The House
The Kitchen
Enter through the garage and the kitchen is where you'll be. C'mon, I'll show you around!
The eat-in kitchen is part of the new addition we built in 2003. A few of the kitchen features include custom cabinetry (built by my talented brother), Corian countertops and BellaWood pre-finished santos mahogany hardwood floor. The appliances, which convey, include a 2002 Frigidaire side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, a 2003 Jenn-Air gas range with convection oven and a 2007 Kenmore dishwasher. The pot rack also stays although I really wanted to take it with me to our new house! Unfortunately for me it just won't fit in our new kitchen.
There is an amazing amount of space here in the pantry, as well as adjustable shelving and pull-out bottom shelves:
If you like pull-out shelving I think you'll love this kitchen!
I have always wanted to live in a house that had two staircases. So when we built this addition we included a set of kitchen stairs into the design. Actually, these stairs turned out to be very handy and we used them more frequently than the front stairs! On the right side of this photo you can see a chandelier; we had our 6-person diningroom table centered under it.
Let's go upstairs and I'll show you the Master Bedroom...
The Master Suite
Now that we're upstairs, let me explain this room a bit. See the door next to the window? That's where we entered when we came up the kitchen stairs. The door off to your right is a walk-in closet; the door off to your left is the master bathroom, and directly behind us is a door leading into the remainder of the upstairs.
The master suite was also part of our 2003 addition and has pre-finished mahogany flooring just as the kitchen does.
Now let's take a closer look at the walk-in closet:
Ready to see the master bathroom?
The bathroom, like the closet, has alot of natural light due to a large casement window. When I saw this ceramic floor tile at Lowe's it was love at first sight! It gave the perfect vintage touch to our brand new bathroom.
How about a relaxing soak in the extra-long (6 ft) Aker whirlpool bathtub?
The custom cherry bathroom cabinetry was built by Winchester Woodworking and is as functional as it is beautiful! It features plenty of storage and a Corian countertop:
And that wraps up the Master Suite! Let's go through this door and explore the rest of the upstairs...
The Laundry Room
As we leave the master bedroom we'll be entering the original part of the house (the part built in the 1890's). The upstairs of the original house was completely renovated in 2006. We put in new flooring, new walls, new doors, new windows, new everything!
We'll exit the master bedroom through this door, going into a hallway. See that doorway off to the right of the hall? That's the laundry room, our next stop.
To enter the laundry room we'll have to go through the pocket door.
Here you can see the 2003 Maytag washer and dryer, which convey:
On the floor is more of the ceramic tile that you saw in the bathroom.
Off to your left is a handy set of built-in shelves, perfectly spaced to accomodate laundry baskets and/or plastic totes:
And to make ironing just a little more enjoyable, to your right is a fold-down ironing board with it's own electric outlet and light:
When you've finished ironing, just fold the board up and out of the way!
Ready to see the other upstairs bedrooms?
Bedrooms A and B
Our next stop? That blue room straight ahead! We'll call this Bedroom A.
Here we are inside Bedroom A:
Bedroom A has a great view of the barn and pasture. Other than the laundry room and bathroom (which both have ceramic tile) the entire upstairs is floored with pre-finished santos mahogany.
Back in the old days (you know, like the 1890's) people apparantly didn't have much use for closets. So there were no closets in these bedrooms originally and there's still not one in here! To make up for this without taking away from the size of Bedroom we had a closet installed just down the hall. Let's leave Bedroom A and make a left...
As we head down this hallway on the right you'll see the closet intended for Bedroom A. And that pinkish room in the distance is Bedroom B.
Bedroom B has got to be the sweetest room in the house! It's the perfect girl's room, although I'm sure a boy would feel quite comfortable here as well (he may want to repaint though!)
Unlike Bedroom A, this bedroom has a closet! It's not an original closet, but was built during Renovation '06. We think it really adds to the charm of this room!
