House Tour

WARNING:  Warm up your scrolling finger . . . this is a long one. 

I’ve promised house pictures to more than a few people.  One of whom is Grandma, and if you don’t know by now, I don’t like to disappoint Grandma!  So here we go with some pics of the new place. 

But first, a disclaimer:  my house is NOT cute.  It’s not “decorated”, not by a long shot.  Heck, it’s a stretch to call most of the rooms “furnished”.  But I realize that this house is not going to look the way I want it to overnight.  We pretty much took our furnish-and-decorate-a-house budget and spent it on floors and paint and appliances instead.  So decorating is a slow process.  I have lots of thoughts and ideas of what I want to do in this house, but it’s not there yet.  Not even started.

I’ll try to include a before/during/after remodel shot if I have one.  I didn’t take very many pictures during this process, and those I did take are from my phone (even the afters) so forgive the quality.  The “before” pictures are all from the MLS listing.

“Formal” living room before.

 

I qualify “formal” because it’s open to the front door and other areas around it, so it’s not like it’s some off-limits room we never go into. 

During:  It was basically a workshop for the entire three months. 

After:

I still need to get some end tables for between the two chairs and the end of the sofa, and possibly some bookcases on the piano-wall.  And I want to replace the curtains.  All in good time.

Dining room:  This is the room that started the remodel.  They had carpet under the table, and that just wasn’t going to work for our messy family.  So we started talking about replacing flooring . . . which lead to replacing all the flooring in the entire house.  Which lead to painting the entire house.  Which lead to a bunch of other little projects that we decided to do while it was torn up anyway.

Before:

During:

After:

 

The window covering situation needs to be addressed soon.  It’s kind of a fishbowl.  I had originally planned on keeping the roman shades that were there before.  But once I got it painted, the colors looked terrible together.  So I’m thinking I’ll just make new ones based on the pattern of the old ones.  But I haven’t been able to commit to a fabric yet. 

The window seat has storage in it, which I love.  The chandelier . . . don’t love.  We plan on replacing that someday, along with getting a new (big) kitchen table and maybe some sort of hutch.  This is the only sit-down eating area (there’s not one in the kitchen) so we eat dinner here and sometimes breakfast.  The kids usually eat lunch at the bar in the kitchen though.  And speaking of kitchen . . .

Before:

During:

(My mom is a rockstar.  She helped us every single day in one way or another.  She’s in her painting clothes in this pic so she must have been helping me paint that day.)  We decided since we had the floor torn up anyway we should run a gas line to the range so I could have a gas range.  This little pipe represents a full weekend+ of work!  Mostly by my dad, who, by the way, is worthy to be married to my rockstar mom, because he is a rockstar too.  We never (ever, ever) could have done all of this without him.  He worked his butt off for us.

After:

 

Verdict on the wood floors:  so far I mostly love them.  More work to take care of, but they’re puuuurdy.

Family room before:

During:

 

Just a little commentary:  demo-ing tile is a filthy, dirty, dusty job.  We decided that the tile in the family room had to go.  For two reasons:  (1) because we were ripping it out of the kitchen, and we wanted some unity in the house, and (2) because it took up half the family room!  I get why they did it that way – no doubt we will have a traffic path there in the carpet, but the room feels MUCH bigger without the tile.  (Or maybe it’s our tiny TV that makes it seem bigger?)

After:

 

Another “little” project that represents a lot of work and time, again mostly by my dad.  The stairs  leading from the kitchen to the family room were really narrow.  Since we had them torn up already, we decided to extend them a little bit to make them a more comfortable depth.  My dad is the craftsman behind the rounded edge of the extended step.  (Kindly ignore the touch-up painting I still need to do.)

Laundry/Powder room before:

This vantage point is standing in the powder room, facing the door to the basement.  You can see the stairs I was just talking about to the left of the basement door.  Laundry is on the left in the foreground, and on the right is the door to the garage.

After:

Same vantage point.  Will laid the tile here, and by the back door in the family room, with help from my dad.  How did he enjoy the job, you ask?  He’s not a fan.  Hard, hard, back-breaking work.  We had thought about doing new tile through the kitchen and dining room, and he said after finishing this little laundry/powder room that he was SO glad we had decided on wood.

We decided, for now, to leave the bi-fold doors off the laundry.  Because frankly, they would be open all the time anyway and they would just be in my way.  The coat hooks are kind of messy, but it’s better than them being thrown on the floor all the time (which was the case before the hooks got put up).

