The Master Bedroom

This is actually a relatively simple room for me to redesign.

The sellers and I have roughly the same amount of furniture (they have two end tables, I only have one) and both of us have queen-sized beds.



The big difference, and I suspect that's because of the second end table, is that they decided to place their bed against the window, blocking the lower half. I'll place my bed on the wall opposite, with my one end table on the side farthest from the door, and my dresser in the same place as theirs.


[I won't have a tall dresser blocking part of the small window either]

The only question is what color to paint the room. I'm not a big fan of browns (too cave like). If I put my large mirror in the living room opposite the front door (good feng shui), then I might put my large, yellow-background painting in that spot.


[It's the painting on the far left above the fire place]

I was thinking of going with a very pale, light yellow in this room, with an off-white ceiling and superwhite on the crown molding.

The Living Room

This model has one of the largest living rooms in the development, with large windows facing the front (north) and a side window (west). To the south, the room faces the dining room. There is no entry foyer, with the house door opening directly onto the room. A side door on the left leads to the bedroom hallway.


As you can see, the sellers used their sofas to separate the entry space from the living room.


I have a large mirror with a cherry wood frame (4' 2" by 3' 2") that can go on the wall where the current mirror is located (that wall is 9' long). The floor furnace will be removed and the wall patched.


The living room window is 10' long, with a foot wide sill (concealed by the drapes). My inclination is to take down the drapes and replace them with wooden shutters, like I saw in the Koi Pond house.


[For those of you who don't remember the shutters, this is what they looked like]

The entire living room is 19' 2" by 12' 3".

The window on the west wall of the living room is currently blocked by an entertainment unit.


The space on either side of the window is 3' 11" and the window is 4' 5" wide.

One of the thornier questions I face is where to put the television. I don't want to do what the sellers did and block the west window. Unfortunately, my other choices aren't that great. I don't like the idea of putting it on the wall opposite the front door. As I see it, I have two choices: 1) I can put the television in the office or 2) I can angle the tv so that it runs on the hypotenuse between the two windows. If I don't want to block either window, that means the tv can not be larger than 4' 4" (you do remember your Pythagorean theorem don't you? A² + B² = C². In this case, 2² + 3.9² = 19.34, whose square root works out to 4' 4" or 52").

Given the limitations of the space, I could not put an "entertainment unit" like the sellers have, but rather would have to rest the tv on stand that did not run longer than 52".

In terms of furniture placement, my gut instinct is to run my black leather sofa parallel to the main window, and put the love seat where their sofa is now. That would leave about 3'6" between the back of the sofa the separation between the living room and dining room.

Decorating Ideas - the Office

Over the next few days, I'm going to post photos of various rooms in the house and get feedback on various ideas on how to decorate it.

In no apparent order, let's start with the office.

Originally it had two smallish windows and wood paneling. The wood paneling has been painted over so now it looks like wainscoating (sort of) and a sliding glass door has been put onto the new brick veranda, and the floor is white, ceramic tile.

Here's how the room currently looks.





My gut inclination is to keep the tile floor, but repaint the walls. Furniture in the room will be my desk (put in the corner with one side possibly coming up slightly over the bottom of the window). A book case to its left and possibly a sofa to its right (where the current sofa is). Across from the sofa, where the desk and computer are now, I would put the tv (a new flat screen). I think the window treatments need to be able to shade the room more if necessary.

Here's what my desk looks like:

(Image from the Pottery Barn catalog)

So, what color should I paint the room? Does the furniture configuration work?

I have a contract!

I've signed the counter offer from the sellers on the Tile Floor House!

The Tile Floor House - in Pictures

We're submitting a full-price bid this afternoon. It will be presented to the sellers tomorrow.

For those of you who would like to see more pictures of the house, I've downloaded them from Redfin.

