Letters from Pemberley

We’re moving to Malibu this fall!  After four years on the waiting list, we’re finally moving onto Pepperdine’s campus.  Pepperdine has two neighborhoods of subsidized faculty housing, and we’re moving to the top of Baxter Drive, up the street from our friends the Andersons AND from Derek’s office.  I had become happy in Thousand Oaks, but over the past year, a lot of frustrating things have been happening with our house, and I totally had a change of heart and was open to moving.  We’re bursting at the seams, several things all broke down at once (culminating in Easter weekend with no dishwasher, half a sink, and company in town), and our landlord informed us rather suddenly in April that they wanted to sell our house.  I panicked, Derek called his boss and told her we needed to move on campus NOW, and we asked a lot of people to pray.  Pepperdine couldn’t have been slower and more secretive with the whole process, and I was ready to throw in the towel and look for other places out here in the valley, when suddenly we got word that we were one of the lucky four families to get on campus, and could we come look at the potential units and rank them?  No sitters were available, so I hobbled around three three-story units with my crutches, kids in tow, and we got to see units in three distinct phases of renovation.  The 4-bedroom hadn’t been started yet and has not been updated since it was built.  A 3-bedroom-plus-office was being torn apart and redone.  A smaller 3-bedroom was finished and ready to move in.  We felt very strongly that we needed the 4-bedroom and wrote a pleading letter explaining our family size, the fact that we homeschool, that we frequently have our parents visiting from out of town to help me out when Derek is gone on work trips, that we hope to be foster parents (and legally needed a fourth bedroom for that), and that my foot was broken and we would rather move later rather than sooner.  We got the 4-bedroom!  We received some very generous family help to be able to help us put down a down payment, and we are planning to close on it this fall.

One of the amazing things about the timing is that this unit had not been updated since it was built.  If it had been, we would have moved in pretty much as-is, 3/4 size oven in tiny kitchen and all.  Pepperdine has a policy that when they sell their units, they have to be up to “university standards,” and this one was not, at all.  So not only are they slapping a fresh coat of paint on things, they’re redoing the floors, totally remodeling the kitchen, updating bathrooms, and replacing cabinets and countertops.  Since they haven’t started any of that, they called and asked me what I would like.  If we’d gotten one of the units that was already done, I would have had to have been content with their standard plan, including tile floors in the kitchen and carpet everywhere else.  Carpet in the dining room?  No thank you!  I got to request hardwood floors on the whole first floor, and after four years of linoleum and nasty rental carpet, I can’t wait. This afternoon, I went over to the unit to meet with the real estate director and the university designer to talk about my preferences.  It was truly the best of all worlds–a professional designer who has already figured out color palates that work with my vague ideas, getting to choose between options that the university is paying for (so I’m not tempted to just pick the cheapest option because it’s cheapest), and a custom-designed, brand-new kitchen that takes into account the fact that we have a large family, homeschool, and want to host students a lot.  The only disappointment was that they’re putting in stainless steel appliances.  Gag!  Ugly, utilitarian-looking, hard to clean, show fingerprints, opposite of my aesthetic in every possible way.  Anyway, other than the fact that I’ll have ugly appliances and won’t have a yard or privacy, I really am excited to move!  We will close on the house once the renovations are done, probably late October or early November.

Here are a ton of pictures of it, as is.  Can’t wait for the “after” shots!

view from in front of our garage

walkway along the side of the garage to our front door.

The garage is not attached, so we’ll walk through this entryway to the front door. No biggie since it never rains there. I might try growing flowers again.

From our front door–community playground and pool are just on the other side of that round thing.

straight across from our front door, hiking trails

going to be our family room

family room out to patio. Any advice on window coverings appreciated. I hate blinds, so I’m thinking roman shades?

Me in pain. This wall of the family room backs up to the fireplace wall of the living room, sortof like our current set-up.

Standing in the family room, looking into the kitchen and the room beyond, which will both be turned into a huge, new kitchen!  That hideous tile flooring covers literally every inch of the floors, stairs, bedrooms, and all.  Shudder.

Plans for our new kitchen. Lots and lots of cabinets!

looking at the kitchen from the other direction.

Living room. Again, window treatment advice? Lots of narrow windows to think about.

Living room from the fireplace, stairs going up to our bedroom. We’re going to paint that big wall a light greenish accent color. Window ideas? I’m thinking we just won’t cover the round one?

living room from the accent wall. Not sure what to do with that alcove. Again, windows?

This one shows you how high the ceilings are in that room.  Walkway across to our bedroom door above, and if you walk straight past me, you turn right to go downstairs to the kids’ rooms, or keep straight to hit the hall closet, bathroom, and front door (and through the window, the garage door).

master bedroom. I think we’ll be hosting some bookshelves up here.

master bedroom. All of our bedrooms are going to be light gray. I’m finally going to get rid of the hand-me-down valances and bedspread that were never really my style and plan to embrace a navy/yellow/gray color scheme. Even plotting to repaint our furniture! Curtain ideas here? We’ll probably put a desk under this window.

master bedroom going into master bath/huge walk-in closet

Going downstairs to the 1st floor. You can’t get away from the ugly tile. Straight ahead, tiny laundry room!!! I won’t have to wash my clothes in the garage anymore!!!!

Tommy’s bedroom. His loft bed will have to go up against this window. Bummer.

Tommy’s room. All three of the downstairs bedrooms have doors leading out to our tiny patio which is at the edge of the mountain. Will have to figure out how to do child-proof locks on all of those. What am I going to do with this tiny narrow window and glass door?

Tommy’s room. I hate sliding closet doors like this. We have them in our current house. They eat up an entire wall, making furniture placement tricky. And they all have these mirrors. Because a mother of four young children really wants to clean floor-to-ceiling mirrors all the time.

Coming out of Tommy’s room, turning left, and looking into the girls’ room on the left and the guest room/sewing room (!) on the right.

Girls’ room. Since I don’t plan on them ever going out this sliding door, I plan to treat them like one big window.

Girls’ closet. Okay, Grandpa Willett. Can you turn this closet into something like their current California Closets system, for a fraction of the price? Storage is going to be at a premium here…

Guest/sewing room. Might have to store the treadmill down here.

Back to the second floor, view out of the family room to the back patio and beyond. That’s the law school down to the left!

Out on the patio. Since we have no yard, this is it for play space. Will probably have a little table and chairs, and not much else…

No backyard, but this view.

Mountains.

Flooring! The hideous tile will be replaced by the hardwood on the main floor, tile in the bathrooms, and carpet in the bedrooms. Apparently wider planks of wood are the “new thing” in home decorating.

That’s it!  Seriously, if you have ideas for window treatments, please pass them along!