Bedroom Situations. Let the renovations begin!

So technically, we bought a one bedroom house. Yup.

The master bedroom is on the main floor and is the only bedroom that is completely finished. So yes - all 5 of us are snuggled in together (between three beds) while we complete a space downstairs for the kids. It actually hasn't been that big of a deal, but obviously long-term, kid's need bedrooms.

The basement is at various points of completion but no room is 100% done so that has been our first major focus. Right now there are three potential bedrooms. Note: Most of these pictures are from when the previous owner's lived here :)

The first is at the bottom of the stairs - we call it the bullet room because when we first saw the house, it was where the husband made his bullets (literally, thousands each year). It has drywall hung but it isn't taped or mudded. There is no ceiling, closet, or flooring. This room will likely become my craft room/office because even though it's the biggest of the three, it would be the hardest one to put an egress window into and it's farther away from the other two and the full bath (if I want to do "louder" projects at night like sewing it would be nice to not be right next to the kids sleeping).

The second bedroom is called the canning room because... it was full of canned goods! It has the walls and closet framed in (as well as electrical) but no drywall, ceiling, egress window, or flooring. Eventually we'll move these shelves to the utility room or a closet in the craft room and finish this room as "the girl(s) room" for Evelyn. But thankfully she loves sharing with Will right now so we don't need to rush to get this done.

The third bedroom is the blue room or the bunkhouse. This room is the only one that has a full sized window since it's on the walkout side of the basement. It also has the drywall all done but needs a ceiling and flooring. This room will eventually be "the boys' room" but for now it will be shared by Evy & Will. 

The other three rooms in the basement are the full bath, living room (playroom), and utility room.

Our Phase 1 basement renovation plan is to finish the bunkhouse and playroom.
In the bunkhouse we plan to: 

• Make the closet bigger (it's about 3 ft x 4 ft right now so we're expanding it to accommodate 1) at least three kids clothes and 2) BIGGER clothes since.. you know, they will grow)
• Put in flooring (hoping to score an inexpensive carpet remnant) 
• Finish the ceiling 
• Re-trim the window & doors (some trim was missing, and it was all very builder-grade. so we'll update it)
• Add baseboards and crown molding
• REPAINT and get rid of the terribly dark blue color to brighten it up a bit
• And just general finishes/updating to doors, light fixtures, door knobs, etc.

In the play room all we need to do is paint, install flooring, and add baseboards/window trim. There is a drop ceiling in currently which we don't love (because it takes away about a foot of ceiling height) so eventually we hope to replace that and drywall, but for now we'll keep it. 

We've made good progress so far - now just to see if we can finish by Thanksgiving like we hope!

We are officially moved in! + Touring the Upstairs

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks!

We moved in October 31st! Above is Evelyn & Will with our newest addition and protector of our farm - Haus! He has lived here since he was a pup (11 years ago) and we were so excited to have him greet us when we drove up!

Home sweet home!

There was a LOT of cleaning to be done on move-in day but my family (parents, siblings + their families) completely rocked and helped nuke the entire place while furniture and such was being brought it. Less than 24 hours after move-in Tommy went to Detroit to work for the week but that gave me some time to settle in with the kids and get as much unpacked as possible without wanting to dive-in to renovations right away. I was excited to be completely "box free" on the main level by the time he got home Friday night - there are still a handful of things in the basement that need to come up (mainly books and decor) but for now the upstairs is starting to feel like home!

Here is the general layout of the upstairs (by no stretch is this to-scale!)

Here are a few pictures of the living room from move-in day (pre-cleaning mind you...) and then a few of now as we're "settling in".

 Walking in the front door.

 Larger part of the living room.

 View of the front yard.

 Small part of the living room (which is now the "play area").

Big living room cleaned up and getting settled in!
The long shelf was used to hold the previous owners oil lamp collection (she had over 300 of them!) I'm not sure if we will keep it up forever or what I'll put on it but it's staying up for now at least.

Here is the kitchen (pre-cleaning...)

 Cleaned and moved in.

 We had to replace the faucet as the old one was broken.

The side door walks into the laundry room on the other side of the kitchen. There is also a half bath and a large closet. This will probably end up being our main mudroom area for shoes and such for now so this week I made a little bench and coat hooks.

 Half bath (this was from when we came to visit a few months ago)

Laundry (again, from a few months ago).
Also - I am in love with main floor laundry! Outside of the side door is the wider part of the deck where we have the grill and eventually plan to have a table to eat outside at.

 Side deck looking towards the front of the house.

And looking back!

This peninsula divides the kitchen and dining room. Right now I have the bottom cupboard storing all our extra homeschool materials/books, etc.

The dining room is one of my favorite rooms. The windows, doors, and skylights make it SO bright. Also - the incredibly view outside! We changed out the lights in here when Tommy came from his week at work and I have a few other things I plan to do in here to update it a bit (once our first big renovation downstairs is done). Before pics...

And some moved-in pictures with the new lights!

Next is the master bedroom.

I didn't love the idea of having a main floor master (or just having our bedroom on a different floor from the kids) but it is a nice big room with great closets and a great bathroom (although it needs some updating)... so no complaints! It also has a walk out onto the back deck (which is currently blocked by kids Beds.

Cleaning the doors to the master bath... whew!

And that's it!
The entire main floor is actually really big - over 1250 square feet! And even though it's not the layout I wanted at all (I'm a two story-house lover) I'm learning to love it and appreciate some of the aspects it has to offer.

This week Tommy's been busy finishing phase one of the basement renovation... which includes one of the three bedrooms (which the kids will share for now) and the basement living room... which will be the kids main play area. And I've been busy continuing to clean up trash and leaves outside, explore the area, paint the rest of the chicken coop, and of course we're anxiously counting down until gun season starts Sunday!

Fresh coat of paint on the garden shed door.

Three sides of the coop/garden shed are painted - one more to go!

 Picture of our road while getting the mail.

 Early morning deer-watching (we see at least a half a dozen if not more during breakfast!)

The creek is nice a clear/algae free right now too.

Basement tour to come soon!
Blessings!