The Houghs: The Ivy House

Our new rental home

Hi guys.

Well, we've been back in Michigan for almost a week now, but it definitely doesn't feel like it - it feels more like ten minutes. We've had those 'moving blinders' on, and have been focused solely on moving our belongings into our new home. It's been pretty easy going, though, so I really can't complain (as usual, I've done about 90% of the moving, while Kris handles 90% of the cleaning.) All in all, we're making headway and moved the majority of the items from Mom's garage and the moving truck into our house (though there's some larger furniture items still over there we're waiting on.)

Here's a brief tour:

Our front entrance. Remember Mary? I ended up taking her from the last house because I had to balance something heavy in the moving truck (she's made of cement, so she's a heavy chick.) Sacrilegiously, she's currently serving as an impromptu door stopper when the need arises.

Living room

We're pretty stoked about having two fireplaces (there's another one in the basement, that one being a traditional wood-burning fireplace and this one pictured here being gas with fake logs.) Evidently we need to have it inspected before we use it, which I'm 100% cool with - I don't want my house burning down.

I'm a big fan of theses space ship windows in this living room, how they angle out like that. The house was built in 1957, so I guess that was somewhat common back then. Still kinda weird, though.

Dining room (to actually be used as a real-life dining room in this house, so says the Warden.)

From the dining room, you enter the kitchen (cupboards on the left, there.) Straight ahead is the garage, with a half-bathroom on the right and stairs leading down to a basement on the left.

A kitchen without drawers. Seriously. Who designs a kitchen without f***ing drawers?

The half bathroom. . . also known as the Shitting Room.

Leading down into the Basement.

The basement is HUGE. This is welcome news, indeed - although houses in Michigan tend to have basements, the bedrooms seem to be smaller. This proved a dilemma at first, because we're having to figure out how to juggle all of our stuff around (for example, my Study is going to be split up into multiple rooms, with retro video games going in the basement, my vinyl going in the living room, and my office stuff going into a co-office with Kris' computer and desk.) Not an ideal situation, surely, but one I can live with for the next twelve months.

This area here (comprising the half of the basement closest to the stairs) will be the girls' Play Room. We won't be using that fireplace, obviously. There's a huge storage wing if you go down the hall to the right (I'll show you that in a sec), and pictured on the left you have a closet door under the stairs. If you continue around that corner to the left you enter a utility room, pictured below. . .

Kris' work area

That utility sink is disgusting - we won't be using that

The clutter under the stairs - random junk from the house we won't be using

My work bench - pretty nice having it inside for a change, and not in a humid garage

Pretty sure that AC/DC converter box there is a remnant of the Dharma Initiative

The Storage room - runs nearly the whole length of the basement, and more than enough space to house all the seasonal totes and boxes of stuff we won't be unpacking for the next twelve months. What's not pictured is a wall of wooden shelving on the left wall to handle smaller items, too. I'll be putting up additional shelving from our previous home's back patio, as well. . . if only to keep everything off the floor, as Michigan basements can sometimes flood.

More shelving. Another feature I like concerning this room is the fact that it has a door that locks, preventing little kids from sneaking back in here and messing around with stuff they shouldn't be.

Back upstairs, standing in the Dining Room and facing away from the kitchen. Straight ahead is our bedroom, with the full bathroom on the left, and the hallway continuing around the corner to the right.

Kris chose to keep the wall decals in the display cases, here.

Following the hallway around the corner you have the girls' room to the left and me and Kris' office straight ahead.

What will eventually be me and Kris' office.

The Office (the rooms here are all 11 x 11, or 11 x 12. . . I think the biggest is 12 x 13 - all pretty small, about the same size as the girls' room in our old house.) But, as I've said before, we have tons of storage space and this is only temporary.

What will become the girls' bedroom (notice the wear on the floor's finish? Hopefully that's not remnants of a gruesome blood stain.)

More of the girls' room.

They were big fans of the leftover wall mirrors. . .

Our bedroom (it'll hold the dresser, bed and night stands, but our armoire is going to have to go in the basement and serve as the basement entertainment center for the next year. So no TV in bed. God damn it.)

Coming back out into the dining room and living room.

The bathroom.

Here's where our whole family is going to have to share limited space while getting ready in the morning. Should be awesome. The tub needs to be re-glazed before folks can use it, so in the meantime we're all showering over at my mom's. . . which is just as cool as it sounds.

If you continue through the dining room's sliding door that leads outside, you come out into a large, screened-in patio. Surrounded by a thick, jungle mess of overgrown weeds.

Again, the windows look like the bridge of a space ship.

Stairs leading back up into the Dining Room.

A gap in the fence in the backyard - I'm going to have to block it off with a rock or chicken wire or something to prevent the dog from getting out. . .

We've been assured that they're going to get someone to come out and cut all this crap down soon, which is great news for us 'cause I sure as hell didn't want to deal with it. The whole backyard is covered in rocks and gravel, and will be used solely as a place for Watson to go to the bathroom - our kids won't be using it anyway, so I don't care what the grass (or lack thereof) looks like.

The door to the left leads into the screened-in patio, while the door straight ahead leads into the garage. To the right is a shed, connected to the garage, while directly overhead is a ceiling similar to that which covers the screened-in patio.

The move-in begins. . .

Taking a much-needed movie break (with Star Wars, of course.)

Our patio. Large and shaded, this will be my new designated pipe-smoking area.

The garage. That fridge in the back isn't staying, and it'll only fit one car anyway (I'll store the bikes in that back area where the fridge currently is so that I can pull my car in - Kris' beast of a van probably won't fit.)

To the right, you have your screened-in patio, to the left is the shed (I'm standing in the doorway leading from the garage into the back yard, which has just been cut down and weeded. . . somewhat.)