Okay friends and family, I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and wanting to get better pictures or do a walk-through video, or in some other way show off our new house to so many. Everything has taken SO long. And the one day we actually got to see our house, in mid-June, their kids were all over and it just didn’t feel right to take pictures. So we’re going off the few pics from the real estate listings and a few extras their realtor sent us, including cheap phone pics of the floor-plan that zooming in makes illegible. And our fuzzy memories of one hour four months ago. And then with Covid-19, we’ve not even gotten to show pics and explain layout to more than a couple close friends here in Budapest. So, bear with me as I try and create a comprehensive tour of our new house, mostly for our closer friends and family who are too far away to sit down with tea and my laptop and do this in person.
Three windows face the street, the two ‘open’ will be our living room, the one shuttered closed will be Norbi’s office. In front of the car is a large gate that opens to our property, with a smaller door within it. The red brick wall is our property too, so it goes over that far, going back farther than across.
You go through the entry gate from the street, the house, with it’s entrance up a few steps to the left, a rundown carport, covered outside space on the right. We plan to tear down the dilapidated old building on the right and build a proper 3 car garage come spring. Behind our property is an old factory, a wall of which is our back property line. It’s a protected, historical building that was recently renovated, parts of which are still used for storage and some business. The wall is high and covered in ivy. You can just see the top of it at the back. That’s an old walnut tree in the center of the backyard, there’s also a cherry tree, and maybe one more behind the house.
The original old house stopped before that door and window in the middle here, they added on a 2-story addition at this end which they used as their main living room downstairs, and master bedroom/office upstairs. For us we’re still not 100% sure what we’ll call the large downstairs room (“dining room” on coming floor-plan) – mixture of sitting room, Rachel’s office/craft space. And upstairs will be our guest suite.
Before we enter the house, floor-plans with English written over the Hungarian room names.
You can see the original turn-of-the-century home was just the three big rooms, with a long outdoor porch, with individual doors from each room onto it. Over time that porch was enclosed and the small, ‘newer’ entrance added. They also, at some point, added a pantry to the existing kitchen, making it smaller, but still a large room. The smallest of the two bathrooms was also part of the older home. The more recent 2-storey addition is everything to the right of those original three rooms, plus an old boiler/ furnace room, that only has a door (and window) to outside, no connection indoors at all. We are seriously looking at re-configuring that middle space – the two bathrooms and the boiler room into one larger bathroom and a smaller kitchen. Using the existing kitchen as a dining room, and a nicer room to enter into than our kitchen.
The entryway/ old enclosed porch that you enter into. First pic is basically taken from the doorway, looking left, middle shot is stepped left a bit and looking back right. Last view is looking back from inside the archway into the existing kitchen. Wide door with window in first pic opens to Norbi’s office, same width, still more of the old enclosed porch. Small door to the right is the smaller bathroom. Archway was old wall/door and leads to kitchen. I love this space, has huge windows and so much light.
The kitchen, this space is what you see as you enter the house – hence our re-thinking of it as our ‘kitchen’. We already plan to tear out the only ‘built-in’ section so we can re-do the floors fully, plus I don’t like how that little wall juts out into high traffic area, as the door next to the stove is the only route to the rest of the house. I also don’t like the stove so central in that flow of traffic. If we keep this the kitchen, I at least want to move the stove to the back wall, away from the door.
Behind that little door is the pantry that you walk through, then a small hallway with the 2nd, slightly bigger bathroom on the right and storage on the left underneath the stairs. No pictures of that space. I want to possibly remove the door, just have it open, and add a door to the right (and long) side of the pantry.
Bathrooms: they were really into checkerboard tiles! LOL Also, the ONLY rooms in the house not painted white. The smaller bathroom near the entry/kitchen is the red one, which was, thankfully, not so very bright red in person, more a burgundy. The grey one is a bit bigger, has the laundry in it too. We plan to re-do both, but both are usable and probably re-done within 10-20 years, maybe when they did the 2-storey addition. So, for the age of the house, they could have been worse. 😉
Upstairs half-bath and guest room, which had been their master bedroom. As we don’t plan to change much in the new addition, we’ll probably live in this part while we re-do the floors and then bathrooms/kitchen downstairs.
I have poured over these few pics and the floor-plan for MONTHS, going slightly crazy not being able to discuss possible changes and ideas without having to scramble to describe spaces I don’t know well yet myself. We’ll, obviously, know SO much more once we can get back in the house, be there and get a real feel for flow and how we’ll use rooms and spaces – but yeah, we’re also already talking and making some plans. And now I can talk to you about it much easier!
lakatosfamily 