We Bought A Loft! (+Before and After Pics)
If you've been following my social media for the past year you've noticed me and my little family have spent a lot of time in Washington DC. Truth is, we moved to DC a little over a year ago. In a quick decision, my husband and I decided instead of renewing our lease in our apartment, to quit paying rent and immediately start saving for a house. We packed up and moved from west midtown Atlanta all the way to the suburbs of Maryland for what we thought would be 6 months of rent-free living in my mom's extra spacious crib. One year later we are blessed to say we are now the co-owners of a gorgeous two-floor loft in the middle of the city. (I hope you said that last part in the tone of Loft Music x The Weeknd).
Im sure you person reading this knows something about the laws of attraction, and how if you want something to speak it into existence (if not, you might want to check out some of these books like, right now). But this condo is a true testament of that very statement. A while ago, I made a subconscious decision that my husband and I were "loft people" and we would always live in one. I meditated on it and even made plans around it. I named my blog "The Loft Wife" years ago, a play off of the "house wife" title that I constantly self-proclaimed. That was way before I became a hard working kick-ass mompreneur and I thought cooking and doing chores was cute, but i digress. Oddly enough, when we began the house hunt, we were looking at everything but lofts. We looked at single family homes, town homes, older flats with tons of character, and cookie-cutter new constructions. We had no direction and no idea what we really wanted. So the day our loft appeared on the market, we sent it along with some other "not-sure-maybes" to our AHHHmazing realtor.
When we came to our first visit we were immediately blown away by the high ceilings, funky shaped windows, and allll thaaat wall space. We visited at night, so the Mercedes Benz stadium all lit up and steps away from our balcony was a super hit with the kids. The owners had been renting it out for a while and the tenants hadn't been putting much effort into it, so it was going to be a small project. Perfect. We were the first showing of the property so we were ahead of the curve. It took over a month of stressful closing anxiety, but on Nov 10th, while I stayed behind to throw the most epic bridal shower of all time, my hubby and my mommy went to closing received the keys to our new loft.
As mentioned before, the previous residents did a very shabby job keeping the loft up to date. Aside from the all new appliances and recently renovated bathrooms, everything else looked pretty ugly. We immediately brought in a contractor to paint the walls and trim. We choose a bright white wall paint color and a matte black trim. We also had the stairs painted black to make the loft feel very industrial. Next we replaced the light fixtures. I chose black light fixtures with exposed Edison light bulbs to bring in an extra industrial feel. Lastly we had luxury Vinyl wood floors installed. Because we have tiny kids, we needed something a little softer than concrete in the main living area. We chose a cinnamon colored, barnyard wood pattern. Finally we added a chalkboard wall in the vintage schoolhouse green color, for obvious reasons (aka I write all over everything these days). And Viola! The magic a coat of fresh paint and light fixtures make. We spent a little less than $5k total on renovations and the loft feels like a brand new home. I still can't believe we found something so perfect, like it was waiting for us. The power of attraction.
Anyways, we have a bunch of projects left for our loft before we can actually say we're complete. The boy's room has lots of work to be done, but I fee like after Santa comes to town we might have way more things to work with in there. We still have to designate one or two office areas in the loft as well. My husband wants to build a office/Rad cave that resembles a yellow London telephone booth. I'm here for it. Will def end up installing a faux brick wall or some tile backsplash in the near future. The possibilities are infinite.
