Remember when I promised that after the holidays everything would be back to normal on the ol’ blog? And then I disappeared again? Well for good reason, because guess what? WE’RE MOVING! Again? I know. We hadn’t really planned on this move considering our current apartment was going to be our last apartment until we were ready to buy a house. But then fate struck. And by fate I mean our landlord. Our building was recently bought and the new owner has plans to renovate it and convert all of the units into extended stay corporate furnished jobs. Not cool. That being said, anyone who lives here has to leave either now or when their lease is up. So since our lease was up at the end of February we thought, why wait?

So every night and weekend of 2013 has been spent on Craigslist, Padmapper, Hotpads, and driving around hoping and praying to see a FOR RENT sign in someone’s yard. After miserably failing this past Saturday, we were about to give up on Sunday, but we had a couple of numbers to call (all of which didn’t answer) and an appointment at 4pm. Exciting! So we were pretty much banking on this appointment we had setup (while at the same time not really holding our breath). She ended up being able to meet with us earlier to show us our last hope of living in a cool neighborhood, and let me tell you. It was love at first sight! The house was built in 1930 and is made of solid brick, which is kind of rare in older homes in Texas, so it should stay nicely insulated in the hot summers!

Now you’re going to have to use your imagination because we quickly took some panorama photos so they’re a little wiggly and the walls are warped, but it is just too good not to share our crappy pictures with you guys! I’m going to attempt to take you on a tour so that you have a good idea of how it’s all laid out, but here is a rough sketch of the floor plan that I whipped up without having any actual dimensions, so later this week we plan to go over there and take some measurements so we can draw up a legit floor plan and start playing!

I told you, it’s pretty rough..

So first up we have the living room. Why yes that is solid oak throughout! You enter the living room through the front door, and to your right there is a fireplace flanked by two windows. Then on the far right wall there is a door that leads to our balcony (which you’ll see in the next photo. The french doors on the right side of the back wall lead into what will most likely be our guest room, and the doorway on the left opens to our dining room. The wall on the very left of the living room has floor to ceiling built-ins with adjustable shelves above and cabinets below. I can’t wait to get my hands on those suckers!

Next up we have our balcony! It’s a brick house so our balcony is enclosed with these brick arches on two sides. The windows behind the porch swing (cute right?) lead into the guest room, and the balcony overlooks the left side of the house. Hey neighbors! It’s super shaded so I can just see us sitting out there on cool spring nights and relaxing.

Okay back inside! Now we’re in the dining room facing the living room (see the fireplace?) To the left there is a large double window with some grody drapery that I plan to replace immediately. Straight ahead there is a nice little shelved niche that we plan to repaint to help it pop out a little more and hold some of our china items and cake stands. Then the arch to the left goes back into the living room (obviously) and the door to the very left wall opens to the hallway. Then the door to my immediate left which you can’t see in this photo opens to the kitchen.

See how the warping is confusing? Okay so now we’re in the kitchen! Now the kitchen definitely needs the most work because it’s very very small. But we plan to add a bakers rack, a movable island, and spruce up the cupboards because they’re a little blah, but we can definitely make it work! So where I’m standing to take this picture is actually the laundry room which also holds the fridge. I’m telling you, it’s a small space! The door right in front of me leads back into the dining room (see the niche?) while the door on the very left leads to hallway and the enormous cedar closet (I know, right?), the bathroom, the master bedroom, and office (which you can see the window of waaaaay back there!). And then there is a door that is to my immediate left which you can’t see in the picture that is our back door which takes you outside. Also to my left there is are some floor to ceiling cupboards we plan to use as a pantry and a cute floor to ceiling spice rack. Oh don’t worry, we could definitely fill that baby! Isn’t that window just begging for a roman shade?

Okay so let’s head down the hall to the master bedroom! When you walk down the hall from the kitchen you’ll pass the bathroom (we don’t have pictures of that little gem yet for a reason.. holy retro!) on your left and the cedar closet on your right along with a nice built-in for linens! But if you just go straight back you’ll end up in the master bedroom. The master has a nice big closet on your immediate left upon entering with a triple set of windows to the left and french doors leading into the office on the back wall (across from the door). Then to my immediate right (which you can’t see) there is a door to the guest room. Old houses are very connected like that.

When you walk through the french doors from the master you’re in the office! These doors are the only way to get into this room which is why we decided to make it an office. That way when we have guests they aren’t going through our room and we can shut ourselves off if we need to work. This room has double windows on every wall which is great for an office, we’re both really excited about all of the natural light!

Then if you head back through the master and take the door on your left you’ll end up in the guest room! As you can see the door to the very left leads back into the hallway (you can kind of see the bathroom through the doorway) and to the immidate left (which you can’t see) there is another closet that is also pretty decent sized. Right behind where I’m standing are french doors which lead back into the living room while the other two walls each have a set of double windows.

You can’t see it in these panoramas but most of the rooms have ceiling fans which is nice, and the landlord said we can swap out any fixture, or paint/replace anything we want and she’ll pay for it. So needless to say we’re pretty pumped about the potential of this place! We pick up the keys on the 18th and the movers come on the 19th so we’ll be spending every night after work packing until bedtime. So much fun! Not.

So all in all it’s about 1,800sf which is a mansion compared to our current 800sf apartment. We also have a two car garage and a storage unit! Which is perfect for me to hold all of my furniture flipping projects and paint supplies, yay! We hope to post better pictures with straighter walls later this week.