For the first year of marriage, Chris and I lived in a little A-frame house, built in 1929 in the city of Rochester. While we didn’t do any major renovations, we did spend time working on the garden, painting rooms, and decorating! For this home we wanted to stay true to the era and style, so we used a lot of antique pieces and wooden elements. Here’s a little home tour of our first place.
Curb Appeal
Chris and I worked on putting in the address post and flower hanger. I love how it dressed up the home! We also loved the turquoise door.
Living Room
Our big, comfy sectional provided a lot of seating in this space! The faux fireplace, built-ins, and wooden windows gave the room a lot of character. In this space we simply painted the room and added decor.
Dining Room
Chris and I custom built our dining room table to fit the dining room at our first home. Luckily, it fits in our new place just as well! We loved the way the stain on the table matched the wooden trim in the dining room. It was also really nice to have direct access to the backyard living space.
Kitchen
The kitchen was small and closed-off, but was very functional! It had been recently remodeled, and everything was nice and clean, which is so important in a kitchen. Despite the small space, there was always enough room for all of our appliances and dishware. We didn’t do anything in this space besides decorating and building a little island.
The Master Bedroom
This room was probably my favorite in the whole house! It was a great size and I loved decorating with romantic and antique accents. I also loved having the original wood floors throughout! We also painted this room and added decor.
Guest Bedroom
I wanted this room to be a nice retreat for guests. We had a lot of visitors stay in this guest room, including family all the way from California! If I lived in this home again, I would repaint it more of a neutral grey, this purple was a bit too strong for my taste.
The Office
We mostly used this room to store files and to hide the litter box. Let’s be honest, there’s always one space that has to suffer a bit when you have cats: the space where you put the litter box! Can anyone else relate to this?
Upstairs Bathroom
This room turned out to be plenty of space for Chris and I in our first year of marriage. Our culture may tell you that you need two sinks to have a happy, healthy marriage; that was definitely not the case for us!
Backyard
This was the perfect little spot for us to raise a puppy, start a small vegetable garden, meet neighbors, and have small gatherings. I put in my first flower garden at this home, and we grew tomatoes, swiss chard, peppers, melon, and others I can’t remember. I do remember the garden doing surprisingly well! I also remember carrying our golden Cali outside in the middle of the night when she was potty training.
Other Features
The home also had a downstairs bath, oddly located next to the kitchen. We NEVER used the shower, but we did use the bathroom quite a bit when we were downstairs. One thing I love was the little entryway and mudroom, it was great during the winter and in bad weather for friends and families to take off their shoes before tracking mud, snow, or water through the house. Before listing the home, we painted the stairwell a crisp white to freshen up the space a bit. One thing about older homes is there are always lots of cracks (big and small) on the walls, a good paint job generally does the trick!
I have fond memories looking at these photos! Especially of starting our little family with our pup and two cats. Moving to the farm was quite a transition for us! The move meant more money spent on our mortgage and maintenance costs, and less money to spend traveling, going out, etc. These are things we were willing to sacrifice, and I’m so glad we did! Every day we are so grateful to be living on the farm with all of our animals and lots of space. I am glad we started in a smaller home first, to get used to small renovations, repairs, and regular maintenance. I can’t imagine moving to a 12-acre farm without having any experience with that beforehand.
Memories in Our First Home
SUNSHINE FARM 