New house · Chatfield Court

Kristi / Monday,August 22, 2016

Cottage Conversations (and other ramblings)

Hey there, my friends, I hope you had a great weekend. We were busy, busy here trying to get the house in order…still. Our 25-year-old a/c unit has been on the fritz since Friday, so most of our weekend was spent trying to figure out how to keep it running, in between doing other projects.

Anyway, I’ve been so busy getting the house set up that I haven’t shared the little (and big) things we’ve been doing behind the scenes to get our house up and running. I know blogs are here to show pretty and styled rooms but that takes a lot of work, and time, and we’re not completely there. I promised to share our journey, all of it, so I’m happy to fill you in on what’s been going on in our stone cottage since we moved in 8 weeks ago.

Our house was built in 1946 and came with an oil burner and all electric appliances. We brought our fairly new dryer with us from Chicago, and we love cooking with gas, so we knew when we made the offer on our house that we would be installing a gas line. This has, by far, been our biggest and most time consuming project since we moved in.

In true DIY fashion we did all of the inside pipe work ourselves. There was a bit of a learning curve, we’ve never done it before, but our new lines were installed and inspected (and passed…yay!), and our dryer is now hooked up. Next up is our new gas stove, that’s sitting in the middle of my dining room at this very moment.

Along with the gas stove, we bought a new dishwasher. The one that was in the house was really old, and moldy inside. Yuck. The new one went in fairly easily, after an unexpected trip to Home Depot, of course.

If you’re a regular reader of Chatfield Court, then you know that I’ve been working on the bathroom. We’ve had some vanity and paint issues so it’s taken me longer than I expected to finish. We are close to finishing though, so stay tuned.

I do have a new addition to announce. No, it’s not what you think. 😉 My new sofa has finally arrived. We had it custom made and I was really nervous that I wouldn’t like the finished product. I’m happy to say that I love it and I can’t wait to give you a tour of our living room, even though it’s a work in progress.

The kitchen island is getting a bit of a makeover, new paint and a couple of stools. It’s one of those projects that I keep starting and stopping but, as soon as it’s done, I’ll share it with you.

If you follow me on Instagram then you’ve probably gotten a peek of my guest bedroom. (If not, you can follow me here). I’m still working on furniture placement in this room. Love the windows but there’s really only one short wall to put furniture against and my beloved pine armoire has taken the spot.

After looking at all of the projects I’m working on, I guess you could say that I’m all over the place. I feel a bit overwhelmed at times, like it all has to be put together and perfect right now, but I love this process and I’m trying to take my time and enjoy it. I rushed through our Illinois house and never really got to enjoy it so I promised myself I would do it differently in this house.

On another note, I wanted to talk about you, my fabulous readers. I have gotten so many lovely comments and emails throughout our move from Chicago to North Carolina, and I can’t thank you all enough. It’s been tough (really tough) to stay motivated and keep up with the blog when so many other things are going on, but I get a thoughtful email or comment, and it reminds me why I love doing what I do. So, I thank you.

One email I got recently was from Angela. She asked about our DIY platform bed (which is the project I get questions about the most). Anyway, we emailed back and forth a couple of times and then she sent me this…

Isn’t it awesome? She tweaked it to suit her needs and I think she did a great job. Way to go Angela!!!

Thanks again for stopping in. I love to get your comments and, if there’s something you want to see more of or you just want to fill me in on what you’re your up to in your own home, I’m all ears. I hope you have a great week!

I have completed one space in our house, our small hallway, if you want to check it out.

Small Hallway Redo

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Kristi / Friday,July 29, 2016

Small Hallway Decorating Ideas

We’ve been in our new house for about a month and it’s been a whirlwind of unpacking boxes and trying to figure out what to do in each room. I’ve been itching to tackle a project that I could do with my broken foot, and our small hallway seemed like a good place to start.

I thought we had a small hallway in our Illinois house but this one beats it by a mile. It’s small and dark, which is a tough combo to work with.

Here is the hallway from our last house, after it was painted for the second time.

The hallway in the new house connects our living room to the bathroom, master bedroom and guest bedroom. It may be a tiny, dark space, but it’s an important piece of real estate, and one that shouldn’t be ignored. So knowing that I had a challenge, I did what I always do when I have a tough space to decorate…search the internet. There’s tons of inspiring hallway decorating ideas out there and I thought I’d share some of my favorites.

