The Gross House

We bought a house!

While moving to Arkadelphia was a bit of a life altering adjustment, one thing I have been looking forward to is getting out of an apartment and into a house. To save Matt a commute, we looked at a few houses in town, only to find what we (mostly jokingly) refer to as a seedy underbelly of real estate COLLUSION!

I know I keep reiterating this, but Arkadelphia is tiny. So it shouldn't be surprising that there are a grand total of three (that I could find) real estate agents in the area... and two of them are a husband and wife team. Almost every house for sale was:

• Over priced.
• Not in an area we wanted to live.
• Too small.

So we widened our search radius to suburbs of Little Rock, and we found the town of Benton, a city with a Target (gasp!) and Kroger (be still my heart!) and even a Best Buy (*faints*).

When Matt came across our house, I was not impressed because the photos were crazy blurry. I mean like- someone was on a Pogo stick and trying to operate a camera. Matt remained undaunted due to the fact the price was extremely enticing and it seemed to fit our wish list.

• Older home (1947) with "character"
• Hardwood floors
• Nice backyard
• 3+ bedrooms

It definitely seems as though we were destined to have this house, as the home buying process was almost totally a breeze.

• Our house was a foreclosure, meaning a bank owned the house. Typically, buying a foreclosure takes forever because it's not as though you are buying from a seller who is antsy to move out. Our offer had to meet a bunch of criteria that some guy at a desk had to rubber stamp APPROVAL on.
• Also (and this is only from our experience of looking at foreclosures) when the previous owners vacate, they take everything but the windows panes. We looked at one where even the copper wiring had been stripped. Fortunately, our house had a working oven and stove, a most-likely out-of-commission dishwasher, and even a washer and dryer. 
• Then the inspection went well! While there are definitely things we need to fix (like the furnace) we were thrilled to learn the house wasn't built on an active volcano or Indian burial ground or no working plumbing. (Some of those things were more likely than others.)

But enough gabbing: I know why you're really here! 

Without further ado, I give you: The Gross House!

Welcome home! Excuse the mop next to the door...

The pergola is over a concrete slab. It's a little rickety, and had been covered with grape vines. We may or may not keep it up.

The entrance. LOVE the front door with the stained glass. LOVE the giant window. HATE that the fireplace is cream. Why would you paint the fireplace cream when the mantel is white?

Can we pause for a moment and admire these door knobs? 

Thanks.

Note the popcorn ceiling! We have already started scraping.

View from the front door when you walk in.

Looking into the dining room. Already bemoaning cleaning hardwood floors as they OBVIOUSLY show dirt/ceiling flecks.

Aaaaaaand thus begins the wacky wallpaper tour of the Gross House.

I do love the built-ins on either side of the windows.

Not sure if I'm keeping the chandelier- it looks a little hokey to me with those bulbs. DO note the popcorn ceiling. Gonna be scraping those down, too.

If you continue through the door in the dining room, you'll come across this lovely wallpapered hallway. The door on the left takes you to our one car garage, complete with overhead attic space. The door straight ahead takes you to the backyard.

This room actually has most favorite ceilings in the whole house!

Matt got a little ahead of himself removing the pear wallpaper. While I admire his fervor (especially since I'm sure we will both be sick of removing wallpaper in one month) this room is not on my immediate to do list.

Since it was raining, I didn't take a ton of photos outside, but here's a sneak peak of the back yard. Matt is especially excited to have a larger garden.

Our storm cellar/swimming pool. That pipe in the middle has been allowing water in for God knows how long, filling up the 8' storm cellar. Great.

We also have a pretty sizable shed/garage behind the storm cellar, but I don't have any photos at this time, mostly because we don't have a key to get into it.

Back into the house! Moving from the dining room into our kitchen.

Yes, that is a pup tent in place of a fridge. Yes, that IS more wallpaper to remove.

If you turn to the right, there's a door to our basement and a neat nook for an ironing board.

Also this. We don't know what this is. Looks like it might be a tiny trash can?

The cabinets are actually in really good shape, meaning they are probably not the originals. I'm dying to paint them white but Matt equates that with me saying, "Matt? I'm thinking I want to burn the kitchen down."

To the right of this photo is a door that leads to the laundry... hallway... room.

MORE wallpaper! We're not sure if that machine works. I do appreciate the drying line finagled in front of the window. The door to the left leads to the backyard.

