Welcome to our first official house tour! We bought our house this week and cannot be more excited to share it with all of our friends and family! We had been looking in many different Milwaukee suburbs, but we landed in our preferred burb of Wauwatosa. Tosa, has a great mix of city and suburbs in the fact that our home is walking distance to restaurants, bars and coffee shops. But it also has a homey suburban feel, with great schools, parks, a mall and pretty much any creature comfort you could need.

After getting the keys, we headed over to our house to christen the locks and bring in a few bags of clothes to slowly get things out of our apartment. We are moving in next weekend, but I wanted to share an initial tour of our home before we make updates and move all of our stuff in.

Entryway

Our entryway continues into our living/dining room and has lots of natural light. We are planning on brightening it up even more with some white paint and light curtains. We can see this being a great place for a reading nook and play area for our future kids. I will share some updated design plans soon since this will be one of our first projects!

Living/Dining Room

Attached to our entryway is our living room, which then turns into our dining area. This is a uniquely shaped room, so designing it has been a little bit of a challenge. But I am so excited about the original wood trim and built-ins. We can’t wait to bring this whole space back to life and accent the home’s character and charm.

Master

The next stop on our tour is the master! Like most older homes, all of the bedrooms are on the smaller side. In addition, the master has a unique shape to it. It also has an entrance to the one and only bathroom in the house, but we are planning on taking that entry out eventually, because I actually don’t love “jack and jill” bathrooms.

Our first order of business is painting walls, buying a real bed and installing some curtains, and we will eventually add some custom storage to our closet. (Don’t worry, I will do a whole post on our design plans for this space! I am just too excited not to share!)

Second Bedroom

Our second bedroom is, again, small and right off the kitchen. Cute and cozy. It’s basically John Mulaney’s realtor’s dream room, haha (perfect for an office… maybe a nursery).

Kitchen

Our kitchen is in the center of the house and has great cabinet space and a pantry. I eventually want to update it to something a little more my style. (The fridge is too big for the space and juts out, so the drawer and cabinet next to it are blocked and not usable, haha.) But for now, it will work great! I also love that there is lots of natural light and that it connects all of the rooms together; it’s truly the heart of the home.

Bathroom

Our one bathroom is small, but has a deep jetted tub which makes up for it! I don’t love the overall aesthetic of the bathroom, so this will be the first demo project for us. We want to add more storage in a vanity, a larger mirror with storage, and multiple hooks for towels. Along with painting, and tiling the floor/shower, eventually.

If you look towards the bottom left of this photo you can see the thing that initially made me want to say “no” to this house during our first tour! You actually have to step down into our bathroom! It’s a little quirky, but hey, that’s what you get with older homes. So we are just chalking it up to the original “charm.”

Third Bedroom/Office/Guest Room

Our guest room/office is on the top floor (which is technically a dormered attic.) It has very unique rooflines and have great natural wood trim and paneling, which I love. There is also a small cedar closet at the top of the stairs and a little storage nook that leads into the actual attic.

We both actually love the navy color it is right now, but I have always wanted a cozy dark evergreen room, and I think this would be perfect for that! We will see what we decide on in the coming months, though.

Basement

The basement is partially finished, and isn’t much to write home about. It’s a pretty typical 1920’s home style basement. The head clearance when going downstairs isn’t great, and the configuration isn’t ideal. But, with a little TLC, it will be a great place for our comfy couch, TV and a bar!

Yard

The final spot on our tour is the yard! We have a typical Tosa yard (meaning it’s a bit on the smaller side), but I actually think yards can sometimes be over rated. I love the tree in our back yard, and the amount of flowers and the lilac bush that we have towards the back. We also have a magenta peony bush in the fun yard that I can’t wait to enjoy next spring.

Other than doing a bit of weed clean up, and trimming, we are planning on removing the boxwoods that line the back of our house (they’re half dead) and laying a concrete patio. We also have a little deck in the front of our house that I plan on making a fun hang out with cozy cushions and flower beds next year.

I can’t wait to share more with you guys as our house evolves into a home. If you couldn’t tell, we already have some big plans, and I am so excited to get started! And don’t worry, I will check in with an updated tour once we have made some improvements.

What are some things you put in your home that you absolutely love? As a first-time homeowner, we will gladly take any inspiration or advise you have!!