Yep, this super cute little brick house, practically a cottage, is our latest project. We are so thrilled to have just purchased it.

It for sure needs some work, especially the inside.

I hope to be doing a lot of the work myself, with some expert help for issues that need experts, like the electrical that needs to be completely replaced. It is currently ‘knob and tube’ style wiring. For those of you not familiar with old wiring, knob and tube wiring is super old and considered to be super dangerous because the live wires in the walls are actually exposed.

Here are some before, well…I guess you could say current pictures of it.

Welcome, this is the old, old front door. Hard to tell in this pic, but it’s approximately 3 ½ feet wide. I love it! Hopefully just some cleaning and paint will be all it needs.

This is the living room looking into the dining room. The pocket doors are original, (but not the 1980 knobs on them). And isn’t that curved wall cool? The convex part of that curve on the other side is in the 1^st bedroom.

Most of the trim is still original, and there seems to be the original wood floors hidden under the carpet, although I don’t know what condition they’re in yet.

Ah, now to the ‘real’ work. The sink is darling, but that’s about it. I’m not sure yet just how ‘gutted’ this bathroom is going to be before it starts to look good, but I’m thinking most of it will need to be. Hope we can save the sink though.

In case you’re still doubting that we need to gut it, how about this angle? Convinced yet? Yes, that’s carpeting on the floor.

And this is the kitchen. Hello Gold! It’s sooooo 1970’s. But still there’s something kind of cozy about it. See that louvered shutter in the right side of the picture? Well that’s the bathroom door. That’ll have to be changed too.

Another view of the kitchen. Just to give you your bearings, the bathroom is still to the right of this picture and the doorway ahead is going through the dining room into the living room towards the front door. Left of the fridge is a door to the outside. Behind is an eating area, a third outside entrance, basement stairs, and another bedroom.

This view is still in the kitchen just turned around now showing the eating area, the door straight ahead goes down to outside back entrance and basement steps. Doorway just beyond the stove goes into the 2^nd bedroom. Bathroom now would be to your left.

So that’s it… two bedrooms, one bathroom, living room, front entry, dining room, kitchen, back entry, a little over 1000 square feet on the main floor. (there’s a basement too, that’s unfinished, with a laundry facility we’ll be working on as well.)

What are our plans? Well, my goal is to give it a new lease on life. This little brick cottage was built in the 1880’s, so it’s around 130 years old, but it’s still pretty solid. It has that wonderful cozy charm that it was built with, just hiding under a few layers here and there.

We would like to eventually re-sell it, but for now we’ll fix it up, breathe new life into it, and rent it out until the right new buyer comes along. So that means I have to find the balance of investing into this property what will be smart for renting, and eventually re-selling.

The secret to that is compromise. I must be willing to use products that make sense financially. (hello clearance aisle) And as all good designers know, “Form Follows Function”, in other words, the number one priority is how well something will work and hold up, then how it looks comes next. I’ve learned over the years of designing that even if something looks beautiful, but doesn’t work well for the family needs, it just doesn’t work.

Do you want to follow along with me on my adventures in the ‘Little Brick Cottage’? I’ll welcome any input you have as we go.

I’m linking up at: