11.11.2010

A Year Later.....

It has been a year to the day that we have lived in our house already....craziness!! We signed our lives away for 30 years on October 30 and frantically moved in two weeks later, only 3 days before Keegan's 2nd birthday party. There have been LOTS of changes that we have made throughout the past year and there are still LOTS of things that I want to do!!

I thought I would share the befores and afters of what we have done, so make this my warning to you, there will be a lot of pictures in this post and it will be very long....you might even need to take a potty break while reading it!!

Welcome to our home!



This was the day we got the keys....look at all of those leaves!! The front pretty much still looks like this since we haven't gotten around to do any of the changes that we want to with the landscaping...maybe next spring?


Here is the kitchen before....
Don't you just love the wallpaper border and the old boxed lights on the ceiling?! Well, we didn't!! The wall paper came down, the walls got painted, new light fixtures went in, a new back splash went it, the bread box got ripped out, new knobs when on the cabinets and the most important change....a dishwasher got put in!! I told Ryan that I was NOT buying a house without a dishwasher {the one we lived in at the time didn't have one} and this house didn't have one but he assured me that there was room to put one in so you better believe that was on the top of the list of things to get done!! The walls are now a pale yellow but I'm still stuck on how I really want to "decorate" the kitchen so the walls next to the eat-in area are still empty. =/ I HATE empty walls!

Look...my dishwasher!! :)


Taking out the breadbox gave us so much more counter space!

Here is what I call the front room. BTW...everything that you see on the walls {including the curtains} in the before pictures were oh so generously left in the house....let's just say the first thing I did was take everything down!! I suggested we burn it all but instead I sold it all at a yard sale!

I hate to admit it but I haven't done much with this room yet. Right now it has our old couch, rocking chair, and it is now the home of Keegan's TV. I just don't know what I want to do with the space yet but once we get everything else done I'm sure it will come to me....I envision a semi-formal but still cozy sitting area!


Our hall bathroom, a.k.a. the pepto bismol puke covered room.



Everything you see is pink....the floor, the counter, the shower curtain the wallpaper, the god awful swag....which again everything was left for us to enjoy! The bathroom finally got a much needed make over this past summer and it is one of my favorite rooms in the house now!



Welcome to my beautiful groovy green bathroom {no I didn't make that name up, that's the name of the paint color}!! Everything got completely ripped out, except the bathtub and we reused the cabinet because there was nothing wrong with it and I don't mind the color of it. The inspiration for this room came from the shower curtain, which I absolutely LOVE....and it's reversible, there are stripes on the other side of it!!


Here is Keegan's room before:


And after....



We painted it a light blue {I really wanted light blue on the top half and dark blue on the bottom half but Ryan vetoed that idea, which is fine since he now has black furniture}, put a new ceiling fan in {well the one that was in his room in the old house}, and replaced the old, small baseboards with new ones {which we did in all the bedrooms and plan on doing with the rest of the house eventually}. Oh....don't look at his dresser took closely, it's kinda messy! There are now dark blue shelves on the wall next to the dresser with stuff on them.

Here is the room that sold us on the house...



The previous owners put this addition on to the house and it is safe to say that if this wasn't there we would not of bought the house. It is huge and has all the extra room we needed.

After we moved in...


The walls got new paint, a tan color and roasted pepper as the accent wall. We also replaced the ceiling fan and there are now blinds and curtains on the windows {except the two on the red wall because they are a weird shape and I can't find anything for those}. While I'm looking at this I which I had a better "after" picture...not too fond of this one but I guess it will work.

The dining room....

Not too much has changed here, actually I don't even have an "after" picture of it. It is painted the same tan as the living room {it is basically one big room so we had to continue with the same color}. The rug and table were left there from the previous owners {which btw I hate both of them} and we still have not gotten new ones to replace them. We replaced the ceiling fan and the window has the same blinds and curtain as the windows in the living room. I told Ryan at the beginning of the summer that I wanted a new table by Keegan's birthday but that hasn't happened and with only a couple of days left I don't think it is going to happen. Some day though...I will get a new dining room table!

Next is the basement....where the majority of the changes/renovations have taken place. Here is the stair case before and half way through the painting process...


The basement before had paneling throughout the entire thing that the previous owners decided to paint....not such a good idea. The paneling came down and drywall went up. The old ceiling tiles came down and a hard ceiling went up in part of it and a new drop ceiling went in above the bar area. The old carpet has been ripped up and the brand spankin' new soft carpet was installed this past weekend!! The walls are a light gray with a dark gray accent wall behind the bar area. All of the old florescent lights came down and brand spanking new can lights went in. Here is a look at part of it before and a sneak peak of the after {I'm sure there will be a complete post on the basement in the hopefully near future!}....



Pictures that aren't on here are the spare bedroom and the master bedroom & bathroom. The spare bedroom is a toy room for now and nothing has been done to that room except for new baseboards and a million toys thrown everywhere...whenever baby #2 comes along then we will make the necessary changes to that room. The only thing we did to our bedroom was paint and new baseboards. Since our bedroom is pretty small I stuck with a creamish color {it's called white chocolate} and painted the bathroom that color as well....both of those rooms are still a work in progress!

We also changed every single outlet and light switch in the entire house, not just the covers but the actual outlets and switches. The old ones were off white and gold....I hate off white and gold....they are now all white!

Some changes that will eventually happen....new kitchen floor, new floor in the master bathroom, new doors throughout the house {they are the old wooden ones now and I would much rather have new white ones}, new baseboards throughout the house, and I'm hoping new carpet throughout the house some day {I'm well aware this may never happen but I hate our carpet}.

2 comments:

Cassie said...

ok, JEALOUS of your subway tile in your kitchen. super super jealous. i love it. all of the decorating blogs i follow have subway tile. did your husband do it? tell him my house is next!! lol. and we just did the "wainscoating" thing in our bathroom. one question, did you guys paint over all of it? Or just put it up? i am debating over what to do.

it all looks AMAZING and i am way jealous of that HUGE family room! A-MAZING! Keep up the good word. You are lucky to have such a handy husband who goes above and beyond!

Meagan said...

Thanks!! Ryan did put the tile up in the kitchen and I could try to convice him to do yours too but I'm not sure if he will fall for it or not! lol

We did paint the wainscoating and it was a bit of a pain...word of advice, it works better if only 1 person is doing it and do it fast because the paint will dry fast!!

Oh...and the handy husband that goes above and beyond is nice to have sometimes but other times I wish we could just hire someone to do everything, it would get done a lot faster that way!!