Here's the living room


[you can more clearly see the ceramic tile floors here]


[for reasons I don't understand, they've blocked one of the windows with the entertainment unit]

Here's the dining room



Here's the kitchen

[I've asked for all the applicances to stay]





[I'm guessing they spent over $60,000 on this kitchen, particularly when you remember they moved a wall]

Here are the bedrooms (in order: master, guest, office)







Here are the back patios:


[This paves the way between the garage and the laundry room]


[There is a wood awning that shades part of the patio]


[This little veranda is off the office -- they added the sliding doors in place of the small window there previously]

The back yard





The garage


[It's a two-car garage]


[This is the block wall shielding the patio from the street and it runs from the house to the garage, with a door]

Round 2: Making a New Bid

We went back this morning to see the two houses I'm considering (the Probate House and the Tile Floor House), and this time I was joined by Steve, a handyman recommended to my agent.

We went to the Probate House first and finally got to see it without furniture.

The most immediate issue was the laundry room. The water heater needs to be moved outside the house and the room redone.

Here's what it looks like right now:

Steve noted that the piping is galvanized steel, and it appears that the plumbing throughout the house is the original steel from 60 years ago. He also suggested that I might want to buy an updated water heater.


The vent for the dryer will also have to be moved, but that's not hard he said.

The kitchen also needs updating.

I talked to Steve about removing the window box and he said that would be no problem, but that I should probably do that the same time I updated the kitchen. He suggested running the cabinets to the top. The cabinets (which had a musty smell when opened) are original and have only been repainted.


Right now, this ledge makes a very narrow passage way to the pantry and hallway. I suggested rotating it 90 degrees so the ledge runs against the wall to the dining room and that I could put in solid cabinets beneath.

The pantry is quite large.


In the tile floor house, the dining room closet has been removed and the pantry shortened to enlarge the kitchen.

At the Tile Floor House, this door has been removed and the wall closed over.

The bathroom also needs significant work:



The wall is plaster, there's rust stains, and the plumbing is steel.


The Tile Floor House's bathroom has many significant improvements. First, they reversed the door so that it doesn't close off the shower door when it's open. Second they took down the shower wall and replaced with glass so that the shower now has light. They also put in a very nice tile backsplash throughout the room. As a result, the bathroom looks much, much larger and is definitely brighter. They also have copper piping throughout the house.

The bedrooms in both houses are the same size.

Here's the master:


The room is 14' by 10', with a large closet. Steve said it wouldn't be difficult to swap out these old single pane windows for new double pane (all new windows are double paned he said). He uses Milgard windows.


The second bedroom is the smallest, but has large side windows.

The third bedroom is in the back and its windows look out on the yard.



In the Tile Floor House, this small window has been replaced with large sliding patio doors that open onto a raised, brick veranda.

There's one hall way connecting all three bedrooms and running from the living room to the kitchen and bathroom.


The dimensions of the living and dining rooms in both houses are identical:

9'6" by 12' for the dining room.


12'3" by 12'10" for the living room.

In addition to everything else, the wiring for this house needs to be upgraded as well.

So in sum I would be looking at the following:

Before I move in (at a mininum):
Remodel the laundry and possibly new water heater
Replace the windows in the master bedroom
Remove the carpet and refinish the floors throughout

Before I move (possible)
New plumbing and electricity

After I move in (at a minimum)
Redo the kitchen

From there we went back to the Tile Floor House and the contrast could not be more dramatic. I didn't take any interior photos, since I had done that already. Steve pointed out all the upgrades that had been done in the kitchen and bathroom. He estimated that they had spent close to $60,000 just on those two rooms alone, but probably more if you add in the shifting of the walls. There was new baseboards and crown molding throughout and the laundry room was really nicely done. We spoke to the owner who told us that he had the house rewired and new copper piping put in.

It turns out that the ceramic tile came with the house when he bought it. I asked Steve about the cost of replacing the tile with hardwood. He said I should roughly estimate $10 a square foot. If I just redid the floors in the living room and dining room, but kept the tile in the hallway and back office, it would be about 365 square feet. If I could do it all for well under $10,000, it might be worth it.

The other drawback of the house is its on a corner.

Here's what that looks like:



Steve also pointed out the nice landscaping they've done on the side of the house:



So I've decided to put a bid down on the Tile Floor House. I just think that even at a discount, it would take a lot more time and money to bring the Probate House up to this level. My agent just called to say there's one other offer on the Tile Floor House, but that it hasn't been presented yet. She's going to wait for mine and then present both tomorrow. I haven't decided what I want to bid yet, but it will be close to the asking price.