Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Category: house & home

Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Susan.

Confession: I nearly forgot how to log into the admin feature on my blog in order to write a new post; it’s been that long. I’m finally at a point where I have some free time, so hello! Hope you’re doing well. Let me catch you up to speed.

The last time I managed to post was in the summer, otherwise known as the Chaos of 2019 (I mean, I just made that up right now; we didn’t actually call it that). Chris and I had decided in January that we were finally ready to say goodbye to our tiny townhouse and find a roomier, quieter place to call home! Once we got the ball rolling, the speed of that little ball accelerated quickly and well, blogging and most other things, including travel, were put on the back burner. We canceled all of the trips we had already planned and booked for the year, which I’ll admit was a bit of a bummer, but we knew it would be totally worth it in the end.

The short story is as follows. First, in February we put an offer on a super cute farmhouse in the country that we fell in love with, but we ended up losing in an all-out bidding war. In hindsight it was a blessing in disguise to lose the bid, because we realized that the house wasn’t exactly what we were looking for and that we could fulfill our requirements/wish list a little better.

Our next plan was to build a custom house from scratch on a parcel of our choosing, but the logistics turned out to be far more complex than we wanted. It was quite difficult (impossible?) to find a lot in the countryside, in our price range, and where high-speed internet is available. The plots within our budget were also eerily remote, and my wild imagination probably would have had a hard time letting me feel peaceful there.

So Chris and I turned to Plan C and set our sights on a new construction house in the country (with FiOS readily available!), but also in a neighborhood setting that would feel more familiar to those of us who might have felt a little spooked living on a large plot of land in the darkest of dark countryside. So, peace and quiet, check; internet, check; not terrifyingly remote, check.

We put an offer on a new build home in March, and immediately started getting our townhouse ready for sale by storing stuff, painting, staging, and doing minor repairs. That sentence makes it sound so easy breezy, but it was a ton of work as you know if you’ve been through this process. Plus all of the work was coupled with making selections on the new build which always sounded fun, but turned out to be a little stressful. I might actually write a separate post about the whole new construction process in case it’s helpful to anyone about to go through the same thing.

Our townhouse went on the market in late April, and we accepted an offer after only five days! That offer actually ended up falling through, womp womp, but once we were back on the market we had another offer within a week and the rest of the sale was smooth sailing. Again, that all sounds simple and tidy, but I sincerely hope we don’t have to do the home sale thing for a long, long time because the process was both physically and mentally exhausting.

I said I’d make this story short, but my word count keeps increasing. I’ll try to wrap it up!

The buyer wanted to move into our townhouse in mid-June, but our new home wouldn’t be ready until end of July, so Chris and I put all of our furniture and belongings into storage and we spent 47 nights in a hotel. We had offers from sweet friends to host us, though in the end the easiest thing was to live the #hotellife for a few weeks. It went by at a snail’s pace, but we got through it and it was all so worth it – we absolutely love our new house.

We have peace and quiet and gorgeous views, plus more room in the house than we know what to do with. I have the kitchen and hardwood floors of my dreams, a laundry room with a window, and other weird things you apparently want when you’re an adult. (Though we also have room for a pool table and a place to play video games because we’re both still big kids.) We’re enjoying the settling and decorating process, and our plan for 2020 is to get back to traveling again which, of course, I’m super jazzed about!

So if you’re here for the travel talk, I assure you there’s more of that on the way. If you want to hear more about the new house and future projects, I’ll probably rattle on about that, too! I’m hoping to eventually get back into the blogging swing of things now that we are unpacked and staying put, so please stay tuned!

October 30, 2019
Master Bath Mini Makeover

Pretty much any time I look around our home and think of updates that could be made, the total dollar amount instantly translates in my mind to plane tickets, travel accommodations, or adventure excursions. Don’t even get me started on the kitchen overhaul with a bottom line that basically equates to half of my dream trip to Antarctica. Functionally, everything in our house is in good shape and nothing truly needs replacing (knock on wood; 90s orange oak wood, to be specific). The basic builder-grade “finishes” throughout the house could stand to be upgraded though, so I’m thankful that a few easy and inexpensive fixes here and there make our little townhouse look a bit more updated without depleting our travel funds.

Last year I gave our guest bathroom a mini makeover, and it was high time I applied those same tricks to the master bathroom upstairs. I started by replacing the bare-bulb vanity lighting with a fixture from Shades of Light. And based on the drywall disaster that we found when we replaced the light fixture in our guest bathroom (giant ragged hole in the wall behind the old fixture; took us eight hours to fix it), I hired an electrician for assistance with this one. Good lighting is one of the areas I don’t mind spending money on because the quality seems to make such a huge difference, so I put the majority of our budget for this mini makeover into the Schooner Bath Light.

It’s really difficult to photograph a light fixture in a room with no windows or without dragging out studio lighting equipment, so I’ll just show you the stock photo and call it a day.

photo via shadesoflight.com

But the update that made the biggest impact (and at the least expense!) was putting a few coats of paint and some hardware on the orange oak vanity. I had my eye on a couple of new vanity options, but they were all in the quadruple digits price range so that’s when I decided to give paint a try instead. I’m really happy with the way it turned out! Here is the before (documented lazily many years ago with a point-and-shoot) and the after:

All I did was roll on a coat of Zissner primer, two coats of Sherwin-Williams Java, and then installed some hardware purchased at Pottery Barn. No crazy prep, no sanding, and pretty minimal dry time – I finished the whole project in a weekend.

Ta da! Next up, I’m going to try to frame out that giant mirror, replace the faucets, and update the flooring (and I still need to paint the orange oak quarter-round near the baseboards). But for now I’m loving the difference the warm chocolate brown cabinet makes in the room. And of course I’m loving that the $30 in supplies didn’t eat into my Antarctica funds.

