Starter Home Project
Spring has sprung and that means new houses are popping up on the market like tulips in Denmark. It’s something Ernie and I have been looking forward to as, two years ago, we bought (he bought) our starter home. He spent a whole summer working his butt off, making this two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath into a place we could be comfortable in. We are so proud of the condo, it was a project for us from start to finish, and we put all of our HGTV skills to the test.
If you’ve watched any design show on TV, you know couples have wildly different opinions on design. It wasn’t really the case for Ernie and I. We share the same favourite color (blue) and the modern design houses lean into metals so finding pieces wasn’t too difficult.
Our project started at closing, circa May 2020. I have minimal “before” photos. We lucked out with the kitchen, which was already done for us. The living room was flipped in an uncomfortable way, the tv wall was too small with no cable hookup and the carpet was stained The fireplace was done in a pale teal. The hardwood in the dining room was absolutely stunning, but didn’t run through the condo. Ernie was upset beyond belief at the dated popcorn ceiling. There were these beautiful hand painted (yeah, I thought they were decals, too) floral designs in the main bedroom and you can see the 3D flowers painted in the entrance. Molding broke up the expanse of walls that were too short to bring your eye up to anything. It was beautiful, but a little awkward.
We spent from June until October working on/having work done to the entirety of both floors of living space. Ernie ripped up all of the carpet and hardwood with help from his friends. They also scraped the entire ceiling. Pot lights went into the ceiling. The fireplace was stripped down and refaced. New flooring was laid throughout, continuous through the whole space sans bathrooms and kitchen.
We would go back later and add area rugs, remove that giant lamp (we replaced it with something less…round). The lighting you see in the boxes went up—one over the stairs, the matching one over the dining room table, and the silver sconce went up in the bathroom pictured. The nursery was painted and my mother helped me put up all the decals—I wanted the seaweed on the floor, but she won out putting them all at a level he can interact with them in his crib from.
Those whales have kept him occupied many a morning and let mommy sleep in!
Storage moments have been added. Children make that a necessity (and there’s never enough!). We’ve added a mirror over the fireplace, a custom-built, wall-mounted entertainment center, and family photos throughout. Of course, baby gates adorn the stairs, now, and there are bottles all over the kitchen (plus our new Nespresso, which I love and which takes up far too much counter space next to my stand mixer). It’s no longer an empty showroom, but a home for living in.
And we’re ready for more!
But, while we stress over how to find a new dream home—and I’m sure I’ll blog more about that later—I wanted to share how we decided on the condo and how we saw through all of the cosmetic things we didn’t like to make a home we love.
Priorities:
Deadline: We knew we were pregnant when we were looking at condos. There was an obvious, looming deadline (Christmas). Anything we selected in April/May had to be livable by December.
Kitchen & Bathroom: Our kitchen was already done. While maybe we would have done some things differently (the countertops drive us insane), a kitchen or a bathroom can be a giant money pit. Water. Water can be a money pit. Once you start reorganizing and rerouting your water and electric, things get out of hand. For a condo, which we knew wasn’t going to be our “forever home”, the kitchen had to be finished. You can change appliances, but building it from scratch was out of the question. The same issue was something I had with the bathroom. Our bathroom is not perfect, but it’s finished. We had to fix the ceiling and that was it.
Two Bedrooms: I wanted Mylo to have his own room outside of my bedroom. He moved into the nursery full-time at the age of four months. He hasn’t come back to my room since—not even when we want baby cuddles. He loves “alone” time, and his bedroom gives him time to reset. While I type a blog post in the corner rocking chair, he can play to his heart’s content.
Our list was a lot shorter on the condo than it is for our forever home. What we considered “good bones” for the condo, has proven a bad approach while looking at houses—we’d rather build our perfect kitchen, have the layout for a bathroom but build it out ourselves, etc. But, as my own brother goes looking for his first home, I’m reminded of these points. Any first home just needs to meet your basic preferences.
And, the work isn’t as intimidating as it looks. Every time I look at our fireplace, I’m reminded of the months of looking at swatches, tile samples, and flooring.
And we wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.
Next post, I’ll talk about our “House Hunters Spreadsheet” and how we eliminate homes as we go along. In the meantime, if anyone in Northern NJ is looking for a realtor, Alyssa Abrusci De Sario with Remax is by far our lifesaver and I can’t recommend her enough!
