Too Much HGTV

 Because I am married to a creative, big picture kind of guy, he talked me into selling our current house in Mission Lakes and buying a different one, half a mile down the road, sight unseen. He colluded with my cousin, who also lives nearby, to find a place that was affordable which would provide us with more space for full-time living. I was totally against such a plan until he showed me this property. I hated him for showing it to me because I liked it a lot which initiated the ridiculous and crazy plan to make an offer, have sellers accept the offer, put our Warwick home on the market, sell it for asking price four days later and enter a flurry of Escrow paper work! Did I mention we were selling my dad's place at the same time?
So when we arrived to Mission Lakes (The country club area where our house is in Desert Hot Springs, CA), we were literally coming home for the very first time! My cousin had to hide the key under a rock in the backyard!
After only seeing photos on the internet, we were pretty excited to see what we were dealing with. I liked the exterior view a lot. And we knew that the house needed renovations and we had planned for that. But admittedly, after a very long journey and overall exhaustion from the move, walking into an empty house that does indeed need a lot of work was pretty overwhelming!

What you see when you walk in the front door.
High ceilings, fireplace,
doors to the patio, all plusses!

I was missing our charming yet little house down the street and wondering how in the world we were going to get it together here.

Looking towards the kitchen from near the front door.

Fortunately, my cousin and some friends pulled together to get the other house moved here and set up the bed we still had from my parent's house. (We sold the other house furnished as that stuff fit that space very well). My friend who had packed the stuff in the house, labeled the boxes with great care so I could find sheets and towels!
The first walk through was kind of crazy...it's old...and ugly! The kitchen, which we knew would be a total re-do, was a little worse than we thought.

The kitchen has great potential...after we rip everything out!

The appliances work but are dated.

Kitchen: Old Cabinetry, bad counter tops and backsplash

And the cabinets are really old so where we once thought we might be able to re-furbish, we realize now that we need to replace.

Facing the kitchen from the great room.
We'll be opening all of that up.

But that's just the decoration. The house itself is actually very cool and so much bigger and nicer than the other place.

Facing the front door from the main living space.

 It was just difficult to see a house that needs a lot of work instead of coming back to a move in ready place. But again...after some time and a night of rest, the possibilities became exciting and now I'm thrilled. Doug's HGTV bone is up and running and he is super excited!
The bathrooms are functional but terribly ugly with old style brass fittings and paint color that makes you want to puke. It'll all come out and we'll have a great time putting in what we love!

You can't really appreciate the pukey color of this paint.

UGLY counter top and more brass fittings!

Dated, brassy, bad color scheme

The carpet and tile will be removed and transformed into wood flooring. Walls will come down to get to the ever popular open concept and we look forward to having new appliances and cabinets.

Archway from kitchen to dining area. It's going to disappear.

There was no refrigerator so I drove down to K-Mart and purchased this mini-one. It will do the job until the good stuff is installed! Doug said just think of it as camping for the first month. Yippie! Just what I wanted...to camp after moving overseas from a palatial downtown Stockholm luxury apartment!

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom's bath door

Doug does make me nervous sometimes because his mind is an ever busy machine of possibilities and things to do. But admittedly, he's good and he's assured me that he has this thing under control! He does watch HGTV a lot and I enjoy it too...I just wish the Property Brothers were nearby to give us some insight! Home Depot is about to become our best friend!
So today our friend Adrian is coming over to start pulling out the kitchen. We've semi-moved into the extra bedroom and the garage. We are using our lawn furniture as living room furniture and of course, true to form in 2015, we have TV, landlines, and internet hooked up!
It'll be an exciting journey from fixer-upper to fixed up! Follow it all here on Back Across the Pond!