Planning for the House I don't Own Yet
We will be buying a new (used, recycled, whatever) home in the next two months. Our old house was barely 1500 square feet, designed by (I am positive) one-eyed hillbillies on a four-day drunk, possessing of almost no storage, and full of home improvement nightmares like "interesting" wiring, layers of suspiciously asbestosy-looking floor tiles and nary a square or plumb wall or corner to be found in the place.
To expedite the sale of the old house (which just closed - yipee!), we moved completely out and into the mother-in-law suite in (love the irony) my mother-in-law's house. . . so other than our clothing and some personal items, the rest of our stuff - furniture, books, art, etc., is in storage.
I have been scouring Houzz design boards and diligently saving photos of gorgeous rooms to my ideabooks but realize I need something a little more comprehensive. I understand that it is impossible to create an interior design for a home I don't even own yet, but I would like to educate myself about interior design so that I can create some type of plan before we move in.
Also, more importantly, we are anticipating purchasing a much larger house with additional storage, so I will have almost twice as much room to work with. I can barely contain my excitement! When we moved out of the old house, I realized that the entire time we were there we just sort of tossed furniture into rooms wherever we could squeeze it, hung paintings wherever they physically fit and stuffed books into and onto every available shelf, mantel and spare horizontal space.
I want to learn how to define my style and how to *think* about a space before I start to fill it. Since I've been collecting info and photos on the most likely suspects for our new home, I feel like I can start making some general decisions about how to go about this process.
So, does anyone have recommendations about some design books written for laypeople that might help me? Or perhaps other websites besides Houzz (as if. . . ) that might give me some direction?
As I read over this I realize I probably sound a little pathological. . . but I get the sense that Houzzers would understand. After all, I guess interior design is where you get to let your control freak flag fly. . .
thanks in advance for any input/assistance/recommendations for appropriate medication :-)
To expedite the sale of the old house (which just closed - yipee!), we moved completely out and into the mother-in-law suite in (love the irony) my mother-in-law's house. . . so other than our clothing and some personal items, the rest of our stuff - furniture, books, art, etc., is in storage.
I have been scouring Houzz design boards and diligently saving photos of gorgeous rooms to my ideabooks but realize I need something a little more comprehensive. I understand that it is impossible to create an interior design for a home I don't even own yet, but I would like to educate myself about interior design so that I can create some type of plan before we move in.
Also, more importantly, we are anticipating purchasing a much larger house with additional storage, so I will have almost twice as much room to work with. I can barely contain my excitement! When we moved out of the old house, I realized that the entire time we were there we just sort of tossed furniture into rooms wherever we could squeeze it, hung paintings wherever they physically fit and stuffed books into and onto every available shelf, mantel and spare horizontal space.
I want to learn how to define my style and how to *think* about a space before I start to fill it. Since I've been collecting info and photos on the most likely suspects for our new home, I feel like I can start making some general decisions about how to go about this process.
So, does anyone have recommendations about some design books written for laypeople that might help me? Or perhaps other websites besides Houzz (as if. . . ) that might give me some direction?
As I read over this I realize I probably sound a little pathological. . . but I get the sense that Houzzers would understand. After all, I guess interior design is where you get to let your control freak flag fly. . .
thanks in advance for any input/assistance/recommendations for appropriate medication :-)
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I do have a more specific follow-up for Houzzers, however.
Our art and decor items lean heavily towards the southwest/wild west with lots of wildlife prints, Mexican pottery, antique guns and, yes, deer heads. We also have a ton of books, again, lots of desert and southwest-related hardbacks with a number of very old first editions by hunting and military history writers. Couches are dark leather, other furniture includes rough pine wood Mexican-made bookcases and china cabinets, with a few antique pieces here and there.
In the old house, I painted the living room Behr Fresh Praline with Polar Bear on the ceiling. The bulk of the rest of the house was Behr Cornmeal with a sponged-on glaze of Gold Buff. I don't think I want that much yellow in this new house. I am interested in trying some different colors - probably reds and/or oranges, I'm guessing - that will complement and help tie together our mish-mosh of stuff.
So does anyone have some favorite colors in the red/orange families that will help give off that southwestern/ranch house vibe without taking us over the edge into Elmer Fudd territory?
Recommended: BENJAMIN MOORE, AF-225, 161 , 2088-10, 2034-20.
FARROW AND BALL 45, 91, 34, 44, 1, 11.
Having never decorated in these strong colors, I am more drawn to the Farrow and Ball colors, especially 91, blue gray for the main color. It is described as the color of haze when the sun sets.
What fun. Keep us posted.
The houses I'm looking at (on Monday!) are on Realtor.com, but there are five of them so I won't bore everyone with the photos. Suffice to say most of them scream late 2008 - 2010 central Arizona. What we get around here are generally modified one-story ranch style with a mix of reddish tile and beige carpet and often unfortunate "Tuscan" design elements awkwardly sprinkled in for "flavor."
it's at:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1325-N-Acacia-Rd_Apache-Junction_AZ_85119_M10936-68732
if you wanted to take a look. really unfortunate painting decisions were made in the house, but the bones look good (other than the possible water damage) and it's huge with a great layout. It's about $100k less than we're willing to spend so we can certainly do a cost-benefit analysis to decide if it's worth it to fix up.
I have three more possibilities for next week but it's looking kind of grim. In two of the houses we went to today, the owners were wandering around, making the experience even more depressing especially since the houses did NOT live up to the photos at all. So my realtor, my mother-in-law and I all crept around uncomfortably, trying not to make eye contact with anyone in the house (or even each other) until we got back out to our cars.
You'd think their realtors would have said something about maybe picking up the dirty underwear or cleaning the cat litter box when the house is on the market. One lady kept saying "well, I'll stay out of your way," and then continued to follow us around the house talking about how there used to be a hot tub but she got rid of it because after her husband died last year why would she want to sit in the hot tub alone? OMG it was a nightmare!
So next week we're going to look at this one (which is a little small and a little close to the neighbors for my taste):
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/100-S-La-Barge-Rd_Apache-Junction_AZ_85119_M26495-54022
and a couple of others. Hopefully the slight rise in home prices will encourage a potential sellers to put MY perfect house on the market!!