Before Photos of the MCC House

Hi, everyone!  I hope you all had a very Happy Easter.  We went to church, then the four of us spent the day moving more stuff over to the MCC (Mint Chocolate Chip) house.  I did make us a ham dinner, which we ate on the couch since our table and chairs have already been moved. We must have been starving from all that heavy lifting, because we demolished it!

Today I thought I’d share a few photos of the inside of the MCC house, so you can get an idea of the layout.  The outside is getting a pressure wash and a full yard clean up this coming week, but we couldn’t wait for that to happen before we started moving in, so the outside should look better in the coming days, too.

| Front Porch |

For those of you who might have missed it, the kids and I are downsizing to the MCC house in downtown Southern Pines while my husband heads out to Kansas for his next Army assignment.  Since our son will be a senior in high school this fall, we opted not to transplant him to what would be his third high school.  Since we’ll need to bear the costs of two households and (hopefully) frequent plane tickets for my husband to come home, we opted to move out of our big, beautiful rental home.

The MCC house is all about location; it’s within walking distance of all the restaurants and shops in downtown Southern Pines.  My kids can walk to school, too, although my son is hoping he’ll be driving!  It’s just under 1400 sf, and we were in 4000 sf, so it’s been a busy few weeks as we purge and decide what’s truly important to us.

The front door opens right to the living room.  I like the gray on the walls, so it will stay.

To the right is the fireplace (wood burning) and some quaint little built ins.

The living room opens to the dining area–there’s no separate dining room so my dining room table and chairs will go out to Kansas with Chris.  Or maybe to storage.  Who knows?!

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Plans for this room include painting the walls the same gray as the living room, to make the space seem more open and cohesive, and hanging my chandelier (you can see it peeking out from behind the ladder; it’s the Ballard Carriage House lantern. Because we’re a military family, we own one set of counter height stools and one set of bar stools, so we’re ready for anything.  We’ve had these for about six years and love them.

The home was built in the 1920s and has a basement; the washer and dryer are down there plus quite a bit of storage.  The steps are off the dining room:

The kitchen is small but updated.  There isn’t a pantry, so I’m going to have to do smaller, frequent shopping trips, but I’m also within walking distance of our wonderful farmer’s market.

The kitchen cart is one that I’ve used as an island before in other houses and it will work just fine under the window for extra storage. It was really inexpensive and comes with three baskets (I still have to figure out where the third one is!!).

Also on the first floor are two bedrooms and a bathroom.  My kids alternate first dibs on the bedrooms every time we move and it was my daughter’s turn.  She chose the slightly larger one on the front of the house. We were all shocked–not!

Because she has a huge collection of books, we’re going to relocate our living room built ins to her room, since there’s no room for them in the living room of this house.  Her room has already been painted; I’ll show you in a minute.

My son’s room has a dark green/gray paint that he loves, so it will stay.

The pine hardwoods throughout are lovely and they creak (am I the only one who thinks that’s quaint?).  Typical of an older house, some of the floors aren’t quite level.

I forgot to snap a picture of the downstairs bathroom, but it’s updated and has a double vanity.  The kids will share it and it’s our powder room.

Out back is a small deck and screened porch; there’s also a fire pit area that the kids are looking forward to using when they have friends over.

The single car garage is detached:

Upstairs is the master; there’s a small area for the bed and then a sitting area and bath.

I love the quaint windows on both sides of the upper floor.

The bathroom is spacious; at some point I may paint over the green, but that’s pretty far down on my to-do list!

There’s also another room that is going to a combination storage room/closet since there’s not a proper closet upstairs.  Even though it’s a small house, the amount of storage is pretty decent, I think.

My good friend, Kathie, helped me paint my daughter’s room on Friday, so here it is:

I had SW Sea Salt left over from her current room, so we used that.  The headboard is new because her bed is going upstairs for me to use and my husband is taking the master bed to Kansas with him.  If you’re confused by all that–I am, too!

The bookshelves are in place, and she’s going to organize her books today.

So, that’s pretty much all of it.  I’d say we’re about 75% moved at this point, but what’s left is the heavy stuff, like the piano, garage fridge, and washer and dryer.  Oh, and an armoire or two.

Thanks for taking at peek at the MCC house with me–I’ll keep you all updated on the progress.