Let's head down to the end of this hall. See that bathroom in the distance? That's our next stop!
The Bathroom
This is such a charming little bathroom:
On the floor we have ceramic tile and off to the right is a small attic with a correspondingly small attic door.
Unfortunately, we didn't get a photo of this attic. But hey, here's a shot of the toilet:
Everything in this bathroom except the bathtub was remodeled in 2006. However, we did replace the old plastic tub surround with shiny new ceramic tile!
As we leave the bathroom, there will be a linen closet on your left. But we're going to turn right and go downstairs to the Front Room.
The Front Room
Alright. Let's stop on the landing and look back upstairs. The bathroom we just toured is at the top of the stairs, off to the left and the bedrooms off to the right. You can see the linen closet directly in front of us and another small attic on our left:
Remember at the beginning of this tour I mentioned this house has two staircases? Well, this is the front staircase and it's a beauty! It is original to the house, as are all of the pine hardwood floors you'll see downstairs (except in the kitchen). This staircase and the floors were just refinished in March.
Looking across the room you'll see a coat closet and a doorway leading into the living room:
And here we are on the other side of the room, looking back toward the staircase. To the right is the front door of the house and to the left is a small half-bathroom. Throughout the original downstairs section of the house the ceilings all measure 9 feet.
Let's give the half bath a closer look:
Ready to see the living room? Let's go!
The Living Room
Now we'll leave the front room and enter the living room. This room gets plenty of natural light from its two windows and the french doors, which lead out to the patio. See where the room juts out to the left of the french doors? That is a handy little closet. It does have a door on it, I promise! You just can't see it in this photo. The closet has some adjustable shelving in it and the breaker box that controls the original section of the house.
Now the french doors are directly behind us. From this perspective, the doorway directly in front of us leads to the front room; the doorway to the left is a hallway that leads to the kitchen. Here you can see the pellet stove which keeps the living room toasty warm in the winter! Interestingly, this room was originally two small rooms divided by a wall with a doorway in the middle. The wall was not load-bearing so we decided to tear it out and make one big room!
Let's turn left and go into the hallway...
The Hall and Office
This hallway leads from the living room to the kitchen, or vice versa. At this point we're leaving the living room and the door you see straight ahead leads out to the garage. The kitchen is to the left of that open doorway just ahead. But we're going to make an immediate left.
This room is well suited for an office because of its downstairs location. But it would make a pleasant bedroom (and hey, it has a closet!). Believe it or not, this room plus the hallway beside it used to be the kitchen!
Now scroll back to the hallway picture above. See that door on the right side of the hall? That is the neatest closet you'll ever see. You can fit everything and the kitchen sink in here and still access it easily! There is shelving on both sides of this closet. The lower four shelves are pull-outs; the remainder of the shelving is adjustable. I used this closet mostly for extra kitchen storage because I have an excessive amount of cooking and canning "stuff". Boy do I miss this closet! Wish I could've taken it with me...
Let's go on down this hallway and out to the garage!
The Garage
Here we are in the garage. The red door you see leads into the kitchen and we're standing in front of the door that leads into the basement:
From this perspective you can see the basement door there in the back corner of the garage. This is the only access to the basement besides the outside entrance:
The Basement
Here are the stairs leading down to the basement. The door on the left goes outside and at the top of the stairs is the garage. This basement is part of the 2003 addition and those breaker boxes control the new part of the house.
The basement's purpose in life is to house these machines:
From left to right: pressure tank, water softener, electric water heater, propane furnace.
We stored our bags of pellets (for the pellet stove) down here during the winter and didn't use the basement for much else.
This basement can get wet. A little water can come in under the door if the outside drain is clogged (from leaves, dirt, etc). There is an outside and an inside drain in this basement. The water shown is from the furnace condenser. It can be fixed as part of the sale if the buyer wants it or a drip pan can be installed. I am not sure if it is a problem as the furnace and central air works fine.
The basement is small (the size of the kitchen above it).