More Before and After

We are *almost* done with the house we're in now. We Brett has some trim to put up, drywall to patch (we moved some light fixtures and electrical outlets), and shelves to build in the bathroom. But that should all be done in the next month. So here are the before and afters. Notice any difference?

This first pair of pictures is a view of the living room. We repainted the ceiling and walls and painted the trim white. We also replaced the curtains with something a little more bright and modern. The carpet was pulled up and we had the floors refinished.

Below is a view from the living room to the rest of the house. As you can see, we opened it up a LOT. We basically tore out a wall that was the hallway and turned a bedroom into a dining room. This was a great decision and really brightens up the house. Again, you can see that we repainted the walls, refinished the floor, and painted the trim white.

Here is the kitchen which I think is one of the most drastic improvements. While removing the wall, we also took out the built in hutch. All of the cabinets were painted white and we replaced the knobs and pulls. We actually painted over the wallpaper in this room which I was a little worried about but it turned out really well. It has a new light fixture, dryer, over the range microwave, and dishwasher. We pulled up the two layers of linoleum and refinished the existing hardwoods.

Here is another view of the kitchen from a different angle. You can't tell but the wall we took out made a huge difference in making the space feel a lot bigger and letting in a lot more light from the patio door we put in the dining room.

This is the area that most people think is the cutest part of the house. I had wanted to turn this bedroom into a dining room and put a patio door out to the back yard. Again, we painted the walls and trim and redid the floor. We also put some nice carpet on the steps which really finished things off.

By far the grossest part of the house when we got it was the bathroom. It was really outdated and just icky. So we gutted it and replaced everything. We took out the half-wall between the vanity and toilet which opened things up. We also reversed the door as it original opened against the vanity (so you would have to go in and shut the door to wash your hands).

The shower was originally just a shower kit with sliding doors. We put in some nice, modern tile (also used one the floor) and put a curved double shower rod in. The double rod is nice because we hang our towels on the interior rod since there isn't a good spot for a towel rack in the small bathroom.

Next is one of the upstairs bedrooms. The picture I took isn't from the same angle but you can see the difference painting the trim and paneling made. We did the same to the other bedroom (Kyler's room) and I will post picture of that as soon as I get it straightened up to take pictures.

Looking at these pictures, they really don't do justice to the shape the house was in when we moved in. You just can't see how dirty things were and how dark it seemed. We love all the updates we've done but unfortunately this house is just a little too small for our liking.