August 17, 2015
Blinded by the Light

You know I’m not done talking about Iceland right? I have a few more posts in the works on that topic, but in the meantime, how about a short and sweet house update? Remember when I said we were done updating the brass light fixtures in the house? Well, spray-painting those three octagon-shaped builder fixtures was a temporary fix while we spent the money on other things (a.k.a., plane tickets) and while I we decided on the perfect replacements. In the past few months ~~I’ve~~ we’ve finally managed to make some decisions and upgrade two more of the lights.

This fixture sits at the top of the first staircase in the hall on our main floor. I had my eye on it for a long time and finally decided that it would be a fun detail for this spot.

And then this one hangs above the little landing adjacent to the loft on the top floor. It’s in the same collection as the pendant lamp hanging at the bottom of the staircase, but I liked that it wasn’t super matchy-matchy. It was another “fun” installation – the electrical box was originally installed a little too recessed into the ceiling and a bit off-center, so we came up with the MacGyver-worthy solution of wedging a few coins in the gap for a better fit. So if a future homeowner in this house ever changes that fixture, they’ll find a bonus of about $0.30!

Much to Chris’s dismay (installing lights isn’t his favorite), there is one remaining original fixture in the foyer that I spray-painted, but I’m still on the hunt for a replacement that will give our our tiny and awkward entryway some more personality. Oh, and there’s also the master bathroom that desperately needs a complete makeover including a lighting update, so he’ll still get to flex his electrician skills a few more times in this house. I might try to start tackling that master bath in the fall, although my updates will be very budget-friendly so that we can save money for some upcoming trips instead (hint: Peru isn’t the only South America destination on our short list!).

September 29, 2014
Lofty Photo Wall

Want a peek at an odd little room in our house? We have a small loft area in our townhouse on the top floor, and I don’t think I’ve ever posted any photos of it here! So far we’ve been using it as a workout room and affectionately call it the Little Gym (not to be confused with an activity center for kids). After we moved into the house, the loft spent quite a while looking like this (I took this photo in Feb. 2006) as we put our attention into the other rooms:

Slowly over the years we’ve painted, added furniture, curtains, and a TV. This is the space where I walk on the treadmill, occasionally do a workout video, or practice yoga. It’s also where we have the Nintendo Wii set up, so there may be a Just Dance 3 or Zumba Core dance party up in here every once in a while.

I’d love to put hardwood floors up there eventually and maybe crown molding, but for now, the easiest update was putting some artwork on the walls. That back wall was completely empty until last week when I ordered some inexpensive 8×12 clip frames and had a few prints made from our travels. I knew I wanted to fill a good bit of the wall with images (with room to add more photos in the future), and that I wanted a clean, modern look that wouldn’t feel overbearing from the view below, so I decided the frameless vibe would work. Plus I needed the frames to be slim so I don’t accidentally fling one off the wall if I’m swinging my arms on the treadmill. My brother did a similar arrangement in his house with clip frames and it looks great!

Here are the images I’ve used so far, from trips to Switzerland, Italy, England, Hawaii, Alaska, and several Caribbean islands (plus a D.C. photo for good measure). It’s pretty easy to swap images in and out of the clip frames, so it leaves lots of flexibility for future images.

To hang the frames, I measured an inch between each frame for a tight grouping, added up the total length of the group (including spaces), and divided the difference of the total wall length minus the group length. So…go math! I sketched it all out on paper first so that it made sense. These frames require one nail in the center to hang, so it was easy to level them after hanging.

I think I have plenty of room on each side to add one more column, plus I could eventually put another row underneath if needed. We may eventually move the treadmill or do something else altogether with this room and there are a few more spots where I need artwork or something, but for now I think the photo gallery gives it a little more personality in there! What do you think? Do you have any blank walls in your house, and if so, do you have any plans for them?

June 12, 2014
Just a Bit of Curb Appeal

Sometimes being a homeowner feels like such a roller coaster ride. Whee! There are times I look around and swell with pride over how much Chris and I have learned and accomplished by owning a home. Other times it’s quite frustrating like when something breaks or looks ugly and you’re the one responsible for either figuring out the repairs or phoning it in for help. Apartment living meant that we could call the maintenance team for just about anything, we never had to worry about major purchases, and it also alleviated my own stresses of minor things like paint color selection because we weren’t allowed to paint. But I wouldn’t go back to renting – I love our house, and being the control freak that I am, I appreciate having as much input as I can on how our home looks.

On that note, we aren’t allowed a lot of leeway when it comes to the outside appearance of our little townhouse. The exterior paint colors and fixtures are all HOA-selected, and we aren’t allowed to make many changes. Things were looking kind of blah from the curb, so last week I added a cute reclaimed wood planter on our tiny stoop with zinnias for a splash of color.

The planter looked great, but then it made me notice the awful condition of our front door! Not to mention our handle decided to break and we couldn’t open the door from the outside, so I figured while I had the handle off I might as well paint. I wish I had a better before picture of the door for you, but once I decided to remedy the old, faded paint job, I got to work right away and forgot to take a photo! I only have this close-up from when we bought the house. I cleaned the surface to see if I could get those drippy marks off, but it didn’t look any better. We also changed our deadbolt a few years ago and it was a different shape than the original, so there was a bare patch with no paint above and below the new deadbolt. And, someone recently put some kind of dumb sticky flyer on our door and when we took it off, the adhesive ripped away a strip of paint, so there was that eyesore, too.

Painting always feels like a lot of work to me, but it’s such a small commitment in price and time for a huge return. I can’t even believe the difference it made, and I feel so happy to walk up to the front door now! The only problem now is that the freshly painted door made me notice how badly the door trim needs a new coat of paint, too. There’s always something!

June 4, 2014