Basement and backyard

This brings us to the last floor of the house - the basement.
The house came with an unfinished basement. The previous owner was in the process of updating it with a bathroom and had begun installing the walls. There is a tiny room (need to hunch down to enter) that could be used for storage. Another room that faces the front of the house with a large window. Mr. L, plans to use it as his hobby room - I like that he will have natural light to work with.

There is a section with the washer- dryer and other units followed by a unfinished bathroom and a large space that opens out into the backyard.

For now we have decided not to work on the basement - mainly because we do not have the time and the resources to complete it before we move in in April. I guess we will have plenty of projects in this house to keep us busy over our weekends.

 There is a lot of storage space - I should be careful about how I use this without become a hoarder.

The backyard has a little water pool. It is hard to spot it next to the flamingo and with all the uncontrolled creepers. The backyard is large enough to hold a herb garden but too small to plant other veggies. I think I could get by with some peppers and tomatoes. There is plenty space to have potted plants too. Will have to put on my creative hat to figure out how to best use this space. I want to use the organic waste from the kitchen to make compost - probably make it in stacked  bins.

Second floor of the house

So here are pictures of the bedrooms on the second floor of the house. There are three bedrooms on this floor.

I love that the master bedroom has 1)many windows to allow natural light to flow in. They are North-West facing which means that we will have natural light but not direct sunlight. 2) the bedroom has an entire wall of closet space - it is not beat a walk-in closet though! and 3) it has an en-suite bathroom - which means a whole lot of privacy!
Besides replacing the carpets and a fresh coat of paint we have not planned any other renovations for this room.
The closets have sliding mirror doors which I plan to replace with a bi-fold door. This would give easy access to the entire closet.

The attached master bathroom is a little tricky.  There are two separate parts to this section. A door leads to a space that has a sink on one side and a linen closet on the other side with a carpeted floor, giving an impression that this is part of the bedroom.  The closet is large enough to convert into a compact study. But it too close to the 'wet' area and hence might damage the electronics. Another door leads to the 'wet' area - the toilet and a shower stall. 

 This bathroom needs a definite update. The tile/vinyl in the shower area has cracked. I am assuming that this would absorb the water into the wall. The plastic base also needs to go - it is stained and old and the door makes it look bad!
So we are not sure how to update the bathroom.
Option 1 - update only the "wet" area. Replace the shower area with fresh tiles and a upgraded stall.
Option 2 - combine the wet and dry areas into a single bathroom by knocking off the separating wall. This would open up the space to include a large bathtub and a little shower area on one side of the room, and a toilet and a wash basin on the other side of the wall.

If we decide to go for option 1 then we need to install the hardwood floor in the dry area but if we decide to go with option 2 then we could leave the carpet in the dry area for now.
Both options would require considerable amounts of upfront cash - something that we do not have right now. So this would have to be done after we are done with flooring and moved into the house.

I am concerned about the bathroom updates after we move in. Ideally it would be great to complete this bathroom before the move. We would need to get some opinions from some contractors if the wall can be torn down and if permits are needed to update the bathroom with option 2. Hmm..this would mean more work and more $$$ maybe $$$$!

The two guest bedrooms have South facing windows. I intend to use the larger one as my craft/hobby/study. It will also have a couch that would open into a bed when needed. Again the closet doors in both the rooms will be changed to bi-fold doors. I think I saw a DIY video to do this conversion.

 The guest bathroom on this floor needs no updates. It is currently the nicest bathroom in the house!

This brings us to the two stairs in the house. The carpeted one leads to the second floor while the wooden one leads to the basement. We got a quote from a hardwood floor installer that each of the steps would cost $150! We have a total of 21 steps in the house - we cannot afford to spend close to $3000 on steps alone - got to figure out a thrifty way to accomplish this!

Look out for the next post for the basement!

Snowmadeggon in Maryland

Snowstorm Jonas dropped by our house and really made its presence felt. 
The snowstorm began on Friday and by Saturday morning there was a almost a foot of snow. It continued to snow all through the day and stopped only in the night on Saturday.

