Jenny Steffens Hobick

September 07, 2012

The "Before" House Tour | Be kind... don't judge!

Every bone in my body resists me doing this... I'd love to keep the house all to myself until I get it exactly the way I want it. But, as I promised, I'm taking you along for the ride. In return for my seek peak into the progress, I ask that you be kind. I apologize for the poor photography (I don't have the right lens to shoot interiors on my fancy camera, so I'm using my old G11... recommendations for a lens?). The colors are off from what I'm seeing here, I assure you!

In case you've been wondering, I haven't forgotten my food blogging roots - I'm just now getting the kitchen unpacked! I'll be making something yummy for our tailgate this weekend... Any ideas? I'll share it on the blog (obviously...).

Exterior (you've seen this before!) I love how our house looks from the street.

The to the right is really the true 'before' shot of the living room and dining room. This was taken while Mike and I were repairing the walls, before the new paint.

Now, on to the post fresh paint photos. Keep in mind, we still have a lot of projects planned. A lot of projects. And a lot of decorating. Our plan is to move in, do simple things to clean up and brighten the existing interior, then do an addition in the spring. The new addition would include an expanded kitchen with fireplace and attached hearth room. Upstairs that would mean another bedroom and a master bathroom. Yay! But for now, we wanted to just create a blank, fresh space for ourselves before we moved in. Everything feels so much better already. It is amazing what a little (ok, a lot...) of paint can do!

This is the view right after coming in through the small front foyer. Welcome : )

This rug will be moving upstairs into our bedroom when our new rug arrives. I'll be posting more about my final (finally...) decision hopefully sometime next week. I'll give you a hint- it wasn't any of the ones I had posted about or pinned on pinterest!

Fast forward 30 minutes and Emma's home from her first day of school! A new long ottoman upholstered in linen will be placed right about where Emma is sitting.

Wall Paint : Benjamin Moore, Manchester Tan
Trim : Benjamin Moore, Navajo White

Remember how I said I ordered two grey upholstered chairs to flank the fireplace? Well, I think they will be too big. My plan is to move them to the front of the room (to the right of where I'm standing while taking this photo) in front of the big window. So much for plans, right?

Note the fireplace, it used to be a little more embellished with wooden decal, and had a pinkish stone inset. I removed the decals and painted over where they once where and while I was at it, slapped a coat of paint on the pink stone. I just needed to go away and the paint did the trick. At some point we plan to replace the entire mantel piece with something a little more handsome.

The next room is the dining room. I love the slipcovered chairs I ordered from Restoration Hardware in Sand Belgium Linen. My next big debate is a rug for this room (a different rug) and a lantern for above the table. I'm considering a fixture from Cape Cod Lanterns (http://www.capecodlanterns.com/). I thought it would be well suited to our "Cape Cod" style home and a nod to our stay in New England.

Wall Color : Benjamin Moore, Navajo White in Flat
Trim Color : Benjamin Moore, Navajo White in Satin

Tah, Dah. One of the best features of the house - I love french doors off of the dining room. And behind me is...

The kitchen. Not too hot as it stands right now, but we have a renovation planned that will really make the space much more current and functional. Eventually the kitchen will grow out of the back of the house to make a big open space.

Here is a closer view from inside the room. This wall to my left is shared with the dining room. I'm wondering if we should go ahead and open it up, or wait for our phase 2 renovation... My vote is for now!

Now upstairs. I plan to have a runner put on the stairs to make it a little cushier for Emma. I'm thinking just something neutral and durable.

Now into our room. The small rug will be replaced with the large rug from the living room. The small rug? Not sure about that... hum...

Oh, and all of the light fixtures in the entire house will be replaced. I'm thinking something with antique brass...?? Suggestions?

This is our bedroom from the opposite angle. As you can see, we have the new headboard that Mike built and the dresser that I refinished. More detail photos later! Here is the design board for the room, for your reference. I still have to add some wall art and accessories with pillows and blankets.

Emma's room has taken a bit of a turn... toward pink! I am not sure what changed my mind, but I've got a lot of cute pink ideas for her new room. Again, the lighting is strange in the photo- I'll try to get a more accurate picture later this week.

Here is the back porch that I love so much - the last stop on our tour. Stay tuned for the next couple of months to see our continued progress!

September 03, 2012

The Journey There & Back | Our Time in New England

I'm writing this post from the air on my way to my first overnight stay away from Emma. This is my first significant amount of time away from my baby (24 entire hours... 7 was the previous record). Only after leaving her for 3 hours (and counting), I'm already nostalgic about our time together so far. I have spent most of the flight watching vidoes of her grow up on the ipad.
Through my video journey, I realized I hadn't properly brought our time in New England to a close for the blog - and maybe for myself. I think I will always think of our journey to Massachusetts as our journey to get Emma.