Gallery walls are always a great idea, even in a small space, and look at that dark wall.

via Little House of Four

What about a fun, bold wallpaper for a small hallway?

via Melanie Stewart Designs

If wallpaper isn’t your thing, why not go dramatic with paint.

via Callwey.de

A small hallway would be a great place to showcase a collection.

via BHG

Or you could go with a simple style. There’s no rule that says you have to have pictures on your walls.

via Country Living

Which is your favorite?

I just have a few small tweaks to make and our hallway will be ready for it’s debut. Can’t wait to share it.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video tour of our new house.

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Kristi / Monday,July 11, 2016

New House, New Plans

It’s been a long 3 months filled with drama, a handful of moving trucks and plenty of sleepless nights worrying if everything was going to work out, but we are finally and officially in our new house in North Carolina. We closed on May 31, but we had a month left on our apartment lease, so we spent the time cleaning the house and getting it ready for all of our belongings. I had grand plans to get some painting and other little odd jobs crossed off the list, but a fall down the decks stairs a few days after our closing left me with a broken foot and two sprained ankles, which put a halt to all of my plans. Not the best start but we are in our house and that’s all that matters.

So, in my last post I shared a video tour of our new house and today I thought I’d share some of the plans we have to make it ours.

The first time I walked into the house, when it was for sale, I immediately saw us living there. I could picture where my furniture would go, how the bathroom would look when we redid it and how new paint would change the look of every room. After moving in though, reality quickly set in and I realized how much there is to do to make it into the home of our dreams. As the hubs likes to remind me, at least once a day, “we have the rest of our lives to fix it up”, but it’s hard to remember that in all of the chaos and boxes. Sigh…

My fall has slowed me down to a crawl so I haven’t done any big projects but, besides unpacking boxes, I have worked on a small painting project and I’ve also started on a little something for the front porch, so I’ll be sharing those soon.

The hubs has been busy getting gas lines hooked up to the house. We brought our gas dryer with us from Illinois and we’ll be getting a gas furnace, to replace the ancient oil burner, and since the house has never been hooked up to gas, it was something that needed to be done right away. We’re doing all of the work ourselves, as usual, and, although it’s a big job, we’re saving a lot of money by doing it ourselves.

So, now that I’ve caught you up on what we’re working on right now, I thought I’d fill you in on some of the grand plans we have for our stone cottage.

Let’s start in the bedrooms.

All 3 rooms will all get new paint and crown molding, and, since the switches and outlets need work (in the whole house) they will likely get replaced. We’ll add new lighting/ceiling fans in each room and new window treatments for the master (the blinds will likely stay in the guest bedrooms for now).

The poorly built bookcase will be removed in the blue guest room .

All of the original door knobs and hinges need some major work. They have been painted over so many times and not one door will close properly.

Our tiny hallway needs to be patched in several places and painted. A new light is also on the list.

This space seemed like something I could tackle right now so this is where I’m starting.

The bathroom will be completely redone…new tile, new vanity, new lighting, new mirror, some shelving and new paint. The vanity, mirror and lighting will be done soon, because the sink is awful, but the rest is not a priority.

The living room will, of course, get new paint and a new beefier mantle that will hold our tv. We will replace the door that goes into the basement and the front door. I have been scouring thrift shops and ReStores looking for old doors (and I’ve accumulated quite the collection) and I’m hoping that the front door can get done sooner rather than later. We also need to create an entryway with coat hooks and shoe storage.

The dining area, which is connected to the kitchen, will get a new light (that I bought on our trip to the beach), new paint and a window treatment for the old casement window. Some former owner was crazy for ceiling hooks, and every room has at least one, so they all need to go and every ceiling will have to be patched and painted. Who said that owning a house isn’t fun?!?

The kitchen will get a total remodel with new cabinets, countertops, flooring, sink lighting and appliances. Everything in this space is old and was never taken care of. The only thing that will stay in here is the island, but it will get a little makeover.

The sunroom, which was an addition on the house 10 years ago, will get a redo as well. The plan right now is to eventually turn this space into a bathroom, laundry room and mudroom. Things may change, of course, but we really need a second bathroom and this is the only space.

For now, it will get a good cleaning, new paint and all of the blinds will be removed. A new dutch door will also be hung, from my growing door collection. 😉

We also need to replace the oil burning furnace and 25-year-old air conditioner. Two huge projects, with big price tags, but we knew all of that coming into the house.

