Plans for the New House

Hello all and welcome to what promises to be the beginning of a very thorough plan on how I hope to decorate our new house. We move out and hand over the keys to our old house next weekend and then put all of our things into storage and move in with my very gracious parents until we get our new house at the end of November. I have almost three months on my hands to sit and stew and re-arrange floorplans and moodboards-which is both terrifying (for those around me) and delightful as this is my favourite part-the what could be phase! In the what could be phase it's often hard (at least for me) to be realistic about budget. I want to get everything done right away and I want it to be a chance to make everything new!

Here is our my list of things that need to be done right away and things that I want to do over time:

Boring things that we need to right away:

• Roof and windows (this to me is so boring, I guess windows are more exciting than a roof at least there are things to consider like frame colours-which I'm sure is the more expensive option)

Things that I think we also need to do right away because they are crimes against design:

• Popcorn ceilings
• Remove red wall-to-wall carpets in bedrooms and find temporary flooring options
• Remove plastic wood-grain closet doors in bedrooms
• Do something to the kitchen to take it out of early 90s 

Things that I admit do not need to be done right away:

• Continue hardwood floors upstairs and maybe into kitchen
• Remove wood railings and replace with glass panels or metal railings
• Redo all of the bathrooms
• Replace wood burning stove with a cool hanging modern pod fireplace and replace tile surround
• Probably this is the place for the kitchen redo 

I think I'll save the kitchen for a post of it's own because well, it deserves it in all it's 90s glory, and even thought the pictures of it make it somehow look nice, it is NOT. 

Back to the overall plan, the not boring part... Chad and I had been stalking looking at a few homes in the area of our new house. We visited an open house of a similar model and I did not really like it. The house hadn't been opened up like ours and the owners had added all these extra tiny rooms-like a kids loft (which I'm sure the cats would have loved). I happened to get my June copy of House & Home Magazine and saw the 70s split-level renovation of Jill Kantelberg's house. It was everything I wanted my grown-up house to be: neutral, lux, curated and interesting. 

Check out the video here. I think the caption pretty much says it all:

See how talented antiques expert Jill Kantelberg took her 70s home from dated to dramatic. Get her tips and tricks for cool, multicultural living. 

Jill Kantelberg discusses how she designed her home by blending elements of history, compromising with space, and incorporating trends from all over the globe.

I mean how does one even get to be an antiques expert? It sounds like the kind of job you imagine for yourself as child, after you've already scratched off marine biologist! After I drooled over these photos for awhile, it changed my mind about the house we saw and opened my eyes to the potential it had. When our new house came on the market it was easy to say yes. 

Fast-forward to today and I went searching again for these images. I still have to agree that it is stunning but I just don't know if I'm a subtle colour person. I mean look at the images of my old house-not subtle. As much as I'd like to start fresh with all new white, taupe and beige furniture I couldn't afford to and I'm not sure that it wouldn't bore me after awhile? Looks like I'll have to work with my existing pieces at least for the time being. This doesn't mean that I can't still pull inspiration from the fabulous stair railings, the light fixtures, the art work and the hits of black. 

The above sofa, coffee table and rug will stay. The new house has an interesting layout so we're going to have two living room spaces. This means I'll be using the retro sofa and chairs that were in our basement and probably pulling another rug from somewhere. The room that is currently being used as the dining room will be a living room since the eat in kitchen is huge and the smaller room near the wood stove will be a cozy second sitting area. 

I'll save you the floorplan and moodboard for another post, lord knows I enough time and ideas! Given that I'll be using my existing furniture, here are a few perhaps more realistic inspiration images for someone like me who loves colour.

Via

Via

Via

Via

Via

Via

Via

Via

It's always so helpful to pull inspiration images. Sometimes you know what you want but just don't know you know it, if that makes any sense? As you can see I have a definite love of boldly coloured chairs. With a neutral sofa and rug (yes, I call a black and white striped rug neutral), this should be a fun decision as to what colour to reupholster the tub chairs. The next steps are to narrow down my choices, review the to-do list with Chad (i.e. inform him of his projects) and start working on a floorplan and a moodboard to see how all my choices will tie together. First though I have to work on moving and saying goodbye to our first large-scale reno project-wish me luck!