Three Rooms and a Baby

I'll get right to the BIG news...our baby girl just couldn't wait until her due date and was born smack dab in the middle of the Great Blizzard of 2011! We're all doing well and she's as sweet as she looks!

Welcome to the world, precious girl!

Now for the house...

The Foyer
Our house was a two-flat when we purchased it. The front staircase had been walled off so the only way to access the upstairs from the inside of the house was via the rear stairs. This room was used as a bedroom. Here is what the "foyer" looked like before:

And here's the foyer now:

There were stairs hiding behind that wall! The original newel post was left in the attic, so we're having it refinished and reinstalled. The original treads are in good shape under the carpet, so we're having them refinished, also. There is a window seat with a hinged lid in the landing which doesn't appear to be original to the house, but we like it so it will stay.

The Living Room
In the previous foyer/bedroom, there was no opening into the living room. This is the view of the living room before the foyer was opened up:

Now here's the same view with the wall opened up in the foyer:

It's very hard to tell with these photos, but opening up that wall makes a world of difference! The living room seems so much larger. Although we're fairly sure the mantel isn't original to the house, we're going to reuse it for now. The biggest challenge with this room will be arranging furniture with that corner fireplace. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The Kitchen
Ready for some retro? Here's the vintage 1940's kitchen that came with the house:

While the kitchen was cute and had vintage potential, these were the only cabinets and the space was very small. We removed the wall between the former kitchen and mudroom/back stairs and here's the space now:

It's now almost twice the size. I can't wait for cabinets to be installed! We're a while from that, though!

Thanks for stopping by to view our progress! Only a few more months and I'll be ready for what you really want to see...the decorating!

Thanks to Susan at BNOTP for hosting Met Monday!