Home Sweet Home

I finally bought a house. Finally. It's nothing fancy, but it's mine. I got the keys yesterday, and now the cleaning, painting, repairs, and home renovations will commence. I'm excited and relieved that this has actually happened; I hated renting, and have been ready to move into a house of my own for a while. But it's also overwhelming because there is a lot of work to be done. I will have my apartment until September 9, which means I have about a month to get a whole mess of stuff done at the house before moving my things in.

The house is in Catonsville, only a couple miles from my current apartment. It is a ranch-style house that was built in 1958, and has three bedrooms and one (very pink) bathroom. While it is actually in pretty great condition, there are A LOT of small repairs that need to be made, and there are quite a few changes I'd like to make as well (NO dishwasher?!?! This MUST change!).

I will be chronicling the changes to the house as progress is made, not because it will be especially exhilirating, but because I have had requests from friends and family from out-of-state who are interested (or are pretending to be interested) in seeing the house and what I am working on.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday; they show the house exactly as it was when I got the keys.

Here's the front of the house. There's a driveway to the right. The shrubbery will eventually have to be torn out and replaced with some more appropriately-sized plants. There is currently a battle between the shrubs and the walkway to the front door. The shrubs have won. For now.




Here's a dark shot of the living room, taken from the dining room/hallway area. The draperies in this house are overwhelming; they're heavy and multi-layered, and also pretty ugly.







This is the dining room. The chandelier is pretty horrible, and yes, the walls are pink. I don't know why. That's the back door; it leads out to the screened-in porch. You can also see the lovely orange-pink-beige-brown carpet. Fortunately, it was all ripped out earlier today.

And this is the fantastic pink bathroom! More pink! Can you tell how excited I am about the pink-ness?!

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow. And I'll have the first set of progress photos, which will show you the work we (Matt, Christi, Ted, and I) got done today. The drapes came down, and the carpet was removed (requiring the painstaking removal of hundreds of staples (thanks, Christi) and nails). I'm exhausted, my knuckles are swollen from plucking staples with pliers, and my back is in the throes of organizing a protest.