Phew, did you make it through? It’s all a bit overwhelming but I try not to focus on the long list and just do what I can each day. That’s all you can ask for, right? What about you…what projects have you worked on lately?

If you missed my last post and want to see the video of the new house, you can check it out you can check it out, here.

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Kristi / Monday,June 27, 2016

We’re Moved In…Finally! (plus a video)

Well, we’ve officially moved into the new house! All of our belongings are out of the storage unit and the apartment that we’ve been renting the past three months and it’s the first time since March that everything is under one roof. It’s a huge relief to have all of the craziness of this move from Chicago to North Carolina behind us. Now the real fun begins, which means finding a place for all of our stuff and turning our new house into the comfortable home that we envisioned when we first saw it.

We, well I, have a ton of ideas already and, once my two sprained ankles and broken foot heals I’ll get to work. I took a fall down our deck stairs a few days after we closed and hurt myself pretty good. It’s not the best time to get hurt but I’m just thankful that it wasn’t worse.

Foot issues aside, there is so much I want to fill you in on. I want to share our project plans for each room as well as inspiration for all of the ideas I have for the house both inside and out, because there’s a lot to do outside, too.

Because you need one pretty spot among all of the chaos…

Before we get into all of that, though, I thought I’d share a quick little (unedited) video of the house just a few days after we moved in. There’s no decorating done but our large pieces are in place…for now. And it may look like all of my boxes are unpacked but no such luck. They are in the basement, which is a total disaster area. Anyway, here’s our little stone cottage on day 5 after the big move. Enjoy!

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Kristi / Tuesday,June 7, 2016

New House Tour

Hey there! Well, I’m back. I know…long time, no see. I didn’t plan on being away for so long, but we got busy with this house buying stuff and getting settled in our new city, so I decided that, instead of posting just to post, I’d wait until I had something worthwhile to share after we closed on the house.

It’s a done deal and she’s all ours! We finally closed last week but our lease on the apartment doesn’t end until July 1, so we’ve been spending our time cleaning, packing up the apartment and doing a few small projects before we move at the end of June. Oh, and there was the little spill I took down the deck stairs last weekend. Instead of packing and working on the house, we spent half the night in the emergency room. I hurt my foot and I’m pretty bruised and battered, but I’ll be ok. It could have been so much worse. It’s not an ideal time to be sidelined with an injured foot but what are you going to do…right?

Anyway, since we don’t have any projects to share just yet, it’s the perfect time to bring you in and give you a tour of our new digs.

Our little stone cottage was built in 1946 and has 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom in almost 1400 square feet, just a bit bigger than our house in Illinois. There’s a basement with a garage (the hubs is giddy with excitement) and a beautiful lot with tons of room for Finn to run around. Oh, and did I mention that I have a covered front porch? The biggest front porch I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to decorate it.

I’ll show you the rest of the outside another time. Let’s go in and have a look around.

Coming in through the front door you see the living room. It’s not a huge room, and it’ll be a challenge placing our furniture, but it does have a fireplace.

From the living room, you walk into one of the guest bedrooms. It has tons of light and an original casement window with a built-in seat. Bed placement will be a challenge in here but it’s such a great room.

On the other side of the house we have the master bedroom, bathroom, and another guest bedroom. The blue guest bedroom has the biggest closet in the whole house (there are only 3) and it has a bookcase. The bookcase isn’t made very well and takes up valuable real estate so it will have to go.

After living with 1 bedroom in our Illinois house, we swore we would never do it again but here we are…1 small bathroom. It was recently redone but I have big plans to redo it again to fit the era of the house. The first thing that we’ll do is install a new vanity so that we have a little extra storage.

The master bedroom is in the back of the house, overlooking the backyard. It’s small but I think we can fit the necessities. This room is the first on the to-do list. Very soon it will have new paint, window treatments and ceiling fixture.

Back out to the living room and we’ll head into the kitchen and dining room, aka our favorite space in the house.

We have plans to redo this space, too. The cabinets are old and not the best quality so they will go, along with the countertops. It’s ok for now but eventually, we’ll redo it all. For now, though, we’re going to replace the stove and dishwasher. We’ll be having gas hooked up to the house so the electric stove will be replaced with a new gas stove (again, the hubs is giddy with excitement). It’s the little things with him.

