My mom had such a fun time writing the post about five things she loves about her home, and we loved getting your comments about your own spaces. Now it is my turn. It was funny reading her post because I have never had an upstairs laundry room or even a real laundry room. I have created pantries spaces that were meant for something else in the two houses I have lived in. Maybe one day we will have a real pantry and a laundry near the bedrooms. I can hope. Right???
Okay, here are the things I love about our house here in wonderful Charlotte, NC.
1. Having an ensuite master bath. I liked the little bathroom in our house in Syracuse. It was small, cute, and cozy. While it looked nice, I was never a fan of the pedestal sink. There wasn’t a spot to put things, and it was just too hard to blow dry my hair. Moving into this house has spoiled us because we have a bathroom right off our bedroom. It is such a luxury to us, and I love it. We have a huge counter with two sinks, and at times I have been known to fill every inch of the counter with random products, jewelry, etc. Yankee tells me he wonders how I survived before without a counter in our bathroom. I tell him I am good at working with what I have no matter what it is!
While I know soaker tubs and clawfoot tubs are all the rage, I love this bathtub and how big it is. I feel like I have my own spa. Throw in these, and I can relax and recharge. The only improvement we have done to this bathroom is paint the walls. One day I would like to change out the lights and paint the vanity. So, can you tell that I love our master bathroom?
2. I love the porches. This house is filled with them, and I don’t think I will ever live in a house again that doesn’t have a porch. We are so lucky to have a front porch, cocktail porch, back porch and little porch off of our bedroom.
We use all of our porches. The other day we were all rocking in our chairs on the front porch, enjoying the fall breeze, and having a little snack. I kept smiling and looking at my family. It felt perfect. I wanted to freeze the moment.
3. I’m crazy about the open living concept. I know I sound like someone on House Hunters with this statement, but now that Little Miss is home, I love that our kitchen is open to the living room, and I am also able to see into the playroom. I know what is going on when I am getting dinner ready, and Little Miss can see me and knows I haven’t left. That was major in the first few months.
4. We really like the kitchen. We have made some easy changes to our kitchen that made it more our style. These little things such as painting the cabinets and painting the tile made a huge difference. They were easy fixes that took just a little bit of money and effort. We just finished building a custom hood cover, and I purchased a different island. Stay tuned to see these two additional updates. I really do love my kitchen. It has so much counter space for cooking which is wonderful when Little Miss helps out in the kitchen. I also feel it has a good flow. Now, I do not like my dishwasher, but considering how great everything else is, I can deal with it. (Plus, it seems to be acting up which means we might have to replace it soon (;
5. Location, Location, Location. I guess this should be number one since it is what they say matters most when you buy a home. I can change anything in my home, but I cannot change our location. We live in the city of Charlotte in a small neighborhood that not a lot of people know about. We live on a dead-end street which makes it quiet. Our small neighborhood is nestled between two bigger neighborhoods. It is filled with lots of families which has been fun, and we are within walking distance to so many things. We walk to story time at the library, the grocery store, Friday night pizza and many other things. Having a good walking score was a must for us, and we both love having a yard but still being so close to so many things. We are close to Uptown (downtown to those who do not live in Charlotte). In a quick five minutes we can be in the heart of the city. I think Yankee and I say we love our neighborhood daily.
Okay. So, that’s what I love about our home. If you didn’t take the time to tell us last week what you love about yours, now’s the time.
Cheers!
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Here are my five things1
1 – location – We live on 5 acres at the end of a dead end gravel road on a lake. We have 700 ft of private lake-front with about half of it wooded. We’ve made trails through the woods & along the water. We absolutely love country life & hope we stay here until we’re old with great-great grandchildren! We’ve been here 27 yrs, bought it as newlyweds during the recession in 1980s & raised our family. It’s now our empty nest & is only getting better. It’s also only 5 miles from my husband’s work & 5 miles from our son & daughter-in-law.
2 – screened porch. We built a screened porch on the back 2 yrs ago facing the lake. It’s off the kitchen with a large sliding window over the kitchen sink & a serving ledge on the porch. It’s plenty big enough for an eating area on one side, a sitting area on the other & a sweet little porch off one end with our grill.
3. – laundry/mud room. We added this little room about 15 yrs ago. The front door used to be the main entrance so all the shoes, coats, bags ect got dumped right there. Now we have this sweet little room with the washer/ dryer, shoe racks (all of our shoes stay in this room) coat racks, ect plus places to store garden tools & cleaning supplies.
4. – size. Our house is small, 1,100 sq. ft. Just a simple little 3 bedroom ranch with no extra living space. One nice size living room open to the eat-in kitchen & porch. I love that it’s all on one level, not much to keep up with & we spend lots of time together because there is only one living space. Raising our son here meant all the sleepovers, play time, ect was spent in one room – grown-ups & kids all together. Small houses do make happy families.
5. – Doesn’t the quote go ‘My favorite thing about my house is who I share it with.’? Yes, that is so true. My husband for 29 yrs & our little dog make it the best place on earth.
Jenny,
Sounds like a great home. I love #5 and thanks for sharing these are fun to read!
Your home looks so pretty and I love what a difference painting the cabinets made in your kitchen! We are big fans of porches also and I think it is so awesome that you have so many of them!
I tried to convince my husband to sell our home last year. We did the whole second floor over and put new windows in upstairs and downstairs and a new bathroom upstairs. We have 5 bedrooms and there is only the two of us. I worry because my laundry is in the basement and I worry about going up and down the stairs. Unfortunately, due to health reasons we are kind of stuck in Connecticut to be near Yale/Smilow Hospital but I finally convinced him to leave Fairfield because it is just TOO crowded and find a ranch or a one story house in a quiet Town/City. I love your home and especially all the porches.
I love what both you and your mom listed. I love that our home is a raised ranch…so there is a view of the trees from every window. I love that our bedroom and kitchen face East…so we have morning sun as we wake. And, our neighborhood is surrounded by a protected marsh…so it’s like living in the country, while still living in the city! Best of both worlds! 😉
Oh I can see why you so love your home….you have the best of everything and you have made it so beautiful for you and your family! NC is definitely a great place to live!