Home Reveal - Before

We bought a fixer upper! About a year ago, we set out on a house hunt. We were looking for an older house with lots of character. I mean, if we are going to live in New England, why not buy a "New Englandy" house, right?? We bought the opposite. A 1972 raised ranch in a nice, newer neighborhood. Good bones, sitting on almost a half acre lot, this place has LOTS of potential. The street is quiet, filled mostly by elderly folks who have owned their houses since they were built. One neighbor commented that we are lowering the average age of the neighborhood by 40 years. Based on the people we have seen and/or met, that is pretty accurate.

Before getting into all the nitty-gritty before and afters, I wanted to start out with a post of just the before pictures of the house in its original, gloriously ugly, abandoned state...

First things first when you buy a house, you have to take a picture in front of it! My husband asked on the way over "can I hang from a tree?" He is notorious for not liking typical staged photos.

We have some plans for renovating the outside of the house and bringing this 70's raised ranch into the modern day. A little paint and some landscaping will go a long way!

All my life I wanted to live in a house with stairs! I am looking forward to making this space a welcoming entrance to the home. As it sits right now, it kinda makes you want to turn around and walk the other way.

This is one of my favorite parts of the whole house. This stone fireplace and vaulted wood ceiling has so much potential to be beautiful and really draw people into the room. Just picture a big wood slab mantel!

The living room space is so much bigger than we are used to. We honestly have no idea how to arrange our furniture once we move in. We are looking forward to being able to host people at the house with all this space!

As it sits, the kitchen is quite ugly. Luckily with some cleaning, new hardware and appliances this kitchen will be beautiful and functional once again.

I'm not really sure what the previous owners were thinking when they did this room... but I have a feeling I am going to get pretty good at removing wallpaper. Even the neutral color up top is wallpaper! **the carpet is already gone, and it looks so much better!**

One nice thing about this house is that it has THREE full bathrooms! The two pictures on the left, with the blue counter and peeling wallpaper are of the guest bathroom. The one with the hideous black tile is the master bath. There is also a full bathroom downstairs.

This light fixture screams 1972 right? don't worry, there isn't just one... but TWO of these! There is a big round one in the entryway. Ironically they are the only two lights that currently work in the entire house! Each little strand lights up, and they can move if you touch them! Jeremy wants to attempt to reconstruct one of them into a new and more modern fixture.

We are excited to run with the 70's feel and give this house the modern touch it needs. This house is the definition of the fixer upper motto "buy the worst house, in the best neighborhood."

**I didn't notice until I wrote this post that I apparently forgot to take any pictures of the basement. I think my brain just shuts out that part of the house because it is so horrible! Stay tuned for a follow up post of the before photos of the basement.