Three things I would change about our house is the topic of today’s blog post.
Well, we have been living in our house a year now. Actually, we spent the first two months “camping” on the third floor, and during that time, Mike was on a month long bicycling trip in Europe, and I traveled over there to meet him at the end. So, even though this has been our address for a year now, we did some “come and go living” here before the actual move-in day. People ask me all the time if there’s anything we would change after giving our house a year-long test drive, and the answer is yes. There are three things I would change about our house, and we are changing two of them as I type this. Two of the changes are in the dining room, and one is in the kitchen.
Dining Room
This first change won’t be a surprise to you because I wrote about it here and here. After living here a year, I couldn’t go another month without doing something to spiff up the dining room fireplace area. We are adding shelves on both sides of the fireplace, and they have been ordered.
When we first moved in, we thought about adding the shelves around the French doors that go into my husband’s office. Although shelves there would have looked nice and would have been functional, the fireplace wall would still have an unbalanced appearance due to the furniture arrangement we have going on right now. Adding shelves to the fireplace will give me the symmetry that I love. Plus, I will have a place to display things, and the cabinets will give us storage options for place mats, napkins, china, etc.
(This is our dining room fireplace last fall.)
The second change in the dining room is happening this week. I am ordering gas logs for the fireplace. We didn’t think we would need gas logs in the fireplace because we had them in a dining room before and only used them once. However, that was in the family home in the suburbs, and we only used that dining room when entertaining, for holidays, and for special occasions. We eat most of our evening meals in the dining room in this house, and the fireplace logs will add ambience to our mealtime. I love the sound and feel of wood burning in the fireplace, but gas logs will give us the option to turn them on and then turn them off when we leave the room for the evening.
They will be the same style logs that we have in our family room.
Kitchen
Now, I should start this out by saying that I love the kitchen in this house probably more than I should love something that isn’t human. That being said, there is one tweak I would like to make, but it ain’t gonna happen.
I would add a navy blue cabinet panel to the front of the refrigerator. Our kitchen designer asked me if I wanted one when we were designing this kitchen, and I said I did not. I love our blue cabinets, and everything about them. I just think they would look even better with a navy door. My daughter-in-law planted that seed when she asked if we were going to put a panel on the door. That’s when I realized that I goofed.
Yes, we could make the change, but it would be a totally frivolous and wasteful thing to do. It would involve ordering a new panel-friendly door for the fridge, and asking the cabinet maker to build a door and then get an absolute paint match for the existing cabinets. It’s just not necessary. We do have a panel on the dishwasher, however. Just thought I would tell you that.
And those are the three things I would change about our house. In the whole scheme of things, I think we did pretty well. They say you should live in a house for six months to a year before you do anything to it. While that sounds good and all, it would have been a major big deal hassle to do that. We basically rebuilt the house and just kept the exterior shell. It would have involved moving in, living here, and then moving out to do the remodel. I think we, along with our architect, did a great job making the changes on paper and then our builders made it happen.
Are there any things about your home that you would change? Are you going to do it? You know what they say about hindsight……
Take care.
Oh yes. There are 2-3 places in our house that I wish we had put pocket doors instead of regular doors. It would have been such a space saver in certain spots and so much more functional.
Pocket doors are great space savers!
Janette — your place is looking so fabulous!! Have loved watching your journey — and if someday you return from your travels and find me squatting, just bring me a coffee …. 🙂 🙂 Anyhow, just thinking about the gas log business and remember back to when I lived in Las Vegas, NV which was always warm and/or very hot. So one Christmas day I was craving some holiday ambience so I lit the gas log fireplace and burned it for about an hour. I got my bill and it cost $60 to burn that gas for approximately 1 hour (and that was about 25 years ago). I about fainted!
Remember, it really is just an open gas line. You may want to check with your utility company about the charges for use. Since that time, I actually do the “hex” sign with my fingers and hiss every time I walk by one. Never have used another one again! Turns out hubs had a similar experience. Before we married he too lived in NV and managed to leave the gas fireplace lit and running overnight. He was greeted with a bill for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. So, he also hexes and hisses at the sight of them (or even the thought). Just sayin … our experience.
Penny, my husband is a nut about keeping utility prices low. However, he has never complained about our gas bill, so, I think I’m safe.