Greetings from Panera — until our home gets internet, we’ve been stopping by for hot chocolate and the free WiFi to pull together posts whenever we can. We know many of you are eager to see interior photos of our new house now that it’s officially ours, so here they are. I moved quickly while friends and family waited outside in the snow to start bringing things in, so the shots aren’t perfect and a video will have to wait. Still, this is the blank slate we’re most excited about: wood paneling, a yellow-beige bathroom, dark trim, several different floor types, brick we can’t wait to paint, off-centered windows, compact box-like rooms, walls begging to be opened up, and even a sink in the master bedroom.
We’re thrilled to start making this place feel like ours, and we can’t wait to get the paintbrushes and tools out. A big thanks to the former owners, who were generous, welcoming, and even hosted a neighborhood get-together for us before we moved in. They were excited to hear our ideas for paint colors and which walls we’d like to remove. Buying their house has been a pleasure.
Enough chatter — here are the photos you came for. For a clearer sense of flow and our initial plans, see the floor plan description we mentioned; it explains how rooms connect and what we hope to change.
The exterior looked especially charming under a surprise blanket of snow, which made the backyard feel magical and made us fall even harder for the property.
The room that grabbed us right away will become our entry/dining area. It’s currently a formal living room with built-ins and a dining room behind them, but we plan to convert the formal living space into an entry and dining area and create a large opening on the left wall that leads into the long eat-in kitchen. The rear dining room will be transformed into a home office with the addition of some French doors.
The eat-in kitchen itself is long and full of paneling that’s just calling for paint. We plan to paint the cabinets (still deciding on colors) and install a large island. The new opening to the front dining room will be on the right wall in the photos — we’re aiming for at least a 5-foot pass-through to keep the space airy and inviting.
One of the things we loved from the start was the house’s generous doorways. Wide openings help the home feel open and connected, and that flow is exactly what we want to build on.
Down the hall, you’ll see another wide doorway that guides you from the master bedroom area toward the front door. The layout offers some excellent sightlines and makes the house feel bigger than its footprint.
We’ll use the main family room as the primary gathering spot for everyday life — the place where everyone naturally congregates. In our previous house we rarely used the formal living room, so we wanted a larger, all-in-one room that can handle big family nights and accommodate a sectional and larger furnishings.
The living space feels open thanks to its size and the sliding doors: one slides out to a raised patio and another to the sunroom. We plan to make the fireplace double-sided so it can be enjoyed from both the kitchen and the living room, and we also want to widen the doorway to strengthen the connection between these rooms.
The sunroom was a later addition and looks more modern than the rest of the house. Our challenge will be making that sunroom feel integrated with the mid-century charm of the older structure. It currently has an off-centered window and a section of dark brick that we’re excited to update and transform.
The master bedroom is generously sized and features reclaimed pine floors with wide planks. We love those floors and can’t wait to revive and highlight them. On one side of the room there’s a sink area (with a shower and toilet in a separate small room to the right and a walk-in closet to the left). Integrating that sink so it feels intentional from the bed will be a fun design challenge.
The hall bath near the other three bedrooms is similar in style to the full bath in our previous home, and thankfully the tile is in good shape so it will be easier to modernize without a total overhaul.
Clara’s new nursery is nearly the same size as her old one, which is perfect for now. The middle bedroom will become a playroom for now and can be converted back to a kids’ room as our family grows. The guest bedroom is ready and waiting for furniture — we can’t wait to host friends and family.
There’s also a quirky yellow-beige bathroom suite (it used to be the master before the new master addition was built), and we’re excited to renovate and brighten that space. The small laundry room will be packed with storage and function so it acts as a compact mudroom as well.
We love the lines on the back of the house and hope to eventually upgrade the front exterior to match. The snowy backyard felt extra charming and made us fall more in love with the property.
This was love at first sight. We’re grateful to our buyer’s agent for pushing us to see the house despite our initial hesitation about the carport; it turned out the owners offered to credit the conversion to a garage, so it wouldn’t cost us anything. It’s wild to think we might have missed this home over a minor detail, but everything worked out.
We’ll share more photos and details as we go, but please bear with us — without internet at the new house we may not be able to answer every question right away. We’re excited to document projects in real time and share each step, big and small. Stay tuned for update-style posts as we transform this house into our home. For now, make yourself comfortable here with us — we’re so happy you’re along for the ride.
P.S. We also wrote about Clara’s nursery on another blog — check our recent posts for more photos and details.