The "Red living room"

April 23, 2022

The "Red living room"

Hello again!

So we'll begin at the end of January. We closed on the house on January 25th and we were on a one-way flight January 29th!

We honestly couldn't believe it was happening. It had been a lot of work but the moving trucks came and loaded all of our carefully packed belongings and loaded our cars and away they went on the journey across the country. We were REALLY moving to the mid-west!

There were times when it felt like this idea had a life of it's own. We were just sitting on the sidelines watching as it happened. Brad and I had a joke about every time something new went smoothly we would look at each other and say "click". Things seemed to be clicking together like it was always the plan.

When we arrived in Illinois we were so excited. It's already hard to explain but I know I took photos out the window of our car and sent them to my friends back home, because the scenery was just so different. I loved the open prairie, flat as far as the eye could see! (btw, "shout out" to all my dear friends from work in lovely Woodinville, WA! I wished I could bring you all along!)

The first day we woke up in the morning at the Beery farm. So grateful to be there and breathing in that fresh air and beautiful scenery. We quickly got ready to go see this home we purchased having never actually seen it before, except through pictures. We were bursting with excitement. We pulled off the main road in town and headed into the neighborhood. Wait did we make the right choice? Many of the homes were run down and in need of repair. We turned a corner and caught our first glimpse of our new home. Yes, it was as adorable as the photos...Yay! We headed to the front door and walked in and thought "Oh no". It appeared to be much smaller than the pictures portrayed and it was dingy. So much work was all we could think. That's when the honeymoon was over...sort of.

The work begins! We received word from the moving company that our truck would not arrive for another week so we had some time to get things ready. This ended up being a blessing. We recruited Chelsea and Brett and even the kids at times to join us in this quest to make this place a home. We were also lucky that farmers aren't in the fields in the middle of winter so we could utilize Brett's expertise in construction/renovation. Chelsea also has had much experience in painting/repairing walls and the like. This proved to be most valuable. I had already picked out paint colors and knew where we wanted to start. We hadn't factored in the complete cleaning that also needed to be done so we all got to work.

I'm going to use the photos from the listing for reference. Hopefully you will see the progress.

I'll start with the "Red living room" yikes!

This is how it looked as listed. I guess we saw the potential and knew we could make it look like our own. Getting from point A to point B took a bit of work but we managed it. The room is split in half by the doorway which makes it hard to arrange furniture and then there is the large fireplace to work around. It was a challenge to figure out the layout and it was tight mainly because we have a lot of stuff too. We decided that it's mostly just the two of us anyway so we would make it work.

Here is the process:

The walls in old homes (1910) turns out are made of plaster. This is a double edge sword I guess you could say. Thanks to the knowledge of the Beery's we plowed forward.

The chandelier was super dusty and maybe a bit "too much" for my taste. We decided to move it. Stay tuned for it's re-appearance. Needless to say we went through gallons of primer to cover the red.