It is NOT a Victorian! It's a Craftsman!

So, recently I have been a little flustered when a few people have said they "really like my old Victorian home." Thanks for the compliment, but....AGGGGGGGHHHHHH! It's a craftsman style home! Some goob that lived here before us painted it like a Victorian, hung lace in all the windows, put yucky carpet down, and basically never took a moment to try to stick with the style of the home! Don't get me wrong. I do think a nicely done Victorian is beautiful, but I love, love, love a nicely done Craftsman. Our last home was a 1400 square foot Craftsman Bungalow. It had pale yellow siding and a BRIGHT red trim when we bought it. We attempted to paint the trim a very, pale green and then hired someone to finish it. I painted the porch ceiling a sky blue like any good southern girl and landscaped the yard with my mom. We loved it and it even got featured on the historic downtown web page! But now, what to do with this old charmer...

This spring and summer, my goal is to clean up the yard and get it landscaped. I have drawn out my plans and will call upon my mom, my neighbor, and my dear friend Genie to help me get started! The exterior of an Arts and Crafts period home should blend in with the natural surroundings (ours sticks out like a big blue, sore thumb), utilize plants and materials indigenous to the region (i.e. wood, stone, etc), and utilize the pergola as a means of connecting the home with nature! I am so excited to do all of those things. We will have to wait a while to paint the exterior but when that day comes, my hope is for something like this.

or this...

Our other projects include: insulating under the house (yowsers we have been cold! and we can receive a tax credit), shimmying some of the painted windows open (the same goob probably painted them shut!), replacing screens etc, replacing fans/light fixtures/sinks maybe and doing more interior painting. The other project we are considering is starting to return the painted white trim back to the wood grain. This will take a while and be very difficult because we will have to carefully and safely remove lead paint (I assume it is under there somewhere!) which could harm our baby girl! We would love for it to look something like this!


We have lots of big dreams for our home. I guess that it is our Dream Home! Who knows what the next few years hold for us!

Hopefully an addition with one of these!

We will hopefully realize some of our dreams with thrifty spending and taking advice from people who know a lot more about handy work than we do (which is almost everyone!). It will be a long but exciting process! I am including a quick photo for all the grands and greats that couldn't care less about this blog unless there is a photo of the Sophster included. She is enjoying her snow days!