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We bought a house!

June 21, 2017 by jessica

First House

I wanted to pop in to share that we’re now homeowners! We closed on our house yesterday and spent the better part of the day embarking on our ambitious to-do list. We pulled carpet out of the coat closet, removed dozens and dozens of nails and screws from the walls, ripped out hundreds of tiny carpet staples that were left in the stairs (when the house apparently had ’70s gold carpet), and removed kitchen cabinets from one of the bedrooms upstairs. We didn’t get to everything we wanted to do on day one, but we’re feeling pretty good about the progress we did make. I’ll start posting on our shared Instagram account for the house at @curatedcouple soon and we’ll get our home blog up and running, too! Until then, things are going to be on the quieter side ’round these parts. We really need to get the painting done in the house before the floors are refinished in three weeks.

First House

Left to right:

  • A light globe we found at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $1. We purchased two. One is going in my upstairs walk-in closet, which the city assessed as a fourth bedroom in the house. We’ll need to have the house reassessed since you can’t actually fit a twin-size bed into the room and still walk in and around it.
  • Our closing-day selfie! I look jazzed and Dave looks like he’d rather we put down the phone and get to work. 😉
  • Adding some life to the place — literally. The most recent owner purchased the house in 2001, but then started dating a woman and moved in with her, leaving the home all but abandoned. We met our neighbors who said prior to his ownership, students lived there and even earlier, there were drug dealings. I’m not sure how true the last one is, but who knows. A house built in 1929 probably has plenty of stories within its walls — and maybe old pot, too. (Kidding!)
You might also enjoy:

Project Update: Main Bathroom Progress, Part Three

Main Bathroom Renovation: The Cost Breakdown

The Weekend Guide

The Weekend Guide

Filed Under: Home, Interiors Tagged With: life update, our first house

Comments

  1. Closet Fashionista says

    June 21, 2017 at 10:40 am

    Yayyy!! So exciting! I can’t wait to follow along on the journey! The house is going to be amazing
    http://www.closet-fashionista.com/

  2. Lorena Lorena says

    June 21, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    Congratulations !!!! what a big step and the fact that its a 1920s home makes it all even better.

  3. Mrs.M in MI says

    June 21, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    Congrats! I’m always interested in hearing about others buying and fixing prewar homes; my house is a 1925 Tudor revival near Detroit that we bought from HUD in 2012 after it’s second foreclosure. We are slowly bringing it back to life and loving the process. Good luck!

  4. Rachelle says

    June 21, 2017 at 8:16 pm

    Congrats so happy you finally found your dream home.

    xo
    Pinksole

  5. Kimi, Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair says

    June 21, 2017 at 8:31 pm

    So happy you guys finally got a house!! I can’t wait to see how you transform it. 🙂 I love old houses!

    cottoncashmerecathair.com

  6. Jennifer Durham says

    June 21, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    Congratulations!!! We just bought a new house and moved too, except this one is brand new and honestly after all of our other fixer-upers we’ve had throughout the years, I’m glad not to have to do any house stuff for a while 😉 And yes, yes, yes get ALL of the painting you want done before the floors get refinished, I did that in our first house, I painted the entire interior in like 2-3 weeks. It sucked doing it (my back and shoulders hated me) but I’m so glad it got done before the floors, getting the floors done is transforming, so the interior looked like a whole new house! Can’t wait to follow along to see everything you all do!!

  7. Ella says

    June 22, 2017 at 7:48 am

    Hooray!! Congratulations on homeownership! So glad everything worked out.

  8. Franish says

    June 23, 2017 at 10:10 pm

    so happy for you – can’t wait to see more! isn’t it interesting to 1. see what horrible decisions people made in that house before and 2. what the house has gone through? the stories we had heard about our place! oh man.

  9. Lyddiegal says

    June 26, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    Congrats on the house! Sounds like you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, but I’m sure it will be worth it when you are finished and the house feels like home. Glad to hear you are getting a walk in closet too!!
    Chic on the Cheap

Hello!


Jessica Hamm
Hello there! I'm a first-time homeowner updating a 1920s house in Madison, Wisconsin. I have a penchant for travel and a love of costume jewelry.

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Snapshots from our recent trip to Philadelphia. Snapshots from our recent trip to Philadelphia. 

Everyone we met in Philly apologized for their gruff nature, despite no one actually living up to that stereotype. 😂
There’s nothing like having a vacation coming up There’s nothing like having a vacation coming up to motivate you to tackle a list of chores and deep clean the house.
It’s so nice to be home after a whirlwind week. It’s so nice to be home after a whirlwind week. We flew out to Philadelphia last Friday for a few days of exploring. It was our first time in the City of Brotherly Love and we loved every minute of it from the architecture to the restaurants, and most of all: the welcoming and friendly people. After that, we had one night at home before a flight to Denver to celebrate my cousin’s wedding. We got back to Madison late last night and have spent the day puttering around the house, getting caught up on laundry, grocery shopping, harvesting the season’s first tomatoes from the garden, and admiring just how much the hydrangeas have grown in the course of a week.
I always get a kick out of comparing views of our I always get a kick out of comparing views of our home today to the photos I took during our home inspection. (Swipe to see our main bedroom then!) While I knew the house had potential, it was hard to look past some of the owner’s “design” choices. Though, it looks like the room was destined to have a warm-toned quilt. 😂

P.S. @schoolhouse just released new colors of their popular Stillwater Floral Quilt!

And, for those interested, I’ve linked my bedroom items here: https://liketk.it/5iC8R

#SchoolhouseLiving #InteriorInspo #SlowDecorating #BedroomDecor #MainBedroom #CenturyHome #StillwaterFloral #HomeReno #HomeRenovation
Back in December, we booked @therobeychicago for a Back in December, we booked @therobeychicago for a couple nights in the summer and our long awaited anticipation of lounging by the rooftop pool was finally fulfilled last weekend. It also inadvertently became the weekend I made Dave eat a cheeseburger every day, between @redhotranchchicago, @eatmottst, and @smallcheval. There are worst ways to spend a weekend.

#chicago #visitchicago #therobey #therobeychicago #duckduckgoat #mottst #artinstituteofchicago #chicagoeats #auchevalchicago
Our guest room wasn’t a design priority until la Our guest room wasn’t a design priority until late last year when we finally bought a bed, mattress, and a set of sheets. We used some of our own extra bedding (tucking in the generous overhang of our king blankets under the queen-sized mattress) and old bedside lamps from our bedroom: functional, but not quite the charming space I’d envisioned.
 
That started to change when I purchased the Popcorn Grid Coverlet from Schoolhouse — an item I’d been eyeing for years — plus some graphic floral pillows. Then came a bright blue round cushion and the sweetest Teig lamp, both generously gifted by Schoolhouse, and the room finally started to come together. You can shop my picks here: https://liketk.it/5f322

#Ad #SchoolhousePartner #SchoolhouseSpringStyle #SchoolhouseLiving #InteriorInspo #SlowDecorating #GuestRoom
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