Opposite vantage point, standing in front of the door to the basement, looking into the half bath:

Basement:

In the basement there is 1 bedroom, a larger room (they used it as a theatre room, we use it as a playroom), a 3/4 bathroom and a storage room.  I don’t have any during or after pictures of the basement, because we didn’t change anything down there.  So imagine this same room without the screen and furniture, and covered in toys instead.

And the bedroom is pretty much being used the same as they did – housing our treadmill and weight bench. 

Oh wait – I do have one “during” picture.  Another “little” project:  Will and Richard building shelves for the storage room.  I don’t have an after shot.  But trust me -- it holds a lot more now!

 

Going back upstairs . . .

Stairs before:

  

These stairs were a bone of contention between Will and me.  I didn’t want to do them.  Will did.  He hated how the carpet came through the balusters and wrapped around the edge.  Long story short, he won.  And I’m glad he did, because it looks way better now. 

 

Bedrooms:  All we did in the bedrooms is paint and replace the carpet.  So not much need for a “during” shot.  Plus I didn’t really take any.

Girls’ room before:

After:  (Pardon these crappy shots.)  Still in need of MUCH decor/furniture. 

  

I forgot to take a picture of the closets before Will ripped them out.  They had wire shelving that provided pretty much zero organization.  MUCH better now.  This is Jacey’s closet but Londyn’s is identical.  This is the “large” bedroom.  Calvin’s is the medium room, and Baby’s room is the smallest.

Calvin’s room:

After:  I have no idea what to do with this hodge-podge of a room.  Since he will be out of a toddler bed before I get to this room, I’m not bothering to decorate it.  It is functional for now.

  

It’s a bit ironic that the only boy has the biggest closet.  Other than a box of diapers and a toy box, it’s pretty much empty.

Baby’s room:

After:

Lots of decorating needed in all the kids’ rooms.  The swing won’t stay there once she’s born. 

Kids’ bathroom:

After:  Only change in here was some paint and a new shower curtain.

Master bedroom:

   

I did NOT want to paint this room.  Even though the green didn’t come even close to matching our bedspread, I didn’t want to paint it.  I had painted every. room. in. the. house. by this point and I was over it.  But Will convinced me to paint it.  And, once again, I’m glad he did.  The pictures are really crappy, but the paint color is a lighter/airy-er/creamier gray than the rest of the house, and I love it.  This room gets the best light in the house, and I love waking up to the airy/creamy gray.  Love it.  And someday this room will even have real grown-up furniture in it!

   

(If you’re wondering what that contraption in the corner is, it’s the base for the baby cradle.  The rest of the cradle is still at my mom’s house.)

The one project I wish we had done while the house was all torn up was to add a door to the master bathroom.  (Seriously home builders . . . what are you thinking??)  At the time I was just anxious to be done with the projects and get moved in.  But in hindsight I wish we would have just done it.  But for now, a curtain is doing the job.

Yard:

The listing pictures were all taken last January. 

Kind of “blah”, but it gives you an idea.  We haven’t done anything to the yard.  We did get the kids a swingset for Christmas, but since there is a foot of snow back there right now, it hasn’t been put up yet.  And since it’s covered in snow, I didn’t think I could post any “after” pics anyway.  But then I remembered – we had a wedding reception in the backyard, about 2 weeks before we moved in!  (Did I mention it was a CRAZY few months?)  So here’s some pics from Nate’s wedding to give you an idea of what it looked like when it was all greened up. 

      

We LOVE the backyard.  It is a ton of work, and we spent a lot of time out there (working) during the spring/summer/fall.  But it’s worth it to have some space for the kids to run around and play tag and soccer and be kids. 

Anyway – that’s the house.  Lots more to do, but lots of time to do it.  It feels really good to know that this is the house we plan on staying in for a LONG time, so I don’t mind taking it slow to make it mine.  Things that are on the forefront right now are (1) curtain situation in the dining room, and (2) furniture and decor in the girls’ room.  Will’s top priorities (once the snow melts) are (1) getting the swing set assembled and (2) building a shed.  All in all, enough to keep us busy for a while.

PHEW! Did you make it? Are you still awake? Do you want a post about Nathan’s wedding now? Because I’ll admit it, I just spent a half hour looking through his pictures and I am *this* close to deleting this whole post and writing a Nate and Erica post instead. Sigh. . . it was a lovely day. Hot, but happy.

PS – You probably need to just come see the house in person.  Visitors welcome.  :)