol  :)

 

 

 

 

Fabric Gift Wrapping and Craft Paper Flowers

This weekend Hubby and I went to a fun wedding shower/reception picnic.  It was held at a local park and the weather was just gorgeous!  Normally, when it comes to gifts, I'm a big fan of gift bags...they're fast, easy, pretty, and you can fit most anything in one.  But on this occassion, our gift was not going to fit in a bag. I was going to have to go old-school and wrap this thing.  No wrapping paper in the house, but I did have some craft paper and lots of fabric. So I went with an Obi sash look using a pretty yellow and pink cherry blossom fabric and a small strip of white cotton.

Next I needed a flower of some sort.  I've seen some lovely paper flowers so I googled for a How-To. I found this tutorial and after unearthing my glue gun, i went to cutting.   I added a few extra layers of petals to mine, but the instructions were super easy.  I made one out of polka dot napkins that I picked up at a yard sale and the other out of the craft paper that I wrapped the box with.

Although I love the polka dots, it was a bit more fragile than the heavy craft paper, so I opted for just the solid one for this gift.  I could totally get addicted to making these little flowers! They are so fun and think of all the possibilities...you could use pretty vintage wrapping paper, newsprint, the sunday comics, sheet music, old book pages, old sewing pattern paper, etc...

In other news, the For Sale By Owner sign finally went up at the Tiny house.  We had the first showing over the weekend and received an offer! Hubby is dealing with the price negotiations and hopefully we'll be able to come to some agreement. Personally, I'm ready to say YES  just to have it done and over with quick, but we'll see.

Tiny House Porch Addition

There has been so much going on lately that I completely forgot to share pictures of the Tiny House's recent face lift. The project started last summer (before we purchased and even found the new house) and it was something I had wanted for a long time...a front porch!

This is what the front looked like before. Your typical 1960-70's brick ranch, complete with the obligatory yew hedge.

Just a small stoop and no overhang to protect guests from the elements.
The blacktop driveway had seen better days.

The first stage of the project was to have a new concrete driveway and porch slab poured. The front hedge came out and a we installed a jar bubbler fountain under the window.

Then the porch was built and we started laying out where we would lay the paver walkways. A local garden center drew up landscaping plans for us (many places offer this as a free service knowing you'll likely spend lots of money on the plants).
We love the craftman style and tried to incorporate a little of that into the design of the porch supports. We gave the drawings to our contractor and he did a wonderful job building the structure.
And here it is now. We finished up the painting ourselves to save on money and put in the rest of the landscaping.

I'd still like to get a few more plants in and a couple of chairs with pretty pillows on the porch, but its a definite improvement. I'm a little sad that I never got to enjoy it while I lived here but,we've still got a bit of work to do before it goes on the market and we're just a few minutes down the road, so I plan on sitting out on my new front porch every chance I get. :-)

I'm sharing this project over at the Shabby Creek Cottage link party. And at Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday.