The Sitch

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but right now my fiancée and I are renting a room upstairs in a house that his parents rent out to med students in the area. Over the summer we did a lot of packing, storing, and giving away of things from our separate residents to move to a new city and ultimately downsize. I love the house we live in now, but fitting the contents of our previously separate residents into one room has been difficult, to say the least...

Right now Brennan's sister is living in the master bedroom downstairs. She's going to be moving out this May or June to start her new life as Resident with an official M.D. following her name! Such an exciting time for her. And when she moves out, the entire downstairs is going to be emptied. A beautiful clean slate for Brennan and I to make our own. I'm so excited by the prospect! With that being said, there's definitely a lot of positives and negatives to living in a house a year before you get your hands on it.

One thing I've heard a lot of bloggers say (or rather write) is that it's important to live in the space first and see what works before diving in to decorate right away. I'm not a particularly patient person when it comes to decorating. When I dream something up, I want to start immediately. I'm just usually so excited, I can't help it! Which is kind of ironic since one of my favorite styles of decorating is the collected over time look. (The kitchen from It's Complicated anyone?) So ultimately, this year forces me to take a step back and figure out what works. I guess you could say I'm being forced into learning patience... :)

Now it's not like we're living in an empty shell here. The downstairs is decorated and completely furnished by Brennan's sister and she really has a great eye when it comes to design. It's just very different from Brennan and I's style. She likes things to be symmetrical and likes even numbers. I like A-symmetry and odd numbers. Both beautiful. Just different.

Now the big negative or really the big challenge is that this house is not my house. I don't own it, so even though our situation might be a little more lax than a normal renters, I can't just do anything I want to the house. For example, I'd love to demo the master and half bath that share a wall. But I feel like structural changes to the house might be frowned upon by my in-laws since it's their house, as cool as they are. Even with painting I have to make sure I pick out a neutral color that the future buyers or renters (and Brennan's parents) will love. Ultimately this DIYer is DIYing to sell.

I'm not exactly waiting until we move downstairs to get started on improvements though. I've been painting or working on some project every time my roommates go to interview for Residency. It's a perfect way to jumpstart things before we claim the downstairs. And even though the house isn't ours I'm still excited to share our plight to fixing up this house.

Sorry, I know there's a lot of words in this post and not a lot of pictures, lol. But I just wanted to explain my lack of knocking down walls. And for the next four months, I'm just going to continue to dream up ideas from my bedroom.