No Make Up Home Tour
This post is part of an online home tour! We’re all getting real and taking the make up off our normally put together homes. Visit the other blogs participating in the tour and be sure to follow everyone on Instagram.
Thank you Kyla for organizing!
This house is very much a story of upstairs and downstairs. Normally, you see the house and us at our best on social media. Today is truth time – it’s time to take off the make up.
Some days I’m not sure which is stronger: my desire to fix this house or my desire to say f*ck it and move back to NYC. Easy seems so good some days. But then I see something that’s easy and my head explodes from the level of sheer boredom that could engulf my soul. I don’t do well with boring. I grew up in military housing that was all the same shade of dank off white. I love the element of surprise and unexpectedness – Stony Ford fills that for me.
I’m a typical type-A perfectionist. I have ideas. So. Many. Ideas. I know what looks good and I know what I want, but Stony Ford does what Stony Ford wants. Maybe there is something the house is teaching me. To be less of a control freak. To care less about details. This house shows it’s age gracefully, but then there are parts of it that look flat out run down. Paint fixes a lot of things. $20,000 dropped into electrical work would also fix a lot of things.
When we bought this place our family warned us it would be a money pit. They were right. Complete money pit. Everyone views money differently and how you spend it on your home is ultimately the most personal. So, we keep feeding the beast. Maybe one day she’ll be full. And completely satisfied. I’d rather feed this beast and work my ass off than give in to the blandness of the expected. The backyard water feature. Open floor plans. White paint. Beige. Basic.
The work is dirty and at the end of it, its just over. I often wonder if the day will come where I won’t have the desire to jump into the next project and get this house to where it needs to be. It will just be okay where it’s at. I can plug in a blow dryer in the bathrooms. Not work at a computer sitting in the middle of the hallway. Take a shower on the second floor.
It’s an evolution. It’s a process. The house and us.
Gah!!!!! Stoney Ford is quite possibly the most beautiful mess I’ve ever laid eyes on.
I do not see boredom anywhere in the foreseeable future for you, lol! What a challenge! What a house! It’s going to be beautiful!
Even a hot mess, this house is still GORGE!
She looks great even with her cracks and wrinkles showing! xo
I could never take on this kind of a challenge, but I am so glad you are so I can follow along! Total respect and it is divine!
ok, i want to visit even MORE now!!!!
It may be a money pit, but it’s a gorgeous one!
I think you might have us beat on the “no makeup” part but man those are some gorgeous bones! Can’t wait to follow along now… Cheers!
I was so looking forward to your tour and you definitely delivered. Such beautiful pictures.
so much beauty, even in the most undone areas…and I relate so much to your story! military housing for me as well, and too many bland homes – I would die a slow death in anything boring. 😉
Even in the “mess”, you still know how to photograph it in a way that makes it all look beautiful! Such a good eye. I hope to come up to visit someday! –Cousin Laura
So beautiful! Love following your home story. You guys inspire me so much
Nothing good ever came easy and everything you have done so far is.so.good.
Love following along on Stanford’s progress.
Stonyford.
Auto correct I tell ya.
This made me feel like a voyeur in all the best ways.
You guys have undertaken quite a challenge but your home is beautiful (even without the makeup). I LOVE old houses but they are definitely money pits. Growing up my parents restored a 1940s Cape in Andover and a Colonial Mansion in Woburn – they turned it into a restaurant and it was such a mess. Pipes had burst. My love for old homes runs deep. We now live in a 1920s home so much money has been spent on things you don’t notice like new ceilings, a main beam etc. I believe you can’t quite find the character in newer homes even though they are less work. LOVE your blog. xx
This place is incredible and your photography is so on point, gah!!
I just found you on Instagram and everything you said here resonates with me. We’re on year 9 now of pouring all the money/time/life into this giant beautiful thing. We are approaching the end, with only a few rooms needing finished and the whole exterior. No small task, that exterior. The middle years were the worst. Monthly emotional breakdowns. but one foot in front of the other and we’re doing it. People thought we were crazy. We kind of were. Who raises a family in a giant money pit fixer upper that is outrageously expensive to heat? But one thing we are not is boring. And I know the minute we are finished with this place we will be looking around for another project – maybe not quite so big, but something new all the same. Heck, we’ve already been looking around. :)Nothing gives us more life than dreaming and restoration. Cheers!
Please get a show on hgtv. I so enjoyed watching your guest bedroom transformation and I forgot how interestingly informative you both are until I just watched the video. That room is absolutely Gorgeous. The raw bones of your home have so much potential and I can’t wait to see how you turn every room into a gem. It’s so nice to see true design inspiration rather than today’s trend of white walls with black/blue/gold accents. Thank you.
We have a project home, too, but it’s not old or as large, but some days I feel the same. So I’m stealing this line–I’m sure I’ll parahrase, but I’ll always give you proper credit.
“I’d rather feed this beast and work my ass off than give in to the blandness of the expected. The backyard water feature. Open floor plans. White paint. Beige. Basic.”