Side note: my Chinese sign is The Horse. I love horses. Ha! Just kidding. They scare me to death but I think they are beautiful.
I realize The Roll Tide House isn't technically ours yet. Hence the post title: The Cart Before The Horse. However, I would love to share with you some 'before' photos before I overhaul that sucker! And when I say 'overhaul', I mean clean and paint it. Nothing structural or really huge. I hope those aren't famous last words and I end up 6 months into this with a blog post entitled: We've Purchased a Money Pit! Ha!
Can we say blank slate? It has zero landscaping! Except for the grass of course. There is not one single bush or tree on the property! I cannot wait to tackle the exterior! I've been researching and tagging exterior inspiration photos for some color schemes. I've considered keeping it white and changing the shutters to glossy black and paint the door a cool Tiffany blue color to painting it green with glossy white door and glossy black shutters! I'm all over the place right now. First thing is first! Cleaning! I think power washing, getting the current landscaping all nice and neat and trimmed (grass is growing over the nice pavers), spray painting the shutters, replacing the garage door and exterior lighting will do wonders initially. A nice mini-facelift!
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| Roll Tide House front - I like the front door |
The next photo is the dining area. It's really big compared to what we are accustomed to! Right now we have a counter-height dining set that sits four people but I plan to upgrade eventually to a normal-height dining set that sits 6 people. Plenty of room here. There is also plenty of room for a buffet sidetable that I have wanted forever! That makes me very happy. On the right side is the wall o' grasscloth. We are typically not wallpaper fans AT ALL but I like textury grasscloth. It wasn't installed properly and the lines do not add up but I plan to paint over it to keep the texture so hopefully you will not be able to tell that the lines are off a bit!
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| Dining area with sliders and view of the green pool! Ugh! |
This is the lovely, teeny-tiny master bathroom. It was hard to get a photo of the entire room so this is the cabinet with the clear vessel sink, which I just adore. I do not necessarily like the cabinet since there is hardly any counter space but that is something that can be changed in time. The shower (not pictured) is huge!!! It's a double-person shower (bow chica bow wow) and has shower heads on both sides! Did you notice the bright and lively orange-y/yellow paint? Yeah, that's going away pronto! I have no idea what color I want to paint it but I believe something light, airy and zen-like will be just want the Color Doctor ordered. Did you also notice how dirty it is? It's gross! Oh the joys of being empty for over a year.
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| Master bathroom vessel sink and cabinet |
This is the view of the pool from what will be the guest bedroom. We are truly excited to have a 3rd bedroom! When we lived in Alabama, we had our spare room (spare-ooome - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe reference anyone?) turned into an art studio so I could sew and paint and craft to my little heart's content and have the room all to myself! Our plans are to have the bigger of the two extra bedrooms become our art and music studio and the other smaller room for our guest bedroom.
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| pool view from guest bedroom |
Lastly, another view of the living room. The front door is original to the house and I really like it but it will most likely need replacing soon. The door on the coat closet is missing and the lighting fixtures including the ceiling fan need replacing. Fun times! I have already picked out an
awesome light fixture that would definitely be a splurge-purchase-but-totally-worth-it for the entry. I hope to find a ceiling fan soon. I found a few at Lowe's that I liked but plan to search online as well. Here in South Florida a ceiling fan is a must in a few of the rooms!
Well, that's all for now folks! I'm chomping at the bit (ANOTHER horse reference?) to get in here and go crazy! All in good time, my friends, all in good time.