So let's swing back to the living room. Remember this photo with this door? If you walk through it, you find yourself in a hallway with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

 Hang an immediate right, and you are in the front bedroom.

Matt cameo!

I like this room for two reasons: Smooth ceiling and NO wallpaper!

Just a nice, stamped maroon wall that I need to prime and paint over.

Next to the front bedroom is the one full bath in the house. Ideally, we would have loved to buy a house with two full baths, but with all the other bonuses, we compromised.

Something that softened the blow for me was the CLAW FOOT TUB!

I'm in love, with both the tub AND the wainscoting! 

Clearly it needs... restoring.

Love.

LOVE.

Okay- I'll show you the other parts of the bathroom. Like the toilet.

I wish I had a proper "Before" photo of the toilet, but imagine if you will, SOLID MOLD inside that bowl.

Yes, that is wallpaper that has been PAINTED OVER. Between that and the moldy toilet, this bathroom was LUCKY it had the claw foot tub or else it would have NOTHING to redeem it.

Oh, yeah. There is a shower. Not as exciting as the tub, but infinitely more practical. 

And this nifty thing. Not sure what we are going to use it for since it is way too small to be a laundry hamper. 

Speaking of nifty things in the house, back in the hallway is this stand thing. I had no idea what it was, until a real estate agent mentioned that back in the 1940s and 1950s, households typically only had one phone.

It's a phone nook!

It's details like this that made me fall in love with this house.

Back to the tour: the second bedroom is right next to the bathroom. We've been sleeping here as we do our projects prior to moving in, so excuse the mess.

No wallpaper! No popcorn ceiling! Hooray!

I'm thinking it will be my office, since it already has some nice built in shelves.

The final bedroom is at the end of the hallway, and while it is the smallest bedroom, it contains the largest closet AND has a half bath attached.

We've already started working on this room. I peeled all the wallpaper off and scraped the ceiling, and then sanded everything before Matt and I primed every square inch of that baby. 

That's the downstairs! Directly in front of the bathroom is a short but narrow flight of stairs.

We have tons of space upstairs, so we're talking about making it a den/TV room. The only issue is getting a big comfortable couch up those incredibly narrow stairs, and after three months of trying to watch TV on ridged antique chairs, we need a new couch.

Massive upstairs space! To save us time on moving from Arkadelphia, we've been bringing car loads of tubs over and just putting them upstairs so they aren't in the way of our renovation AND it saves us moving time later.

This could be another bedroom or an office area.

Yup- definitely replacing the carpet upstairs.

Around that corner is my one of my favorite things:

A nook! The view isn't all that impressive, but I imagine a little reading area in this spot, where I can curl up with a hot cup of tea and a good book.

There's a couple of closets like these that offer some storage for my MASSIVE holiday decor. Matt's already miffed because I'm hinting about redoing my Christmas decor. (I have a new house! I need new decorations!)

And there you have it! Not pictured is:

• The half bath.
• The basement.
• The garage.
• The shed.
• The backyard.

In later posts, I'll be looking at each room in more detail and sharing my ideas for the space. I'm so excited about the house and making it our home. Thanks for reading and for all the encouragement, I genuinely appreciate it!

House Tour

One of the challenges of moving from Knoxville to Arkadelphia was going from a 900 square foot townhouse with ample amounts of storage for all my Christmas decorations to a 600 square foot apartment with one closet of storage. 

My mother and I drove down together in her car, while Dad pulled a 14' U-Haul towing Matt's car. Meanwhile Matt had the cushy job of cleaning our old apartment while my parents and I spent the week moving into the apartment. 

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit hesitant about spending seven hours in a car with my mother. My sister likes to time how long Mom and I can be around each other before we start bickering (very lovingly, if I might add.) We normally last anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour.

Surprisingly, the drive down was flawless. No arguing, no turning the radio up so we didn't have to speak, and no white-knuckling the steering wheel while gritting my teeth. We listened to a couple of episodes of This American Life  (Mom: As long as its not like one of your father's British lectures. Me: It's called This American Life, Mom.) and just chatted the rest of the way. 

I wasn't incredibly impressed by the town as we made our way to the apartment, but I was trying to have a good attitude. Upon arriving at the apartment though, all I could think about was how in the world was I going to fit all our stuff in this tiny space.