I love the two original casement windows in this room. The one over the sink looks out onto a wooded lot next door and the one in the dining area looks out over the backyard. We are in the city but can’t see any of our neighbors. Love that!

In our Illinois house, our dining area was in the living room. It’ll be nice to eat and not look at the tv.

The last room, which is off of the kitchen, is the sunroom. It was added on several years ago and, although it’s pretty, it doesn’t really fit with the style of the rest of the house.

We have big plans for this room but I’m running long, so I’ll share all the details another time.

There you have it…our little stone cottage. We have so much to do and our heads are spinning, but we’re excited about this next chapter. Stay tuned for all of our projects, which will resume the minute my foot heals.

You can read the strange but true story about how we found our new house, here.

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Kristi / Monday,April 18, 2016

House Hunting Lessons

To say I miss DIY and doing projects in my own home is an understatement. We’ve been in North Carolina for three weeks now, in our apartment for two, but it seems like it’s been much longer. I’ve decorated our temporary digs a bit but I’ve been so busy house hunting and doing the basics to get settled that I still have a few boxes with decor sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to get to them. I love to decorate but getting our own house is all I’m worried about right now.

I expected to come to North Carolina and there’d be a ton of homes to look at but there’s really not a lot on the market right now, especially ones that fit our criteria and are in our price range. We’ve still been out there looking at whatever we can, though, just so we can check out different areas.

This was the first house we looked at and we both loved it. It needed a ton of work but it was in a great neighborhood, the price was right and it had good bones. We hesitated to put an offer on it right away because I hadn’t looked at any other houses but when we did, a day later, there was another offer on the table and we ended up losing it. The moral of this particular house story? Don’t wait if you love it.

I was totally bummed but with our realtor’s encouragement, we kept at it. This gorgeous craftsman was the second house we looked at. Those stone pillars…that awesome porch… Sadly, it wasn’t the right house for us.

The next 2 houses were in our preferred neighborhood and, although they were beautiful, they weren’t what we were looking for.

It was good that we kept looking though because we were zeroing in on neighborhoods, price range and wants versus needs. Besides, who doesn’t like to look at houses?

Looking for a new house, even if you’ve done it many times before, is fun but can be stressful. It’s the biggest purchase you’ll ever make so you want to be smart. We’ve done this 9 times before and we always go for location first. Houses can be fixed up if the price is right, but the location is something that can never be changed.

Nothing beats living in “your” perfect neighborhood. Add a beautiful stone house and a rocking chair front porch and you have your dream house. Well…my dream house.

Yup, this is the one…and the story of how we found it is amazing, if not a little weird.

We had been in town only two days when our house hunt started. Our realtor texted me about a house that had just gone on the market in a beautiful old neighborhood. After looking it up online, I talked the hubs into going for a drive after work to take a look at the area. We drove down the road that the new listing was on and I oohed and aahed at every house we passed. It was a charming street with beautiful brick bungalows and it was just the kind of area I was looking for. As we got closer to the new listing I spotted this beautiful stone house on a beautiful wooded lot. I gasped and pointed it out to the hubs. He joked with me and told me that he would drop me off so I could go and ask if they wanted to sell. We laughed and continued on to look at the new listing.

A few days later, the realtor happened to take me down the very same street. I pointed out the pretty stone house to her, told her how much I loved it and about my conversation with the hubs. Again, it was quickly forgotten.

Ten days later, we would talk about “that stone house” again. The realtor and I had been out all morning looking at houses. I had only been home for about an hour when I got a text from my realtor telling me that a house was going on the market the next day and that I should look at it. The address she gave me was the same road that the stone house was on but I never gave it a thought when she told me. I mean…what are the chances it would be the one I picked out?

I drove down the road looking at addresses and drove by the pretty stone house knowing that it couldn’t be the one she was talking about. I turned around, having gone past the address, drove back down the road and there stood my realtor, in the front yard of that beautiful stone house, waving me in. I couldn’t believe it was the house. The one I had picked out the first time we drove down the street, the one I had gasped at the first and the second time I saw it.

I’m happy to say that we put an offer in and it was accepted. We know that it’s not a done deal until we close and anything could happen, but we are so excited that we found the perfect house, with tons of projects to do, in the perfect neighborhood.