Buying Another House.

So, my husband and I are buying another house. We'll be real estate investors as of the very first of 2008! I wouldn't have guessed that this would be where we were, exactly 5 years after the week we "met" on the internet.

Since I keep *meaning* to post about real estate, and both our houses will need a little remodeling work to suit us, I'm planning to document the progress of the projects here.

Now, I can't guarantee that this is going to impress anyone. Frankly, I'm viewing the prospect of redoing 2 homes as rather a chore, and know that (even if I'm not doing it all with my own hands) this ain't HGTV and it won't be easy or quick. It might be slightly interesting, and it might help encourage me to make the effort to "decorate" in a more serious way than I've ever done before, but no guarantees!

Our current home (which will eventually be rented out) was built in 1971, and the one we're moving into was done in 1972. They are quite different, however, and have also had updates at different times which make them seem to have even less in common.

Current: About 1300 s.f., designed as a 3BR, 1.5 bath. The house is a 4-level split that has bedrooms and main bath on the upper floor; open plan living room that L's with the dining area, and a small kitchen are on the ground floor. The next lower level is the "family room" and extra room with a built-in wet bar, with half bath tucked behind that. Finally there is a half-basement where the laundry is. There is a rear screened porch, and a 2-car garage that was originally added to the property 13 years after the house was built.

New acquisition: 1828 s.f., 4BR, 2.5 bath. Its 2-story style is characteristic of the area, with a family room behind the 2-car attached garage (while the living room is in the front), and half bath on the first floor. Upstairs, the master bedroom has its own shower bath with double sink; there is a walk-in closet there. Main bath has a tub. Half of the basement is finished with a sizeable room down there, plus a small side room. The rest is laundry/mechanical.

As for the work that was done to these houses before we got here: the small one had been "updated" back somewhere in the late 1970s. The formerly mango-yellow walls were covered with light-toned woodgrain paneling. The also-mango kitchen received white wallpaper patterned with a wild rose trellis pattern mainly in green, with yellow rose blooms. The kitchen floor was overlaid with a yellow geometric vinyl tile, the original cabinets got moved into the garage and were replaced with rather nice maple cabinets (but the doors have maple veneer over oak; however, the whole bit has a "walnut" finish). I'd bet that the countertops were also a replacement; they are a sunny egg-drop yellow marbled Formica. (We actually like the counter!)

I'm not sure whether the sculptured avocado green wall-to-wall carpeting is original, but it probably isn't *exactly*, vintage though it is...likewise the weird marbleized cladding in the baths. The upstairs bathroom vinyl tile floor is likely to have been an "improvement" from the redo, and possibly so is the classic oak parquet tile that floors all of the bedrooms.

We like the parquet. And funnily enough, the new house has it too -- the downstairs hall is done in the same rich patinated oak.

The new house was a rental when it got foreclosed on. Its interior walls are painted entirely white, lacking any personality whatsoever. The only break from the white walls and the beige carpeting is the aforementioned parquet, a mottled gray-brown carpet in the family room (ok, and the nice oak shelving above the fireplace there), and one wallpaper border at the top of the half bath (I was going to call it "the powder room" because that's what we called them back when.) The kitchen has boring golden oak cabinets with brass pulls (blech!) and an ugly blue laminate counter. At some point, plain white ceramic tile was put into the kitchen and all baths. So this place is more of a tabula rasa, with less needing to be undone to begin with. I'm hoping that we'll really love it once we can warm it up with our own choices. Our own paint colors, our own lighting, and our beloved Stuff.

I've never really even done "window treatments" before. In the past I wasn't allowed, or didn't need to, or didn't care, or couldn't afford it. Now I have to go consult some design resources to point me in some kind of direction....hmmm...