I may have lied down on the floor in our bedroom and cried. 

Fortunately, my mother flew into crisis mode and began pointing out all the "great" things about the space. 

"The carpet feels so nice! And the manager said it was only six months old!"

"It's not as old as I thought it would be! Only ten years?"

"You have a fan in the living room? That's going to be nice."

"Look how spacious your bathroom is!"

Dad arrived one hour later and we began to unload. 

I now present to you: Our current Gross house.

Welcome Home?

We carted all those plants from Knoxville. I'm proud to say we didn't lose one, even though they look a little peaked now in the dry Arkansas weather. We don't really miss sitting on the patio since we have a GIANT WALL thing blocking our lovely view of the parking lot.

Living Room & Dining Area. We clearly haven't gotten around to hanging some art... or figuring out where my computer is going.

I may have had another breakdown when my father so graciously pointed out how uncomfortable our antique furniture from my Nana is. He may have compared it to medieval torture devices. I may be exaggerating. We typically put giant pillows on the back of the seats and then sit on those red pillows, but that wouldn't look nice in my pictures now would it?

View from the couch AKA our view most evenings. That door leads to our one closet of storage. I'm not going to open it, mostly because it overwhelms me.

Our "vintage" wedding certificate and some homemade art. That saying is very comforting when I'm pacing the five feet that makes up my living room.

The partition between the living room and kitchen.

Our kitchen. There is no logical spot for the trashcan as we have to move it to open the fridge OR if we want to open the dishwasher. Also, there are only TWO drawers. 

I actually like how this looks, especially the vintage pot holding my utensils. The first time I felt like I was home was when I put our little green tea kettle on the stove. Mom saw me tearing up and thought I was crying about the apartment again, but I just murmured that this place could feel like home after all.

I was pretty jazzed to find out we have a double sink. It's the little things, y'all. 

We use a sofa table/console table for some extra counter space and as my happy place in the mornings. 

That tall spinning console has been in the Bible family for at least a decade. My sister Suzanne bought it when she moved to college. It is incredibly heavy and my father has moved it at least seven times. We came thisclose to pitching it, when Mom had the genius idea to use as a pantry. 

And until I find my vintage bar cart, we also use it as a makeshift bar area. Mom was thrilled. (Not really.)

Shout out to Matt's worm bin that made the move. It is another thing we don't really have a spot for, but he's worked so hard to cultivate those little guys, I didn't have the heart to tell him to leave them.

To the left of that doorway between the dining room and living room we have the bathroom... with no medicine cabinet. 

That's right... our bathroom is gnome themed. Guess who chose that? (Hint: not me.)

I keep that empty tin on top of the toilet because it amplifies the sound of my iPhone while I shower. I keep that gnome there because he makes me laugh. We actually haven't named him yet.

We go all out. That soap gnome was actually my first Valentine's gift to Matthew.

This is right outside the bathroom. The fuse box is behind that canvas I purchased during my Pier One tenure. It doesn't really go with anything we have anymore, but it looks pretty on its own. Fun fact: My father ran into that bookshelf every single night he was here. 

And we've entered the bedroom. Yes, that is a box under our end table turned night stand. Did I mention we're short on storage? 

This bedroom set is airplane themed. It was my great grandmothers, and my mother told me it was the last gift my great uncle gave her before she died. I have a matching full sized bed, but that won't be coming until we have a second bedroom. The brush and mirror belonged to my grandmother (whose photo is in the corner of the mirror).

Close up.

Some more handmade art. I stuck some letters on some old canvas art and spray painted it white, and then pulled the stickers off.  If you can't tell, I ran out of the letter "N" so I had to use a rotated "Z." I'm good like that.

View from the side of the bed. I almost typed "view from the window," but then I thought that sounded creepy. 

Our walk-in closet/Jefferson's bedroom.

The view from the closet. I feel obligated to tell you that Matt normally doesn't put his feet on the bed. I also feel obligated to point out that those are the despised New Balances/bane of my existence. Do you see the hole in the soles? WHY WON'T HE JUST THROW THEM AWAY?!

Jefferson.

There you have it. It's not completely done since we haven't even finished unloading my car with the last of what Matt brought down from Knoxville, but you get the idea. Maybe someday I'll be nostalgic for our tiny apartment in Arkadelphia, but until then, I'll be browsing homes on Realtor.com.