Anyway, this is still not completely concrete, but a very good likelihood. Let me preface it by saying that I absolutely LOVE our house. It was built in 1900, has beautiful detailing, charm, character, a cistern, it just screams "us." However, because it was built in 1900, we have NO storage (i.e. most of our belongings are in grey bins stacked behind doors because there is no place else to put it), it is very drafty (making it hot in the summer and cold in the winter), our windows don't open because they're the original windows and have been painted one too many times, I have NO kitchen space (seriously, a 2x2 square is all of my counter space). We figured out that with some clever rearranging, we could likely squeeze one more kid in here after Tony before we'd have to move. But that would only be for a short period of time. A couple of years, tops.
Now, that may not be a problem for most people. However, being a mother who plans on homeschooling and being a professional photographer, I chose to have an in-home studio and office so that I can have my work space and still be there for my kids. This takes up space and makes the house seem smaller than if I didn't run a business out of my house. The equipment, the samples, the props, the lights, the filing, the packaging, the electronics, the backdrops, the stands, the accessories all takes up a lot of space.
Anyway, there is a high probability (we find out for certain next month) that we will be moving in March. Yes, right around the time that Tony is born. We are insane. It's to a bigger house on a corner lot with a large fenced in back yard and shed and back patio. Our house now has a huge front yard with NO back yard at all, no fence and no outside storage whatsoever. The new house is a 3 big bedroom house where it would be very feasible to fit two kids in two rooms and not have too many arguments over whose side whose stuff is on, with two large living rooms - one that would be my office/studio. We could feasibly live there for nearly the next decade - a whole lot longer than just a handful of years.
And it's about 5 minutes down the road from where we are now in a little more subdivision-y area. Plus, it's spitting distance from a cute antique store and walking distance to our quaint downtown area. So it's not like it will be an across state, or even town, trek. That makes it all a little more digestible.
But.... it's not as pretty as our house now; it was built in the 1960s/70s. It still has hard wood floors, but is brick instead of cypress. Mainly, it's more functional than pretty. It's not ugly... just not as gorgeous as this place.
So here's my plea... how do you decorate an older house so it doesn't look quite so Brady Bunchish? Yes, I plan on stalking decorating blogs like crazy until the time comes. But it still never hurts to ask. Any favorite blogs? Any favorite ideas? Any tips of your own? Shoot them at me.
Haha. I wish I had some advice. Our house was built in the 60's and we're just dealing with the Brady Bunch flooring and yellow/green bathroom fixtures.
ReplyDeleteAdam and I made the decision that so long as we have little ones, we won't invest too much money into the aesthetics of the house. We're all about function at this point and if that means keeping the slate flooring from 1965, we will deal with it. It seems like every time I try to fix something up, someone breaks something or spills something on it. My time to have a perfectly decorated home will be once these kids are old enough not to ruin everything :)
Can you post some pictures of the rooms and maybe we can give some ideas?
How exciting about the move. We're probably going to be putting our house on the market right after this baby is born too, so at least we will have each other to discuss the insanity of moving with a newborn.