Our First House

We moved into our first house in 2006.  Ken and I were living in Massachusetts and while he was still in grad school I was working at a great job as a designer in RI.  Our house was a nice cape next to a river and a nice wooded lot.  I loved that little house, but I was happy when the opportunity arose to be closer to our families.

Here are some photos of our first house.  Don't forget this was almost 10 years ago....our style had a lot of evolving to do!
(Please pardon that bad photos...this was before I had a nice camera or iPhone!)

The house looked very small from the outside, but with a full dormer in the back, it was actually very spacious.  

The house had a nice breezeway that we used as a sitting room/mudroom. I never did get around to painting over the previous owners "light house" stencil.

When you walk in the house from the mudroom, the next room you enter would be the dining room.  We did do a few projects in the three years that we lived in this house.  One of which was a small kitchen and dining room renovation.  We did all of the work ourselves (with the exception of refinishing the hardwood floors) on a very small budget.

Here are some before and afters:

Dining room BEFORE

Dining room AFTER

Dining room AFTER (looking into the mudroom)

Kitchen BEFORE.  Very 1950's. (Wow I had a lot of clutter back then!!)

We scraped not one, but 2 layers of linoleum off the oak hardwoods underneath.

Kitchen AFTER.  We couldn't do an addition because of where our septic system was so we opened up the wall to at least make the space feel bigger.

We used IKEA cabinets and a quartz countertop.

The house had cute 1950's arched doorways that I actually really liked.

Living room.

Our living room.

Sitting room off of the foyer. Red paint was popular for walls at that time!

The first floor bedroom never got much attention, but the floors sure looked nice.

The office area was off to the left at the top of the stairs.

We also did a small bathroom renovation.  We replaced the shower and floor tiles and replaced the vanity with a DIY made from an old dresser we picked up in Maine.

Master Bathroom Before and After:

Shower/tub area BEFORE

Shower/tub area AFTER

Vanity area BEFORE

Vanity area AFTER

Master Bedroom

Our master bedroom had a small seating area and a walk-in closet.

Upstairs bedroom was used as a nursery when Alice was little.

Looking back at these photos, I realize that this house was a great "blank slate" and that it had a lot of potential. I guess I must have thought that when we bought it too, although we really didn't live there long enough to take advantage of that and make it our own.  It was a great starter house and it sure made me realize what I liked and didn't like about a house....small kitchens and carpet (among other things)!