Goodbye Old House, Hello New House

Well this certainly is not the next installment of our trip to Ireland. Would you believe me if I said it's almost done? Ha, I thought so! At least this time I have a valid excuse and some exciting news in the saga of our never ending house sale.......IT'S SOLD! I'm not angry at you anymore little house. You and your coziness and all of our blood, sweat and tears will be very happy with a new family. Happy with people who appreciate your new kitchen and 'paid more than I should have' light fixtures and black feature wall that nearly killed me while painting on a ladder. Now that I'm not angry at you, I can reminisce about how much we learnt about renovation, about design and about yard work (okay not that one). I thought I'd share my favourite set of before and after photos from our feature in La Presse  since they conveniently put them all together in a grid.

BEFORE

AFTER

And just in case you aren't sick of the house, here is the full house tour along with some of the stages of the renovation.

My other exciting news is that in the same week we sold our house we also bought a house. That's right, we bought a house in Ottawa! Break out the exclamation points! While I'm slightly sad that I can't earnestly browse the real estate listing anymore (as evidenced by my Real Estate Room Reno series), I am thrilled that we found a house we could agree on. This is often difficult when one person likes beautiful stately old homes and character filled bungalows from the fifties and sixties and one person prefers characterless, soulless boxes from the eighties to present day. It's not to say I wouldn't like a brand new house, it's just the brand new houses I like are usually architecturally interesting, custom designed houses that cost a fortune. The house we compromised on, cause there are always compromises, is from the eighties but it has an interesting open plan design-win for both of us. Now this house does still have some things that are stuck in the eighties,like seashell sinks and kitchen cabinets that while appear to be modern in the photos actually have metal trim that dates them to I'd say at best the early nineties. All of this is workable and I think you'll agree that the bones of this house are good. Here she is in all her eighties glory:

I've obviously already started a secret Pinterest board that I'll share with you once all my plans are in order. Aren't you excited to come along on the ride of renovating this place? This time it will be at a slower pace as we have a few boring major fixes to do-ughhh windows- but boy do I have plans for this place. Glass railings, a hanging pod fireplace, oh and getting rid of that horrible red carpet and the eighties bathrooms and repainting the exterior-I'm thinking black! We are also super excited to be trading in yard work for pool maintenance. I'm going to have a long time to stew this over as we have three months between our closing date and the move in date. Get ready for my plans for every room and maybe I'll finally finish the round-up of our trip to Ireland.