Pull up a sofa, let’s curl up by the fire and chat about all things DIY renovation, here at the Blonde Birch Farm. Except the fireplace is currently indisposed and not functioning (and partially sitting on the back patio), so we can’t quite do that just yet – but soon – promise!

I took you on a tour of the property last time, and today I am giving you a peek inside at the living spaces. These images show the spaces as they were back in September, before we bought it. For context, this house is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home, advertised at a little over 2400 square feet. The house sits on 2 relatively flat, entirely usable acres, which is a magical to find in this area. There is a semi-attached barn conversion with an office and a large workshop-garage space on the bottom and a guest apartment on top.

After moving in, we discovered that the main house is actually only a little more than 1700 square feet, and that the additional square footage listed, included the office and guest quarters in the barn conversion. I’m fairly certain this isn’t entirely Kosher, but it matters not since we were already planning on a major remodel and addition – sooner rather than later.

The picture at the beginning of this tour shows the view from the entryway into the family room. The image above is looking the opposite direction and toward the entryway. This is essentially the only true living space in the house. Let’s just say I hope to remedy this in the very near future because it is close quarters when we have company. That accordion style door you see in the image above is actually our pantry. Not shown, is the powder room that sits opposite from that pantry.

You can get a sense of the actual entryway area from the image above. You can also very likely see that this home is not currently open-concept in any way, shape or form. Since we are currently using the family room space as a living and dining combo, it is no longer as open and airy as the pictures make it feel. But, that built in cabinet in the corner there is actually a wet bar, complete with a working sink and a light. Peeking out from the left hand corner you can see the dining room and the stairs.

The dining room is somewhat enclosed, as a traditional dining room might be, and is situated conveniently near the kitchen. My modern tendencies make this space feel not quite right for an actual dining room, which is probably good since this was the only space that could easily house our piano. This is also why we are rocking the living – dining combo…

The kitchen, typically the heart of a home. This one has a lovely window over the sink, but if you have a keen eye you might have noticed that this window is just one of three styles already found in the two rooms we have shown so far. I think the previous owners started updating some of the windows, due to water issues, so this likely explains the mash-up.

There are a couple of nice appliances in this house, namely the dishwasher, cappuccino maker and a steam oven – all Miele. Aside from those little nuggets, you might notice no obvious fridge in the kitchen, aside from a mini fridge…

That’s right, that door you see on the other side of the breakfast nook leads to the laundry room, and that my friends, is where the fridge and the steam oven lie. True story: I didn’t know what a steam oven was and had to look it up! At least we get to pass by the sunny bay window in the nook, along the way.

Aside from a powder room that sits between the wet bar cabinet and the kitchen, that concludes the main floor of this house… and now for the second floor spaces.

The master bedroom in all it’s glory. A nice size altogether, though the placement of the door limits the amount of space for nightstands, once a king sized bed lives here.

The master bath appears to have been updated sometime in the last 5 years, probably around the same time they updated the kitchen. There is a cohesive look between the two, with similar tile for the back splash and surround. The shower is a tub-shower combo but the design is similar to the built in bathtubs from the 70’s and entirely crafted from tile.

This nifty little space must be some sort of master sitting room or was originally meant to be a study that adjoins the master – I’m not entirely sure.  The previous owners used it as a gym and it has come in handy for me in an entirely different way, so yahoo for that.

This room above is the first of the other two bedrooms in this house, and currently the room I put the boys in. Neither of them likes to sleep alone, so I put them together hoping it will keep them in their room at night. Alas, this is rarely the case, but a gal can dream… Their window looks out into the backyard and has a nice view of the pool.

Above is the third and final bedroom in the main house. It is nearly a mirror image of the adjacent bedroom that the boys are in. This room has a window that looks out over the front yard and has a lovely view of the land around us as well.

Which leads me to the second full bath in this house in all of it’s tiny glory. Behind the curtain lies a tub – shower combo and let me tell you… this space is not large. We are all currently using this bath for various reasons and it is a tight squeeze with a decent amount of inconvenience thrown in for good measure.

The last stop on our tour is the guest apartment space, above the workshop. It is large and in charge, to be sure, but there is currently no bathroom in this building, so it leaves something to be desired. Someone staying here would basically need to go leave the apartment, head down the stairs and into the workshop, then outside to enter the main house through the laundry room. Even then, there is only the powder room downstairs so all bathing needs to take place in the second bathroom upstairs. This makes the hygiene sitch a bit complicated.

The previous owners apparently had a thing for watching movies on projectors, hence the large outdoor movie screen in the backyard, and this room was built around that purpose as well. It has a cutout above the bed and an interesting raised platform outside the space, sitting above the stairway. This is where the projector is supposed to sit, projecting through the cutout and onto a screen that used to be mounted to the wall.  There is also some sort of surround sound speaker system built in, but honestly I am not sure it is the most modern of technologies and is likely not going to get much use from me.

I hope you enjoyed this lengthy tour of the house and a major dose of ‘before’ shots… I have so many plans for this place and I can’t wait to share them with you. We are absolutely fumbling our way through the process and there is a huge learning curve – but I guess that is all part of the fun?