Home Sweet Home

Oprah always says that your house should rise up and greet you.  We bought our home almost 5 years ago and since then it's been in a state of constant change.  It's no secret that when I bought this house I wasn't in love with it.  It had a lot of things that desperately needed changing but I thought it had good bones and it allowed me to become independent and grow up.  Now that I'm winding down all of the house projects, it makes me a little nostalgic.  I am almost at the point where I've done all that I can do to this house.  My To-Do list is very short these days.  I vividly recall days where I flat out hated my home because it looked ugly, smelled bad and functioned poorly.  Now I think it's kinda cute and it's been a place where Richie and I lived together, got married, and are bringing home our own bundle of joy.  I thought I'd share how far it's come for those of you who haven't had the joy of experiencing it with me. 

The outside of our house when i first bought it

The Bathroom was the first project I tackled.  Altogether I ripped out the sheetrock, put new sheetrock in, scrapped the popcorn ceiling, retextured the walls/ceiling, put in new tile in the bathtub, ripped out the old linoleum and put new tile on the floor, replaced the vanity and sinks and painted the walls.

Bathroom Before

Look at the ugly gold vanity and gold mirrors!

 

The yucky bathtub with plastic walls and mold.

 

Me finishing tiling the bathtub

 

The bathroom finally finished!!

The Kitchen - The kitchen had major issues.  The stove was incredibly old and had knobs on it that were put on backwards.  The temperature gauge on the oven didn't work so we had to put in an temperature gauge and use that to see how hot it was.  The drawer wouldn't open because it was too close to the stove, so you had to open the oven first before you could open the drawer.  The previous owners had cut a hole in the top of the counter tops to run the dishwasher cord up to the electrical outlet.  Again we ripped out everything to the studs.  We replaced all sheetrock/insulation, replaced the linoleum on the floor with tile, replaced all cabinets and counter tops and got a new sink.  We bought a new stove and dishwasher.  We replaced the back sliding door with french doors. 

Originally I wanted a dark red wine color, however the color i picked was more McDonalds red and Richie and I hated it.  So that had to be repainted eventually.  Turns out I'm not really good at picking out wall colors. 

The Kitchen Before pictures-

Ugly Stove and cabinets/counters

the door interferes with stove/hole in counter top

After looks much better.  Minus the ugly red color

definite improvement but still ugly walls



The new brownish color in the kitchen... MUCH BETTER

The Back Yard - was a mess!  and truth be told it still kinda is.  But we've replaced the old fence, Richie's Grandpa built us a new shed, and we put down a mulched area that will help minimize maintenance for us because Richie and I are terrible at maintaining a yard of any kind. 

 

Fence and shed BEFORE

The back fence was barely standing

 

The new fence AFTER

The new Shed and the mulched area to contain the weeds somewhat

Our Bedroom - wasn't really as bad as it could be.  However there were sections in the sheetrock where the nails were pulling out of the sheetrock causing cosmetic issues.  Also, the plumbing had been redone when we moved in and they did a terrible job repairing the old sheetrock causing a 3 foot vertical line down the wall.  So we tore all the sheetrock out, put new sheetrock in, scrapped the popcorn ceiling, retextured the walls, installed doors and changed the pull light in the closet to a light switch.  We changed our paint colors from blue and brown to grey/black/white.  It isn't a huge WOW remodel but it's made me feel better about living in that room. 

 

Our Room BEFORE -

our bedroom before... i was too sick to make the bed

The previous owners did a terrible job at fixing the sheetrock

Our Bedroom After...  We painted it grey and I also redid the dresser so that it is now black instead of wood

The Living Room -

We are currently redoing our living room.  Originally when we first moved in, the ceiling fan had a cord that ran along the ceiling and down the wall.  The previous owners had thoughtfully painted it to "camouflage" it.  It also had the same issue with nails coming through the sheetrock - but even worse than our bedroom.  In addition, the smell from the previous owner's animals was terrible and disgusting!  We had used Killz but it only helped just a bit.  We knew the smell was embedded in the sheetrock so we wanted to replace it all.  I didnt' capture the nails coming through the walls like i should have.  As I type this, the guy is blowing texture on the walls so we should have a finished living room soon!   

Living Room Before - we had already started moving stuff here so its messy

The only things left to do are resheetrocking the baby's room and scrapping the popcorn ceiling which we will do next month.  Then we can paint and begin buying furniture and accessorize. 

Then we are debating creating an actual room for our laundry room because right now it's just in the front part of our garage and it's kinda gross.  I'd like to but I guess we will see how much money it will cost.