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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

BEFORE tour! Stanley Tudor Revived

Hooray! Here is a photo tour through the whole house, as it looked the day we got the keys. We have already gotten to work so it doesn't look like this anymore!! and I tried to get a ton of photos so I can look back and compare in the future.

I will also share the video "before" tour when I get a chance (UPDATE: here it is), I had so much fun with the video tours for the Stanley 90's Reno! (Subscribe to my YouTube channel with all of our reno videos here.)

The front is very hard to see from the street, so here's a pic from within the big forests of hedges.

Enter into a little entry area with coat closet, and original light fixture above. Then the living room.

(Sellers left us a couple of furniture pieces, including that antique dresser.)

There is a row of healthy grape plants outside this whole side of the house, mostly added for privacy, but they block the windows a lot and I think we will remove or train them away so we have the option of more light in here.

The living and dining rooms have coved ceilings! And almost all of the house has the original picture railing, installed here below the coved shape and in the other rooms as a crown molding.

Looking back at the entry from the living room, toward the dining room.

There is a large hall on the other side of the dining room with doors to other rooms and 2 more closets plus a big built-in.

Dining room also has an original light fixture. There is one for the living room in storage in the basement, though the glass is missing. I think we will replace this but definitely keep it, it is special!

Next is the kitchen, which is small/galley-style.

The cabinets are from the previous-previous owners, so before 1987, but the sellers redid the ceilings, lighting, and flooring. There used to be a dropped ceiling, probably from the 80's when the cabinets were done. So glad that is gone and we don't have to deal with demo and repairing the ceiling.

That floral wallpaper at the back is off the side entry door, and goes down to the basement. I didn't go down there for these pics but I will in the full video tour. It is 1,000 SF and mostly unfinished. Washer/dryer are down there, plus furnace, water heater, etc. and there is a TON of storage. It's a classic creepy basement, though, not sure what we will do with it!

Here is the breakfast nook you saw in the turret from the front view.

I was in this house in the early 1990's with my mom for a neighborhood association thing, and the only thing I remember from it is these built-ins!

I was planning on doing a temporary budget kitchen update, painting the cabinets, new countertops, etc... but after being in it working and doing some extra cleaning (we had it cleaned but still), I am feeling extra motivated for a full kitchen reno sooner rather than later. Lot of work though! We'll see!

Here's the biiiiig hallway off to bedrooms, bathroom, etc.

This is the main bedroom on the first floor which we'll be using as our master for now. I love all the windows! That dark thing in the corner is a closet unit which we already got rid of for free on Facebook Marketplace.

This is the bathroom on the first floor, the only full bath in the house currently. The pre-previous owners painted the trim blue and I think added that 80's tile over the original?

Then the sellers we bought from added the blue floor to match the trim, and redid the shower.

That mirror medicine cabinet is original, though! Also note the (blue) laundry chute.

This "bedroom" (?) is the other one downstairs, and it's really more of an office because that door with the window in it goes out to the garage. But, for now, it will be Otto's nursery. We are concentrating ourselves downstairs while it's just the three of us.

In that solid door is another big closet, with cool built-ins on one side and a rod on the other. Unfortunately it also needs some drywall repair; this place was left open after the sellers redid the plumbing several years ago.

Through to the garage. We think this may have been added 10-20 years after the house was built?? but it is still very old, including with old wood windows. Unfortunately the only way to the backyard through the house is through Otto's room, then the garage, then out that door in the corner.

Outside there is an old deck, shed (not pictured), hot tub (not working currently), and gazebo with fireplace!

There was a very large, tall above-ground pool here for many years. The sellers removed it for us but there is still sand there. Also a mystery shack/shed behind that I haven't even looked at.

Here's the back view of the house. Some raised beds, two healthy blueberry bushes, and a cherry tree! I will share more about that "pop-out" on the second floor in the video tour and some potential plans we have for it.

Back inside through Otto's room, here is the staircase. Only bit of carpet left. (The pre-previous owners had carpeted the WHOLE house and thankfully the sellers removed almost all of it long ago!)

I will share in the video tour what that rectangular opening is for! Hint: it is not original.

Upstairs hall. Two large, deep closets off to the left. More big, not-super-usable hall space!

Over here is a small but nice bedroom.

We will be removing the train track and built-in bunk beds, and the carpet is actually a rug made to size so easy to remove. This room also has a nice closet. I think it will be my sewing room for now! I  haven't had one of those in ages!

Tucked in between this room and the bigger bedroom is a half bathroom (and another laundry chute).

Original light and mirror medicine cabinet. There is a huge storage cabinet behind the door. It is such a bummer this isn't a full bathroom, and we would love to find a way to add at least a shower, but it is tight. (When the sellers redid the plumbing several years ago, they had extra line brought up to this room to accommodate a shower, but it might require expanding the exterior wall to the left, and they never did it.)

The final bedroom is this one with the pretty attic-ey ceilings. Unfortunately the pre-previous owners replaced the original windows with a HUGE aluminum slider, and the sellers didn't like having that exposure to the neighbors so they replaced it with a small wood casement window but never finished the inside. That wall is not plaster or drywall; it's some older chipboard stuff, so we will probably have to redo the drywall on the entire wall (and add more insulation, the rest is not insulated). That is tricky with the angled ceilings and existing baseboard, so that project (and room) is on hold.

It has a deep closet with cute short door, and a large mystery "pointy room" with the diamond glass window you can see from the front!

This has the attic access. This room seems to have been semi-finished in the 50's maybe, with the pine and linoleum, but isn't very well insulated. This could be a super cool playroom or something. I have a friend who has a very similar house who made this space in hers into a darling bedroom/nursery for her daughter, with built-in beds!

So that's the tour! We are working our butts off this week and next to get the downstairs painted (mostly) and we will be moving our stuff in there at first.

So much to say about this very special house we are so grateful for but also so overwhelmed by. Follow along by subscribing by email (black/pink box under my profile pic at the side of this post) and following me on Instagram/stories!

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