Binghamton Home Tour

We have had so many friends and family ask us to post pictures of our home in New York.  Since most of our family and friends live in the Midwest, many of them probably will never see our place in person!  However, don't let that stop you from visiting or staying with us if you do happen to be in the area :)

When we were looking for homes in New York, we looked at many different types of homes in a couple different towns.  What is so neat about this area is the character and charm of the older homes, which is just something you can't get where we were in Chicago (well, at least not in our price range :) ).  We honestly completely lucked out with this house.  The previous owner was a realtor and put SO much work into this home.  This was her forever home so she made changes like she was going to stay here long term- not like a home she was simply flipping to sell.  Unfortunately, her father passed away and she thought it best to move into another home so her mom could move in with her and her husband.  I don't even know the extent of all the things she did but I know some of the changes she made was painting, adding a first floor bath and laundry (I don't know how they lived here without a first floor bath!) repainting the porch, putting on a new roof, and creating an amazing garden.  

It has been a lot of fun making this home "our home," however I have learned a lot in the process as well.  Almost exactly a year ago (weird...) I wrote this post about what the real purpose of our home should be.  We were in the process of redoing our entryway in our first home and I found myself getting caught up in creating a home that "impressed" rather than creating a home that was a place that could glorify the Lord. 

Needless to say I found ANOTHER article that convicted me in a similar but different way.  Because of my type A, list personality I keep a running list of the changes I would like to make to our home.  Whether it's new curtains in this room or a new carpet in another room, it's all written down so when we have room in our budget I am ready to tackle the next project.  I would walk into a room and start to only see the changes that needed to be made to it instead of being thankful for all the ways God has provided for us to decorate our home exactly how it is- right. this. second. 

After reading that article I decided it was time to stop waiting around for me to fill every gap that I felt I needed to fill in our home and take pictures of what it looks like exactly how it is.  And I can truly say that I am so thankful for our home just the way it is.  Yes I still have my list of projects that I would like to complete at some point when we have the time and our budget fits them, but even if nothing else changes in our home we are so stinkin' blessed and my heart is full of thanks for how God has provided for us.

So, as if that wasn't a long enough intro to our home tour- here are some pictures.  If there are rooms that we painted/ made significant change to I have posted the before pictures below and labeled them accordingly :)  It was built in 1920 and the original homeowners owned a department store in the downtown.  In the dining room there is a place where a button on the floor used to exist that would call their maid/ servant who lived on the third floor.  There are also two sets of staircases in the home- one was presumably used by the owners which goes from the family room up the stairs and the other leads from the kitchen to the stairs which would have been used by the maid.  That's about all the history I know about our home so far .... our sweet neighbors Ruth and Arthur filled us in on the info :)

We added lanterns later in the summer :)

The above 4 pictures all show you what you see right when you walk in our home :)



Yes, basically this is where we store all of Jake's toys.  We hang out in this area for about 70% of our day so it just makes sense to store a lot of them here.  And they are so welcoming anyway, right?  And they totally add to the fireplace...(please disregard the bottle of Mrs. Meyer's cleaning spray that I left there....)


Our living room leads into our dining room.







Our kitchen :)







I LOVE our Lindsay Letters canvas!

The master bedroom :)  Across from our bed is our dresser which is being used as our changing table.. so not much to see there :)

Before pictures of Jake's play room

The other before angle of Jake's play room

The after of Jake's play room.  We repainted it white and Dan put in new lighting :)

We turned an ikea bookshelf on its side and turned it into a bench.

Super cheap and easy decorations for now.. we would like to add some magnet/ chalk paint to this corner and possibly some shelves :)

We also repainted this bookcase.  This was the wall where the flower wallpaper was in the above "before" picture

Jake's bedroom before

Jake's room after- painted, new lighting, and new curtains

We were going to put a reading "nook" in the playroom but we decided to make a little area in his room instead

Our hallway to our third floor before (needed some painting :) )

Hallway to our third floor after

3rd floor bathroom before

3rd floor bathroom after. Repainted it and the repainted the sink. Still need to take out that carpet...

These are our third floor pictures before

Jake looks so little here :)

Third floor after- new painting and ceiling fan.  In the future we will add some more decorations and hopefully change the curtains and lights

Maybe someday I'll share the story of how Dan and I (just the two of us) got this 300+ pound treadmill up here....