The House!

Welcome to Chez Frugalsuz! This is the lovely house that DBF and I bought.  It has three bedrooms, two full baths, a huge driveway, 0.70 acres of land and a killer view.  And best of all, its ours!  If we want to change something, we can.  If we want to hang pictures at 2 am, we can.  If we want to stomp and shout, we can. I just love it!

Our property extends all the way to those trees.  When we first looked at the house in the summer, I barely noticed those houses because of the tree cover.  The bare spots on the grass are where the previous owners had a deck.  They tore it down before we moved in, even without asking them to.   We were going to knock it down anyway so that was just one less thing to worry about.

Love that view! 

The kitchen is so nice. Cabinets galore, fairly new appliances and plenty more counter space than I'm used to.  That curtain is covering a huge window that opens from the bottom up.  We figure it must have been a door that they converted to a window.  

Right beside the kitchen is the dining room, complete with beautiful sliding glass doors.  The inspector for our loan required that the doors be boarded up from the outside AND the inside.  It was the stupidest thing we'd ever heard and the boards came right down once the house was ours.

Interesting color choice huh? Not only are the walls pink, but the carpet is too!  One of the bedrooms sports an even brighter pink carpet.  Oy.  The chandelier is pretty, but not really our style and hangs down too low for our liking.

After two coats of primer and two coats of paint, we finally got the room to where we wanted it.  Da boyfriend stepped off the step ladder right into the paint tray on day one!  Luckily, the carpet was getting tossed, so that wasn't a big deal.  

Here's the final product!  We chose a happy, light yellow for the walls, a multi-colored brown/tan carpet, changed out the light fixture and put up some rustic looking wood moulding.  I love how it came out.  Da boyfriend is going to build a dining room table and chairs soon, so we'll have somewhere to sit and eat (love that handyman!).  We have curtains for the sliding glass doors to put up so the whole world can't see into the house.  During the day, this room gets tons of sunlight and has such a nice, cheery feel to it.  I'll have to snap some pictures during the day.

Shadow loves the sliding glass doors!  Gigi has been more hesitant to explore the house, although she's getting better  I'm sure it will be difficult to get her attention away from the doors soon enough.

Since we were without a deck, DBF constructed a set of stairs off the sliding glass doors.  Shadow loved being able to keep an eye on him while he worked.  

They came out so well!  He's going to build something more permanent in the spring when the ground is softer. 

Most of the rooms aren't finished yet, but let's take a look at some of them anyway.  The previous owners left this sturdy metal shelving unit in the basement.  Since its right by the washer/dryer, I loaded it up with laundry items.  Its nice having everything right at my fingertips.  In the right hand corner of the picture, you can see a rolling metal cart.  I used to have this in my kitchen at the apartment but its handy down here to put laundry baskets on, fold clothes, etc.

We changed out these curtains from a deep, dark red to this white.  So many places in the house are dark, so I've been trying to brighten things up.  Love the slop sink! 

Here's a sneak peek of my stockpile room.  I had a lot more of it organized, but when it flooded a bit, I moved a lot of the stuff to higher ground.  Its been dry ever since, so I think I'm ok to start putting everything where it needs to be.  Maybe I can tackle that project this weekend.  Its driving me crazy not knowing where everything is and stepping over boxes left and right.  


DBF's mom gifted us the rolling metal shelf in the middle of the room.  Its huge!  And its the perfect height to put against the far wall.  There's a shelf running around the border of the room and I can put this shelf right against the wall without losing that extra shelf space.  See that blue tote in front of the Ziploc tower?  That's all my Black Friday shopping.  I shopped, dumped all the goodies into the tote in the car, then used the same reusable bag in store #2.  It really helped keep everything from rolling all around the car.


Notice that wood paneling in the background?  Its everywhere in the house!  Its in two of the bedrooms (although that paneling is white), this room, the room next to it, the hallway and the entryway of the house.  In time, we're going to pull it down.  But for now, we have so many other projects that its going to stay put for a while.  Plus we're not really sure what's behind it and how much of a project it will be to repair any damage.

This is where I'm typing this up right now!  We made one of the bedrooms into our office.  I've got to get this room organized.  We have receipts and paperwork and boxes and cords and books everywhere.  We decided not to move my old desk, so we're going to use a rolling set of shelves as desk drawers.  For whatever reason, the carpet in this room doesn't fully extend to the back wall.  Its just one of the many oddities of this old house.


I've had this table for years.  Its a cheapo table from Ikea and although I knew it had leaves in the middle, I'd never used them.  We decided to put them in and its enormous!  Since they've never seen sunlight, the two leaves in the center are about five shades lighter than the rest of the table.  Looking at the picture closely, I see that Shadow wanted her Kong to be photographed.  She leaves that thing everywhere!


Thanks for visiting!  I'll be posting more pictures as we get more unpacked and settled.