Sunday morning we decided to walk to our new house to make sure that there was no power outage. We had turned on the faucets in the house to drip so as to avoid freezing of the pipes. Walking the two miles to the house was quite a treacherous trek. The sidewalks had snow higher than two feet and we walked on the main road - we were not the only ones walking on the road and thankfully the cars slowed down for the pedestrians. 

We saw a couple of folks returning with groceries from Giant. On Friday afternoon when we dropped down to Giant to pick up milk, and coke for L, we saw extra long lines at the counters. People were stocking up on bottled water, ham, bread, chips and any food. Beer and huge vats of wine were also being checked out. It seemed as though the snow apocalypse was going to turn up. The bottled water aisle was empty!

In India, we would fill up all the buckets with water for such an eventuality but when I got home I realized that I had only one tiny bucket that doubles up as a trash bucket and a lingerie washer. Well we filled up our Brita filter and the sodastream bottles and hoped and prayed for the best!

So when we get to the house on Sunday afternoon we were greeted by a super high pile of snow. I realized that I had never shoveled snow in my life before. During my stay here in the US, I have only rented out apartments and did not own a car. This meant that I could enjoy my Winters without any worries at all much to the chagrin of my friends. Luckily there were two shovels in the new house and I have an experienced husband who had done this several times before - which meant I got to enjoy shoveling the snow :-)
We found that there were no power outages and everything was fine indoors. We did not bother to empty the snow on the deck - we decided that the deck was strong enough to handle the weight.

Something that I noticed during this snowstorm is how people go about clearing the snow around their cars. In the parking lot, people would pile the snow in front of the adjacent car - if a car managed to leave the parking lot, the snow from the adjacent cars on either side would be piled in that empty parking spot! This meant that when that car returned there was no parking spot for that car!

Cars parked along the sidewalk on the road had a huge wall of snow along the roadside. The owners would dump this snow back on the cleared road - this seemed futile effort in keeping the roads clear. It would take the same amount of effort in dumping the snow on the sidewalk instead. I almost spoke my mind to some of these fellas but stopped myself - was not sure if they understood the language. I mean the language of reasoning.

We got two entire snow days - our workplace was closed on Monday and Tuesday. But we had to work from home since we were telework capable :-(

The first floor of our house.

The foyer of the house - can see the staining in the carpet. 
Future Project: The railing on the left can be replaced with a wall or book shelves. This would also prevent the draft from entering the house.  

 I like the front door. It would be great to do a stain glass on those clear glasses. Maybe even paint the door to a wood color?

This is the half bathroom right by the entrance. It could do with some fresh paint. 

 The living room has a large window.  Can't decide if we should replace the blinds with curtains. Need to check the HOA documents if we can change the blinds. 
I am not sure if I like the step in the living room. Can't decide if I should level the floor.  Leveling the floor would mean that we lose the height.

This is the dining area. 

 Some tiles left by the seller - could be used in the kitchen.

 This is part of the kitchen. Can the see the pantry on the right. I really wanted to have a pantry in the kitchen!
Am thinking of using this space to set up a "command center". Set up a small desk to sort mail, store keys etc. Thinking of setting up some shelves to store/display. Need to move those lamps higher.

This is the other half of the kitchen. 

The kitchen definitely needs a new floor. It seems that the seller was in the process of updating the kitchen. The counter and the cabinets needs to be fixed so that the fridge can be put moved back. We could extend the counter into an "L" shape to increase the counter space.
Could put an island or maybe a little dining table closer to the sliding door. 

A new journey begins

This blog is intended to share pictures of our new home. My husband, L, and I (L) put down an offer on a home and we will be first time home buyers!

This blog is created to share pictures with our friends and family. This house needs updates - one of the reasons why we got it for a very good price.

So here are the pictures showing the house in the current state. L&L intend to begin working on the house as soon as we sign the settlement documents.