Week 1
We bought our house 8 months ago in the midst of a pandemic and a housing boom. A little stressful to say the least but here we are. Can I just say that it seems crazy that after a half-hour viewing we make the biggest purchase of our lives?
That being said, as we looked at 100+ houses over the year, as the prices continued to rise, as the bidding wars got worse, and as our rental had come to an end, I was getting panicky.
We saw this house at lunch time, offered on it at 2:00pm and owned it by 9:00pm. Then thought ‘what have we done?!’ That half-hour viewing issue.
Here’s why we did what we did!
It’s in a beautiful older neighbourhood with lots of big trees. I love big trees.
It’s a 4-minute bike ride to my husband’s work and a 12-minute ride home. I kid you not. I laughed when I first Google-mapped the directions and it took into account that we live at the top of a big hill!!
We can walk everywhere we really need to go.
Our yard is fairly level. That might sound funny but remember the big hill I mentioned? This neighbourhood is perched on it.
THERE ARE NO POPCORN CEILINGS! Well except for the upstairs hall, but it isn’t too big an area to deal with.
The paint colours I can live with for a while; we don’t have to remove a houseful of 1950’s wallpaper; there aren’t any not-my-taste upgrades to deal with.
And finally because it hasn’t been updated since it was built in the 1950‘s, I don’t feel guilty tearing things out to make them to-my-taste.
So, the updating side of things is not progressing quite as quickly as we’d like. And honestly it’s not much fun when the updates are things like wiring and upgrading the electrical panel. Essential but not the pretty stuff.
Which brings me to the whole point of this blog post. I know you were kind of wondering about the Week 1 One Room Challenge thing.
I thought it would be nice to finish one room, so that we feel like things are moving forward and I have something to sit and admire other than new outlets and light switches!
Hence the One Room Challenge™. You can read all the details about that here. Basically the challenge is to complete a room make-over in 6 weeks. Thanks to the pandemic, the timeline is 8 weeks this spring.
So I’ve decided to tackle our powder room. To be honest, I will walk up two flights of stairs rather than use the powder room. That’s probably as much detail as you need.
My vision for this space is a classic, colourful, traditional jewel. How do you get that in a powder room? Well, here are some inspiration pictures.
Source: Chris loves Julia
Credit: Amidst the Chaos
Credit Michael E. Leavitt
Love the wallpaper, molding and colour!
And here’s where we are right now. The layout isn’t going to change. It is a little awkward and tight at 3’ by 6’. Plans for the space are to add some storage, a hand-towel holder, shut-off valves for the plumbing, and a working toilet. And make it pretty!
You can take a look at the other participants over at the ORC blog.
See you next week when I’ll reveal the direction I’m heading.