It all started with a little twist of fate... almost two years ago on our honeymoon flight to Italy, I was browsing through the October Martha Stewart Living (seriously... how MUCH has this magazine influenced my life) and was reading an article about a little town in central Massachusetts - Deerfield. So charming and quaint. Knowing Mike was thinking of exploring new job opportunities, I said, "You know, if you found an opportunity someplace else, I think I'd like to move someplace - just for a little bit. Let's go have some fun someplace. Look at this adorable town in the middle of Massachusetts. We could live there!" My comment to him was half joking and half serious. But when we arrived in Italy, our minds really started wondering as we explored the hills of Tuscany. Mike was convinced that we needed to just stay in Italy and by a little villa. It was official, after our trip we had been stung by the exploration bee.

When we arrived home from our honeymoon, Mike (who had not yet reached out to anyone regarding a job search) had an email in his inbox from a recruiter about a job... in Boston.

After a couple of months of interviews and negotiations, we put our house on the market and went to visit New England to look for a new place to live. I had a vision for what I wanted in a new location - something in a small quaint town similar to what I had seen in the Martha Stewart Living. Through my research came across a little town called Concord. It was only 10 miles from Mike's future office and looked to be very cute. I booked a room for us at the Colonial Inn at the beginning of February.

Concord's Colonial Inn when we came for our first visit - 5ft of snow!

You might recall that the Winter of 2010-11 was a doozie in New England. There was 5 feet of snow on the ground when we went on our visit. As we drove the 20 minutes outside of Boston to the country, I instantly fell for the white-covered pristine country side. It was almost surreal as we drove around on the winding country roads, seeing all of the colonial houses tucked into the woods. We arrived in Concord - such a charming and idyllic little town settled into the country.

The Main Street Market & Cafe in Concord, Ma.

With the heavy, heavy blanket of snow, the town was so so quite and peaceful. But, that night we had dinner at the Main Street Market & Cafe - sort of an old-time general store. Mike and I chatted about what we thought about the town, how we envisioned our life there and if it was what we were looking for in a town. We started talking about when we wanted to start a family and decided that we wanted to start trying - guessing it would take a little while.

As we were chatting about our future plans and while the snow had quieted the rest of town, there was a crowd packed into this charming glowing little restaurant. The band started up and people were kicking off their snow boots, stripping of their stocking hats and dancing their tails off. We loved it. I am not sure if it was the music, or the fact that it felt like a glowing and bustling party in the middle of a snowed-in town, but whatever it was in that moment it had the "it" we were looking for.

A month later we had sold our house and drove ourselves and Mr. Darcy across the country. Going into it we knew we probably didn't want to stay there forever, but we were open. We were free to explore and experience for as long as we wanted.

We are pretty sure that I got pregnant sometime during the first week we were there. Yes, one month from when we decided to start trying - Emma was with us during our entire journey... we just didn't know it yet! Almost instantly our need for exploring turned into my natural instinct to nest. I felt myself wanting to find a home asap and settle in. We did just that in a house we rented in Concord, Ma.

During my pregnancy we still kept our adventurous spirit and went exploring every chance we got (as you have seen). We did our best at filling every spare moment with a new trip or experience. But as Emma got closer to her arrival date, our love for exploring started to fade into a yearning for setting up a more permanent life for us.

In December, Emma was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord. Our families came out for her birth and for the Holidays and when it was time for them to leave I knew it was time for us to start making our way home. While we had loved our time on our own, growing as a newly married couple and a new family, I knew that I wanted Emma to grow up with the rest of her family

We didn't want to leave too soon though, we still wanted a little more time out on our own and to check some things off our list. We loved living in Concord and frequenting our new favorite places- Verrill Farm, Barefoot Bookstore story time and Mr. Darcy's favorite walking route through the historical town center. When I would get anxious about wanting to get back home, I would (try) to remind myself that this was just our little life vacation- and that is how it felt.

Though short lived, I will never forget or regret our time in New England or the spirit we enriched from having gone out to explore on our own. While I don't know that our experience was exactly what I thought it would be in some ways, it was so much more in others. I can't wait to go back to some of our favorite spots someday with Emma and the rest of our family to show them that life is exactly what you make of it. I hope that we can teach her that life is about getting out there and living and never being afraid to come home... especially now that we're the parents.