Welcome to Our NEW HOUSE!

I can’t believe I’m finally typing this, but… want to see our new digs?! After so much planning, preparing, packing, dreaming, and waiting, we are so excited to finally be in our new house and have already made ourselves at home. As in, we’ve made our bed and unpacked the kitchen. 🙂

Today is the day that we get to show you around, take you on the grand tour of the new casa Thomas and I’m so excited! Today, I’ll show you via pictures and do my best to describe the layout as we go, but in the next day or so, we’ll be posting our first official VIDEO TOUR day, so stay tuned! For now, you’ll have to use your imagination in terms of what it looks like all cleaned out and how the rooms flow, plus bear with me and the fuzzy iphone pictures. These are from our very first walk-thru and at that point it was dark outside, so the pictures aren’t that great, but the seller gave us permission to snap away, so we’re excited to have some shots of how everything looked in the very beginning. This will all be easier to see and understand in the video tour, I promise. 🙂

Ok, let’s do it! We are moving to a neighborhood with plenty of neighbors, but also plenty of land, especially on our street. That’s one of the things we like best about it. We live towards the end of a cul-de-sac and get very little traffic on our street because there is no outlet. As you turn off the main road into the neighborhood and turn onto our street, just over the hill on the left side is our house.

Our house sits on top of the hill, looking out over the woods across the street. Our driveway is long and curved, winding its way up to the garage. Speaking of, the house comes with something we never thought we’d love so much… a two-car garage! This is a shot from the inside and you can get an idea of the size just by imagining it full of two cars and at least five motorcycles, still with room to spare!

Back to the front of the house. As we are at the top of a hill, our front yard slopes down to the road, making it the perfect sledding hill and one heck of an adventure to mow. Go get ’em, Mitch! 😉 In this picture, I was standing at the top of the driveway, looking down and in this shot, you can also see the cul-de-sac in the left corner.

Our front porch is a generous size, with plenty of rustic charm and potential for outfitting with furniture, plants, and a cold drink on a warm day. Mitch is of the opinion that we should get a porch swing and I have to say, I am ON BOARD with that plan.

Ready for the inside? Come on in! Through the front door, we’re greeted by the front hallway, home to two large closets on the right. In this picture, I am standing at the other end of the hallway, looking toward the front door, but you get the gist. 🙂

At the end of the hallway, you can either go to the left or the right. To the left takes us into the family room. It’s a nice size and gets plenty of light, thanks to the front windows and the sliding glass door on the other side of the room.

If we back up even further, you can see where the interior garage door leads to and just around that corner is a pantry closet.

Let’s turn things around and get a look at the eat-in part of the kitchen. Those double bi-fold doors? Laundry closet.

The sliding doors lead out onto the back deck and into the backyard. We’ll get to that later. 🙂 Right now it’s kitchen time!

The kitchen is a large version of a galley kitchen and actually quite roomy! We like that in the daytime, the kitchen gets plenty of light due to the sliding doors, window over the sink, and the windows in the dining room.

The dining room is just through that doorway and is a great-sized space with plenty of light and a lot of potential for adding some personal touches. There is also another closet in this room, which will come in handy for housing serving dishes and party supplies.

Through the second dining room doorway is the second living area. We have not decided what this will be used for yet, but it’s nice to have the additional space to play with. I think the previous owners used it as an office space, so that is certainly a possibility, but it could also be a formal living area (although, we don’t think we’ll use it as such), a reading room, or even be opened up to be an extension of the family room. Who knows? When we figure it out, we’ll let you know. 🙂 For now, we’re taking suggestions!

We’ve now reached the “full circle” part of the tour. If you walk through the second living room, it’ll take you back to the front hallway where we started. But let’s go the other way, down the hall to the second half of the house.

Through the hall, we come to one of two full bathrooms in the house… and surprise! This one has a sky light! You’ll just have to trust me on this one, because it is not in frame…

Also in the hall is a linen closet- another house feature we’ve never experienced before! To the right is one of three bedrooms. This one is on the cozy side, but it gets great light from the window facing the front yard. Oh, and the previous owner installed hardwood floors! Hooray!

Straight back is Bedroom #2… same story with the nice window, spacious closet, and hardwood floors.

The last door on the left is the Master Bedroom.

This space is quite a bit larger than the other bedrooms, boasts hardwood floors, two windows looking out the back, a walk-in closet (wahoo!!!!)…

…and an ensuite. I am particularly excited about that last part. It’s going to feel downright luxurious to have a bathroom all to ourselves! The bathroom is a good size and has a window that looks out onto the backyard. We love the light that this room gets!

So that’s the general gist, but before we finish up, let me show you one more area… the basement! The basement on this house was a major selling point for us because it provides SO MUCH untapped potential. It’s unfinished. And HUGE. I’m not exaggerating… it runs the entire length of the house!

Someday, we’ll turn that space into something fun, packed with additional storage and maybe even a workshop! For now, we’ll just continue to entertain my mom’s idea of installing a bowling alley down there. 🙂 Turkey, anyone?

WAIT- I almost forgot! The backyard! We’ve got a full “outdoor” post in the works so we can show you all the ins and outs, but for now, here’s a quick shot of the backyard. Most of it is flat, grassy, and fenced in with a few trees here and there. Perfect for outdoor BBQs and a good ‘ole fashioned game of badminton! Or soccer. Or Spikeball. Or volleyball. You get the picture. 🙂

And that’s the house! Our new home. The very thing we’ve had a crush on since we laid eyes on it back in November. It was marketed to us as a fixer-upper, but the owner did a phenomenal job of maintaining the structural safety and “big ticket items”. It’s the perfect scenario for us- the big important stuff (roof, foundation, etc.) is in good shape and it just needs some TLC and a lot of updating to look like a totally new house.

We have so many ideas (paint! flooring! furniture!) and dreams (let’s bust down some walls!) for this house and can already tell how much fun we’re going to have making it our own. I’ve got a few posts in the works for you with some of our initial thoughts and ideas, plus a few to-do lists we’ve made for ourselves to get some of the necessities checked off. If you follow us on Instagram (@mitchandleslie), you’ve probably already seen us hard at work on projects. Bottom line? We’re in love with House #2, which we have affectionately named “The House on the Hill” and are going to LOVE turning it into our home.

And this is where I leave you for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the first official tour of our new house and we’ll see you soon for the video tour! Have a great day!